Temporary 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 The Lypiatts 15 Lansdown Road Cheltenham Glos GL50 2JA UK Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc. William Pratt House 9 Dewey Court Northampton Massachusetts 01060 USA 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.