Caring Organizations

Organizations are “social entities that can be delimited from their environment, that have an alleged number of members and whose interactions and relationships are oriented toward the achievement of a defined goal based on the division of labor” (Wilz 2010: 513). Shaped by their context of origin, organizations not only reflect the gendered distribution of work, but also the doing care of a society. Caring Organizations (cf. Gössling/van Liedekerke 2014) reflect this context and the importance of caring activities for their own existence.The private household can be seen as the prototype of a caring organization, because there the caring and providing for the household members is in the foreground. However households are also shaped by the prevailing economic and social system. Caring organizations are a part of caring institutions. In contrast to caring organizations, care organizations are all social institutions that perform caring activities.