Introduction: Tensions and Paradoxes in Temporary Organising: Mapping the Field

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.

Citation

Braun, T. and Lampel, J. (2020), "Introduction: Tensions and Paradoxes in Temporary Organising: Mapping the Field", Braun, T. and Lampel, J. (Ed.) Tensions and paradoxes in temporary organizing (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 67), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20200000067006