Organization

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An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, or corporation or an institution (formal organization), or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose.

Organizations may also operate secretly or illegally in the case of secret societies, criminal organizations, and resistance movements. And in some cases may have obstacles from other organizations (e.g.: MLK's organization).^[1]

What makes an organization recognized by the government is either filling out incorporation or recognition in the form of either societal pressure (e.g.: Advocacy group), causing concerns (e.g.: Resistance movement) or being considered the spokesperson of a group of people subject to negotiation (e.g.: the Polisario Front being recognized as the sole representative of the Sahrawi people and forming a partially recognized state.)

Compare the concept of social groups, which may include non-organizations.^[2]

Organizations and institutions can be synonymous, but Jack Knight writes that organizations are a narrow version of institutions or represent a cluster of institutions; the two are distinct in the sense that organizations contain internal institutions (that govern interactions between the members of the organizations).^[3]

The word in English is derived from the Spanish organisation, which itself is derived from the medieval Latin organizationem and its root organum was borrowed whole from the Latin word organon, which means tool or instrument, musical instrument, and organ.