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Book part
Publication date: 17 September 2020

Timo Braun and Joseph Lampel

Temporary organisations are time-limited organisations that are created with a deliberate termination point. Temporary organisations can increase flexibility, allow for innovative…

Abstract

Temporary organisations are time-limited organisations that are created with a deliberate termination point. Temporary organisations can increase flexibility, allow for innovative and transformative activities with less resource commitment, and reflect a ‘Zeitgeist’ of acceleration and time limitation in society. They also give rise to tensions and paradoxes that require new adaptive and coordinative practices. Research on temporary organisations has moved from primarily exploring the distinction between temporary and permanent organisations to using temporary organisations to study a range of phenomena such as temporality, acceleration, identity, and attachment–detachment dilemmas. This volume reflects this new orientation. We map empirical phenomena along the lines of events, projects and networks, and explore three conceptual themes that run through the nine chapters that comprise this volume: (1) temporality in temporary organisations; (2) the interaction between temporary and permanent organisations; and (3) the strategies and practices that temporary organisation develop in response to tensions and paradoxes.

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Tensions and paradoxes in temporary organizing
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83909-348-7

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Book part
Publication date: 17 September 2020

Abstract

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Tensions and paradoxes in temporary organizing
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83909-348-7

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Book part
Publication date: 9 July 2010

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The Globalization of Strategy Research
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-898-8

Book part
Publication date: 17 September 2020

Anja Danner-Schröder and Gordon Müller-Seitz

Tensions arising from temporary versus permanent forms of organising are a managerially relevant and commonplace phenomenon. How ensuing tensions unfold and what implications this…

Abstract

Tensions arising from temporary versus permanent forms of organising are a managerially relevant and commonplace phenomenon. How ensuing tensions unfold and what implications this has for organising responses across different levels of organising is the key concern of our inquiry. The authors draw upon a case study of what has been dubbed the German refugee crisis to make three contributions to the literature on managing temporary organisational phenomena: First, the authors offer a temporal continuum along which one can distinguish between comparatively fast responses of emergent temporary organisations on the micro-level and relatively slow responses by macro-level institutions that are predominantly engaged in permanent organising. The authors built upon this continuum to highlight the role of temporal lags, which arise from the different reaction times of micro- and macro-level organisations and which is filled by the respective other organisational form, a phenomenon the authors label temporal co-dependence. Second, the authors offer a distinction between deliberate and emergent forms of temporal organising. Third, the authors unearth boundary conditions that make the likelihood of this interplay between different levels possible.

Book part
Publication date: 17 September 2020

Joseph Lampel, Aneesh Banerjee and Ajay Bhalla

New and radically different forms of temporary organisations often have to attract audiences in organisational fields that are dominated by temporary organisations that conform to…

Abstract

New and radically different forms of temporary organisations often have to attract audiences in organisational fields that are dominated by temporary organisations that conform to ‘taken-for-granted’ organising template. The authors argue that adopters of new temporary organisations must contend with the tensions that arise when audiences compare the new temporary organisational form to the temporary organisations that conform to the institutionalised organising template. The authors therefore argue that as new temporary organisations are introduced into new contexts, organisers often use legitimacy claims based on novelty in the context where the new temporary organisation emerged to counter the threat of illegitimacy. However, because the strength of legitimacy claims based on novelty declines in contexts that are further removed, organisers will modify the template of a new temporary organisation in these contexts. The authors examine this using the case of the so called ‘unconferences’: an alternative conference form that emerged within the software development community at the start of the millennium in conjunction with the Web 2.0 movement. The authors’ data comprise 228 distinct unconferences between 2004 – when the unconference was first launched, and 2015. The authors examine the influence of sector distance of unconferences from the original sector where it was first held, on the extent to which the pure unconference format is retained. The authors show that as adopters of the new form move away from the original sector, they are more likely to modify the unconference template. The authors conclude by identifying promising areas of research in new forms of temporary organising.

Details

Tensions and paradoxes in temporary organizing
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83909-348-7

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Book part
Publication date: 9 July 2010

Joel A.C. Baum and Joseph Lampel

All knowledge claims are also to some extent legitimacy claims. No theory can receive serious attention, let alone gain credence, unless it is also seen as legitimate…

Abstract

All knowledge claims are also to some extent legitimacy claims. No theory can receive serious attention, let alone gain credence, unless it is also seen as legitimate. Philosophers of science have spent decades trying to frame criteria that determine the legitimacy of theories, only to agree to disagree on the matter. Sociologists of science, on the other hand, take a broader view, arguing that rather than seeking ex ante criteria of knowledge it is best to examine how researchers legitimate knowledge in practice.

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The Globalization of Strategy Research
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-898-8

Book part
Publication date: 17 September 2020

Lorenzo Skade, Sarah Stanske, Matthias Wenzel and Jochen Koch

‘Acceleration’, that is, the performance of activities in ever-shorter periods of time, is a distinctive feature of contemporary organizations and societies that is reflected in…

Abstract

‘Acceleration’, that is, the performance of activities in ever-shorter periods of time, is a distinctive feature of contemporary organizations and societies that is reflected in, and driven by startups’ attempts to scale up their businesses in ever-faster ways. Although prior research has highlighted that temporary organizing is a key way to accelerate the startup process, little is known about how actors do so. Based on a one-year ethnographic study at a startup accelerator, the authors explore how actors enact temporary organizing to attempt to accelerate the startup process. Their analysis shows that this process involves a plurality of partly conflicting temporal structures. As their study shows, such conflicts invoke tensions that actors live out in their daily activities. The authors identify three temporal practices – sequencing, freezing, and merging – through which actors engaged in temporary organizing enact acceleration in the startup process by reconciling these temporal structures. Their study has implications for understanding time in the expanding literature on temporary organizing and acceleration.

Details

Tensions and paradoxes in temporary organizing
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83909-348-7

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Book part
Publication date: 17 September 2020

René Abel, Suleika Bort, Indre Maurer, Clarissa E. Weber and Hendrik Wilhelm

Portfolios of temporary organisations, particularly portfolios of R&D projects with different project partners, are a common yet understudied phenomenon. We know that these…

Abstract

Portfolios of temporary organisations, particularly portfolios of R&D projects with different project partners, are a common yet understudied phenomenon. We know that these portfolios suffer from tensions inherent in project portfolio ambidexterity (e.g. portfolios balancing R&D projects with new and recurrent partners), yet our understanding of what might lessen these tensions remains limited. This study introduces the idea of project portfolio maturity and theorises how it can mitigate the negative effects of ambidextrous project portfolios. We test our hypotheses by combining proprietary survey and archival data on 136 R&D project portfolios in the German biotechnology industry covering project partnerships with both new and recurrent partners. Our results show that ambidextrous project portfolios hamper firm performance and that portfolio maturity mitigates these negative effects. By introducing a new perspective on project portfolios that accounts for overlooked temporal dimensions, this study provides a new contingency that has the potential to ease the tensions that result from projects with new and recurrent partners. We thereby add to the literatures on temporary organising, project portfolios, and ambidexterity.

Details

Tensions and paradoxes in temporary organizing
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83909-348-7

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Book part
Publication date: 17 September 2020

Robert DeFillippi and Yesim Tonga Uriarte

Festivals are conceptualised in this chapter as temporary organisations embedded in more permanent structures (e.g. festival lead organisation). Festivals face a series of…

Abstract

Festivals are conceptualised in this chapter as temporary organisations embedded in more permanent structures (e.g. festival lead organisation). Festivals face a series of paradoxical tensions common to temporary organisations in creative fields. These tensions arise, in part, from the diversity of actors involved in festivals and the distinctive values and priorities they bring to their festival organisational involvement. Lucca Comics & Games (LC&G), which is one of the biggest comic-cons in the world, operates in the intersection of different institutional contexts, which include a wide range of actors involved. Thus, tensions appear within the LC&G domain as a result of these actors’ different levels of involvement in the festival organisation and their diverse identities. These tensions and their resolutions will be analysed from the perspective of extant theory on paradox. A specific focus of this chapter is on the belonging paradox, which concerns the role of competing identities among different types of festival participants and how these competing identities are manifested in the organisational identity of LC&G, its structures and processes. Our study provides evidence of identity tensions as both/and relationships that are not mutually exclusive or antagonistic. The authors also suggest that ‘place identity’ requires further examination as a distinctive feature of temporary organising in festivals, considering its role in mediating tensions arising from the belonging paradox amongst festival main actors (exhibitors, artists, public bodies and lead organisation employees).

Details

Tensions and paradoxes in temporary organizing
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83909-348-7

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 9 July 2010

Abstract

Details

The Globalization of Strategy Research
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-898-8

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