Temporary organizing and permanent contexts

Temporary organizing in general and project-based organizing in particular are to be understood only in relation to more permanent contexts such as organizations, inter-organizational networks, industries/fields and society. In view of the ability of organizations to balance permanency and temporariness, they are unlikely to disappear due to temporary organizing. Rather, they will continue to change their form recurrently and, thereby, remain as an essential building block of our more fluid societies today. Using a practice-based perspective informed by structuration theory and critically reviewing empirical studies of project-based organizations and inter-organizational project networks, this article provides a deeper understanding of the complex interplay between the temporary and the permanent.