1st year PhD presentation - Saeedeh S. Kristensen

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Saeedeh S. Kristensen: 'Designing to connect temporary organization to permanent organization'
Supervisors: Dorthe Døjbak Håkonsson & Erik Reimer Larsen
Discussants: Jakob Lauring & Birte Asmuß

Abstract
From an organizational perspective, redesigning organizations to shift from functional hierarchies to flexible network-based organizational models is acknowledged as playing a critical role in developing and implementing innovations. In line with this shift, temporary organizing has ascended to becoming common practice in many industries. Intra-organizational temporary organizations (TOs) are temporary systems with a predetermined termination point occurring in the context of a permanent organization (PO). This form of TO borrows resources from a single PO, the one that defines the projects that will explore strategic opportunities. Thus, it would seem very unlikely to study TOs in isolation, as they tend to exist in POs and companies encounter unprecedented challenges, mainly related to lack of managing the project embeddedness in relation to more permanent structure. Through an in-depth single case study, I aim to explore some of the main tensions that arise at the interface of this coexistence: 1) the reintegration of the participants of the TO into the PO and resumption of their ordinary positions upon temporary assignment completion 2) the impact of the participation of employees in the TO on their intra-organizational interactions and consequently their performance, and 3) the leadership behaviors that can accentuate the impact of temporary organizing on organizational performance.

This project aims to theoretically and empirically enrich the literature on temporary organizing by reviewing the streams of research on TOs and POs from an intra-organizational perspective, as well as extending the understanding of the dialectic between temporary and permanent organizing by unraveling the tensions at the interfaces between these two. As an industrial PhD project with clearly defined practical contributions, it also aims enable the host company to adopt and implement the organizational practices that support temporary organizing and to manage the main tensions occurring at the interfaces.

Everyone is welcome!