A Contingency Analysis of Precarious Organizational Temporariness

Abstract

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 different type of temporariness was associated with four key contingencies affecting the branch: dispersed governance; bottom‐up initiatives; uncertain resourcing; and an effectuation 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 contingencies of the kind studied, the conventional linear approach of target setting and performance management will be less effective than an ongoing process of communication and consultation.

Sustainability: Issues of Scale, Care and Consumption

“…That is, we moved from specific accounts to more abstract and discursive configurations of each scale. Analysis was conducted first independently and then jointly between the authors to cross check for validity and reliability (Karmowska, Child and James, 2017).…”

Creative placemaking and the cultural projectariat: Artistic work in the wake of Hull City of Culture 2017

“…Organizational literature others. Variables which have been influentially suggested include the nature of the task (some being G 004; Whitley, 2006); designated timeframes (Bakker et al, 2016;Karmowska et al, 2017); and institutional context (Christopherson, 2002). In the model that transcends variations in national institutional configurations (Teipen, 2008).…”

An island of constancy in a sea of change: Rethinking project temporalities with long-term megaprojects

“…In the light of the above definition, in which the notion of temporary organization is about time boundaries that are established ex-ante (see also Bakker et al 2016) rather than their absolute short duration, it becomes meaningful to consider long-term infrastructural megaprojects as temporary organizations. Indeed, citing the case of the Hultsfred Festival (Lindgren and Packendorff, 2005), Jacobsson et al (2015: 15) suggest there exist in the extant literature at least one exceptional example of a temporary organization that outlasts its surrounding organizational milieu (Karmowska et al, 2016). The empirical case of longterm infrastructural megaprojects suggests that such examples are increasingly far from exceptional, and indeed worthy of greater theorization.…”

“…Thus, any project goal is said to require an ex-ante termination date whether 'fixed either by a specific date or by the attainment of a predefined state or condition' (Bakker et al, 2009: 203). This latter caveat is important in indicating an analytical distinction between defined temporariness, where a fixed goal is completed on time, and a project is terminated as planned, and precarious temporariness, where a goal shifts and thus project termination is extended but still mandated and always sought after (Karmowska et al, 2016). Thinking along these lines, Gustavasson and Hallin (2015) make a similar analytical distinction in their framing of projects as temporary organizations, between 'goal-orientated' projects with predetermined ex-ante time boundaries and 'goal-seeking' projects that are working towards the definition of exante time boundaries.…”