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Community and Organizations

Some years ago, the sociologist Roland Warren wrote a highly praised and definitive book on the community in America. While his principal thesis was describing the changing characteristics of American communities in the 1960s as a consequence of the federal government's then increasing role in community affairs and programs, he also spent considerable time describing the many different definitions of the term community from historical, social, philosophical, and geographical perspectives. It was an exhaustive list that was helpful in describing a great change that was taking place in the relationship between communities and the federal government.

For our purposes, however, it is useful to view the community from a relationship perspective, as one of a number of what Edward Freeman has termed “stakeholders,” including employees, shareholders, vendors, and customers, who are affected by or who can affect an organization. Freeman's stakeholder concept has become a useful tool in analyzing the relationships among individuals, companies, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

It is helpful to understand at the outset, however, that there are many different types of communities—some geographical, some functional or organizational such as public interest groups, and one without any geographical or functional characteristics (the Internet or cyber community). The definition of community as a stakeholder, in other words, needs further refinement. In this era of community activism and corporate citizenship, it is important to understand this distinction.

Conceptual Overview

One way to refine the term community is to divide it into two major categories—spatial and functional. Spatial communities are where people live and where organizations and companies are located. Functional communities, on the other hand, are made up of people who share some common interest—race, religion, occupation, or membership or association with a group or organization. The term functional community was first introduced by the sociologist Murray Ross in the mid-1950s.

Spatial Communities

There are five types of spatial communities:

One is the site or facility community, distinguished by formal geographic boundaries. Site communities enact laws and regulations that determine where and how a company can operate, and thus are a major definer of a company's license to operate. They also levy taxes and assessments. In return, the community provides services for organizations or companies—fire, safety, education, transportation, and the like.

A second type of community is the employee community—not the employees themselves, but where the employees live. Many employees live outside the site area. They often expect the company or employing organization to contribute money and volunteer services to charitable organizations where they live.

People who live adjacent to a company facility belong to what is known as the fence line community. Fence line residents are often affected by a company's or an organization's operations and its consequences—e.g., noise, odors, traffic, and employee behavior. An organization's operations or actions may impact communities far distant from its facility—for example, discharging effluents that affect communities downwind or downstream from a facility, or moving into or out of a community. These affected communities are called impact communities.

And finally, there is a new community called the Internet or cyber community. It shares very little of the characteristics of the other “spatial” communities. Moreover, it has no leadership structure. It is an influence community called by one writer the “city of bits.”

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