Table Of ContentTemporary Organizations
Temporary
Organizations
Prevalence, Logic and Eff ectiveness
Edited by
Patrick Kenis
Academic Dean, TiasNimbas Business School and Professor
of Policy and Organisation Studies, Tilburg University, the
Netherlands
Martyna Janowicz-Panjaitan
Research Fellow, Tilburg University, the Netherlands
Bart Cambré
Assistant Professor, Tilburg University, the Netherlands
Edward Elgar
Cheltenham, UK • Northampton, MA, USA
© Patrick Kenis, Martyna Janowicz-Panjaitan and Bart Cambré 2009
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical or photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior
permission of the publisher.
Published by
Edward Elgar Publishing Limited
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Cheltenham
Glos GL50 2JA
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Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc.
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A catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Control Number: 2009930870
ISBN 978 1 84844 085 2
Printed and bound by MPG Books Group, UK
Contents
List of contributors vii
Foreword xii
Jörg Sydow
Preface and acknowledgements xiv
Introduction: temporary organizations – a challenge
and opportunity for our thinking about organizations 1
Martyna Janowicz-Panjaitan, Bart Cambré and Patrick Kenis
PART I MAKING THE CASE
1. The prevalence and characteristics of interorganizational
temporary collaborations of Dutch small and medium-sized
fi rms (SMEs) 15
Leon A.G. Oerlemans, Jan M.P. de Kok and Jeroen P.J.
de Jong
2. Research on temporary organizations: the state of the art and
distinct approaches toward ‘temporariness’ 56
Martyna Janowicz-Panjaitan, René M. Bakker and Patrick
Kenis
3. Applying organization theory to temporary organizations 86
Patrick Kenis, Bart Cambré, Gerardus J.M. Lucas and
Leon A.G. Oerlemans
PART II CONCEPTUAL INSIGHTS INTO TEMPORARY
ORGANIZATIONS
4. Time matters: the impact of ‘temporariness’ on the
functioning and performance of organizations 121
René M. Bakker and Martyna Janowicz-Panjaitan
5. The atemporality of temporary organizations: implications
for goal attainment and legitimacy 142
Martyna Janowicz-Panjaitan, Patrick Kenis and Patrick
A.M. Vermeulen
v
vi Temporary organizations
6. Proximity in temporary organizations 155
Joris Knoben and Tobias Gössling
7. Structure in temporary organizations 171
Jörg Raab, Joseph Soeters, Paul C. van Fenema and
Erik J. de Waard
8. The resource dilemma of temporary organizations: a
dynamic perspective on temporal embeddedness and resource
discretion 201
René M. Bakker, Bart Cambré and Keith G. Provan
9. Turning a negative into a positive: how innovation
management moderates the negative impact of TO
complexity on the eff ectiveness of innovative
interorganizational temporary collaborations 220
Leon A.G.Oerlemans and Marius T.H. Meeus
10. Conclusion: toward an integrated view of temporary
organizations: future research agenda and managerial
implications 259
Patrick Kenis, Martyna Janowicz-Panjaitan and
Bart Cambré
Index 277
Contributors
René M. Bakker is a PhD candidate at the Department of Organization
Studies at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. He holds a Master’s
degree from the same university. René undertook part of his studies at the
University of Arizona (USA) and the University of Pretoria (South Africa).
His research interests include temporary forms of work organization, time
and organization theory, and leadership.
Bart Cambré is assistant professor at the Department of Organization
Studies at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. He received a Master’s
degree in sociology at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium) and
another in developmental studies at U.C. Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium). He
holds a PhD in research methodology in the social sciences (K.U. Leuven)
and teaches courses on research methodology, organization sociology
and interorganizational relationships in undergraduate and graduate pro-
grams. His research interests include temporary work systems, quality of
work and the methodology of organizational research.
Paul C. van Fenema is an associate professor at the Netherlands Defence
Academy and an assistant professor at the Department of Organization
Studies at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. He received a Master’s
degree in law and economics at Utrecht University and his PhD in busi-
ness administration from Erasmus University in Rotterdam. He has also
worked at Rotterdam School of Management and Florida International
University. His research interests include intra- and interorganizational
coordination, organizational drifting, knowledge management, crisis
and military organizations, and use of information systems. His work has
been published in, amongst others, MIS Quarterly, Journal of International
Business Studies, Information Systems Journal, European Journal of
Information Systems and International Journal of Project Management.
Tobias Gössling is an assistant professor at the Department of
Organization Studies at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. He
holds a PhD in political science from Witten/Herdecke University in
Germany. His research focuses on institutions, interorganizational rela-
tions and r elations between organizations and society (corporate social
responsibility).
vii
viii Temporary organizations
Martyna Janowicz-Panjaitan is a research fellow at the Department of
Organization Studies at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. She
received her PhD in organization and strategy from the Center for
Economic Research at Tilburg University. Her research interests focus
on international strategic alliances, interorganizational learning, trust,
temporary organizations and economies in transition. Her work has
been published or is forthcoming in such journals as Research Policy,
Organization Studies, Journal of Management Studies and European
Management Review.
Jeroen P.J. de Jong is a researcher at EIM Business and Policy Research
in the Netherlands, and is also an assistant professor at RSM Erasmus
University in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. His research interests
include user innovation, open innovation, innovation in SMEs and
intrapreneurship.
Patrick Kenis is academic dean at TiasNimbas Business School and
professor of policy and organization studies at the Department of
Organization Studies at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. He holds
a PhD from the European University Institute (Florence, Italy) and a
Master’s degree from the Free University of Brussels (Belgium). Over the
last 15 years he has taught organization sociology, organization theory,
network analysis and interorganizational relations in undergraduate,
graduate and executive programs. His current research interests involve
temporary organizations, organizational networks and internet com-
munities. His work has been published in the Academy of Management
Review, International Public Management Journal, Journal of Theoretical
Politics, Journal of Public Administration, Research and Theory. He has
also authored and co-authored a number of book chapters and books.
Jan M.P. de Kok is a senior researcher at EIM Business and Policy
Research in the Netherlands. He holds a PhD in economics from
Erasmus University in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. He received a
Master’s degree in economics and econometrics at Tilburg University.
He has held research positions at Erasmus University and the
University of Amsterdam. His research interests include entrepreneur-
ship and human resource management within small and medium-sized
enterprises.
Joris Knoben is an assistant professor in the Department of Organization
Studies as well as a core fellow of the Center for Innovation Research at
Tilburg University in the Netherlands. He holds a PhD in organization
studies and a Master’s degree in economics, both from Tilburg University.
Contributors ix
His research interests lie at the intersections of regional economics, organi-
zation science and innovation studies.
Gerardus J.M. Lucas is a PhD student at the Center for Innovation
Research at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. He holds a Master’s
degree in organization and another in social and behavioral sciences from
Tilburg University, and also a Bachelor of Arts degree from Maastricht
University. He studies the role of performance feedback on the impetus to
engage in innovation and innovation enabling behaviors.
Marius T.H. Meeus is a professor of strategy, innovation and organi-
zation learning at the Department of Organization Studies at Tilburg
University in the Netherlands. At present, he is also the director of the
Center for Innovation Research at Tilburg University. He has held posi-
tions at Utrecht University and at Eindhoven University as well. He was
involved in founding ECIS, the Copernicus Institute for sustainability
and innovation. He is a NIAS (Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study
in the Humanities and Social Sciences) fellow, and was a member of the
editorial board of Organization Studies. He has contributed to confer-
ences and reports of the Dutch Scientifi c Council for Government Policy
and the Dutch Innovation Platform. His research interests include R&D
management, innovation systems, innovation networks, organizational
change, social and individual learning, biotechnology, environmental
innovation, hydrogen research, transition trajectories, high performance
organizations, IPOs (Initial Public Off erings), business models, techno-
logical opportunities and many other topics. His work has been published
in, amongst others, Research Policy, Technology Analysis and Strategic
Management, Journal of Social and Economic Geography, Review of
Industrial Organization, Organization Studies, Industry and Innovation
and Regional Studies.
Leon A.G. Oerlemans is a professor of organizational dynamics at the
Department of Organization Studies at Tilburg University in the
Netherlands, and an extraordinary professor of the economics of innova-
tion in the Department of Engineering and Technology Management at the
University of Pretoria in South Africa. He is also co-founder of the Center
for Innovation Research at Tilburg University. His research focuses on the
analysis of innovative behavior of (temporary) organizations in general
and innovation and networks in particular. His work has been published
in books and journals, including Regional Studies, Economic Geography,
Research Policy, Organization Studies, Technological Forecasting and
Social Change, South African Journal of Science and the International
Journal of Management Reviews.
