A Contingency Analysis of Precarious Organizational Temporariness
| Author | Philip James,John Child,Joanna Karmowska |
| Published date | 01 April 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.12185 |
| Date | 01 April 2017 |
British Journal of Management, Vol. 28, 213–230 (2017)
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8551.12185
A Contingency Analysis of Precarious
Organizational Temporariness
Joanna Karmowska, John Child1and Philip James2
Department of Business and Management, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford OX33 1HX, UK, 1
Business School, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK, Business School, University of
Plymouth, UK, Lingnan University College, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China, and 2Business School,
Middlesex University, NW4 4BT London, UK
Corresponding author email: jkarmowska@brookes.ac.uk
This paper extends current understanding of organizational temporariness. The life of a
temporary British trade union branch established to recruit Eastern European migrant
workers reveals ‘precarious temporariness’, which is less predictable than the ‘planned
temporariness’ typically portrayed in the literature.This dierent type of temporariness
was associated with four key contingencies aecting the branch: dispersed governance;
bottom-up initiatives; uncertain resourcing; and an eectuation logic. Analysis of the
case extends existing understanding of organizational temporariness and points to an
extension of existing theorizing by highlighting the contingent nature of temporariness.
The broader managerial implication of the findings is that, for projects facing contingen-
cies of the kind studied, the conventional linear approach of target setting and perfor-
mance management will be less eective than an ongoing process of communication and
consultation.
Introduction
Well-defined goals and tasks and a flat structure,
combined with flexibility and teamwork, are often
identified as desirable characteristics of contem-
porary organizations operating in an information-
intensive,rapidly changing, competitive world (e.g.
McGrath, 2013). March (1995, p. 434) foresaw
an increase in ‘disposable (throw-away) organi-
zations’, which have considerable short-run ef-
ficiency in ‘exploiting and refining current ca-
pabilities’. Yet, temporary organization (TO), a
Earlier versions of this paper werepresented at the EGOS
conference in July 2013 in Montreal, Sub-theme 38 ‘Tem-
porary and Project-Based Organizing’ and at the ESA
conference in August 2013 in Turin to Research Network
17: Work, Employment and Industrial Relations. The
authors would like to thank the participants of these ses-
sions for their constructive comments. Special thanks go
to the associate editor and reviewers of the paper, who
helped us to make manyimprovements to the manuscript.
Also many thanks to our union respondents.
form of organization that embodies many of these
features has so far attractedlimited interest among
researchers.
Temporary organizations are often said to be
appropriate for experimental initiatives and/or
introducing new controversial solutions into ex-
isting structures (Bakker and Janowicz-Panjaitan,
2009). They are seen to help overcome traditional
barriers to change at the personal as well as the or-
ganizational level. Because of their limited period
of existence, such organizations also tend to entail
lower fixed costs and generally less irreversible
investments of resources. In case of failure, they
can be terminated relatively quickly with little
disturbance to the organizational sponsor and
individuals involved, thereby allowing more risky,
innovative experiments (DeFillippi, 2002; Sydow,
Lindhvist and DeFillippi, 2004).
Meeting the dierentiated needs of customers
can be another reason for establishing TOs.
With an increasingly changing and ‘liquid world’
(Bauman, 2011), contemporary organizations
© 2016 British Academy of Management. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4
2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA, 02148, USA.
214 J. Karmowska, J. Child and P. James
often struggle to meet the rapidly changing and
increasingly customized demands of their clients.
Temporary organizations can potentially help in
this regard by enabling clients to exert a greater
influence on the design of products and services
(Bryde, 2005; Girard and Stark, 2002; Hobday,
1998; Ivory et al., 2007; Schwab and Miner, 2008).
Projects provide the most prominent examples
of TOs. They have been studied across a number
of industries, including film-making (Bechky
2006; DeFillippi and Arthur, 1998; Sorenson and
Waguespack, 2006), construction (Eccles 1981;
Gann and Salter 2000), IT (Lindkvist, Soderlund
and Tell, 1998; Orlikowski and Yates, 2002),
and others such as biotechnology, consulting,
emergency response and theatre (Bakker, 2010).
However, even in such contexts, variations in
the nature of organizational temporariness have
so far attracted less attention from scholars
(Bakker, 2010; Bakker, Cambre and Provan, 2013;
Kozlowski and Bell, 2003).
Although there is little agreement among schol-
ars as to the exact meaning of the term ‘temporary
organization’, the following definition oered as a
result of a comprehensive literature review reflects
how the term is normally understood:
A temporary organization (TO) forms for the pur-
pose of accomplishing an ex ante-determined task
that has a predetermined termination point. It can
be intraorganizational, occurring within an exist-
ing, non-temporary organization, or interorgani-
zational, a joint collaboration among a number
of organizations. (Janowicz-Panjaitan, Cambre and
Kenis, 2009a, p. 2)
Bakker and Janowicz-Panjaitan (2009, p. 122)
identify temporariness as the unique characteris-
tic of TOs, and define it ‘as the finite time limit on
the existence of temporary organizations (for in-
stance in the form of a deadline), which has been
defined at, or prior to, the TO’s formation’. Con-
sistent with this definition, the most common char-
acteristics of TOs found in the literature include
set deadlines and clear tasks established at the be-
ginning of the life of the project that are realized
in a planned manner during its lifespan (Janowicz-
Panjaitan, Cambre and Kenis, 2009a; Packendorf,
1995). Bakker and Knoben (2015, p. 272) take this
view further, saying that
defining ‘temporariness’ to mean whether a time
limit is established ex ante, in which case specific
expectations and formulations about the venture’s
end are set a priori, would constitute a clearer
demarcation that is less arbitrary in its empirical
manifestations.
They suggest that the term ‘temporary organi-
zation’ applies only to ‘those instances where time
boundaries are established exante to limit the tem-
poral scope of organizationalprocesses’. While few
organizations are likely to exist for ever, studies of
organizational temporariness have a much more
focused character.
In their review of how temporariness has been
understood, Janowicz-Panjaitan, Cambre and
Kenis (2009b, p. 77) identify two approaches:
‘short duration’, where the main feature of TO
is seen to be its short-lived duration and, more
common in the literature, the ‘limited duration’
approach where ‘TOs are characterized as being
bound by a deadline’. The authors emphasize
the importance of the awareness of impending
termination as having high impact on the indi-
vidual and collective behaviour of TO members.
Although time has been recognized as a cru-
cial aspect of organizational life (Clark, 1985;
Hassard, 1991), its implications forthe functioning
of TOs, their performance and relationships with
the wider context merit further study (Bakker and
Janowicz-Panjaitan, 2009; Janowicz-Panjaitan,
Cambre and Kenis, 2009b).
In particular,we know relatively little aboutpos-
sible variationsin the nature of organizational tem-
porariness and whether these are shaped by con-
textual contingencies (Donaldson, 2001). The aim
of the present paper is to address this gap in our
knowledge. A case of organizational temporari-
ness is investigated, where the termination dead-
line was constantly changed as the organizationex-
perienced revisions of its tasks and funding. The
case that we investigate was established with a clear
and stated intention of future termination,with the
deadline of the project being bound by its goal and
tasks. However, its tasks, budgets and time-frame
developed organically, with progressively new
deadlines associated with sub-projects initiated
within the organization. At no point, however, was
the organization intended to become permanent.
Through analysis of the case, this paper enhances
present understanding of organizational tempo-
rariness and points to an extension of existing the-
orizing by highlighting the contingent nature of
temporariness. We conclude that the outcome and
© 2016 British Academy of Management.
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