This paper offers theoretical insights to contribute to the discussion on the role of community in organization theory. In contemporary modern society, organizations face a paradox: They invoke traditional community ideals to project stability and authenticity, but their operational realities are often shaped by cultural rationalization arguments of modernity. The paper relies on neo-institutional organizational theory and Bauman’s work on liquid modernity to explain why community is deployed as an explicit organizing strategy in the context of constantly shifting identities and environments. To understand how organizations navigate the swinging paradoxes of liquid modern living, the paper introduces the concept of an institutional anchor. Institutional anchors are an intentional organizational tool for navigating change while maintaining an image of continuity and authenticity. They provide organizations with a flexible yet stable foundation to organize around and help explain how organizations selectively incorporate particular values, beliefs, or ideas into their identity and actions. As an institutional anchor, community, in particular, allows organizations to blend the symbolic aspirations of traditional community logic by approximating it to adhere to the demands of modernity, especially through digital platform technology. Therefore, the culturally rationalized and individualized version of community in modern organizations ought to be treated as an entirely new concept.
