A group is a set of single organisms, commonly called member, which, over a period of time or multiple interrupted periods, relate to one another face-to-face, processing matter-energy and information.
Organizations are systems with multiechelon deciders whose components and subsystems may be subsidiary organizations, groups, and (uncommonly) single persons. In my conceptual system they are concrete living systems with components that are also concrete living systems rather than abstracted systems whose units are actions or roles.
The critical difference between organizations and groups is in the structure of the decider. Organizations always have at least two echelons in their deciders, even when they are so small that each person can interact in a face-to-face relationship with all the others.
A society is a large, living, concrete system with organizations and lower levels of living systems as subsystems and components.
All nature is a continuum. the endless complexity of life is organized into patterns which repeat themselves—theme and variations—at each level of system.
From the ceaseless streaming of protoplasm to the many-vectored activities of supranational systems, there are continuous flows through living systems as they maintain their highly organized steady states.
A mutuality exists among the components of a system. Each makes its contribution toward the processes of the whole and receives in return a portion of the benefits derived from those activities. This mutual interrelationship extends across the levels.
The larger, higher-level systems have emergent capabilities which enable them to accomplish things that systems at lower levels cannot achieve.
Often, but not always, the benefits of higher levels of systems organization are distributed to all the component systems at lower levels. Sometimes the benefits are not equitably distributed. If the inequity is gross enough and if the pathology continues long enough, the total system will decay and finally terminate.