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Temporary Organizations: Prevalence, Logic and Effectiveness
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Temporary
Organizations
Prevalence, Logic and Effectiveness
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.
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is available from the British Library
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ISBN 978 1 84844 085 2
Printed and bound by MPG Books Group, UK

1 The prevalence and characteristics
of interorganizational temporary
collaborations of Dutch small and
medium-sized firms (SMEs)
Leon A.G. Oerlemans, Jan M.P. de Kok and
Jeroen P.J. de Jong
INTRODUCTION
Teams – both permanent and temporary – are ubiquitous in organizations.

Many scholars have studied permanent teams and are now undertaking
research efforts to study the characteristics and performance of intraor-
ganizational, or temporary teams, as well (Stewart, 2006). These studies
have indicated that the number of organizations implementing team-based
structures has rapidly increased and member characteristics such as team
size and heterogeneity, the level of autonomy and intra-team coordination
impact team performance (Devine et al., 1999).
Due to increased levels of technological and market uncertainty, Jones
and Lichtenstein (2008) have observed that in addition to intraorganiza-
tional teamwork, interorganizational teams and projects have become a
phenomenon of increasing importance. In interorganizational teams and
projects, multiple organizations collaborate on a shared activity, often for
a limited period of time. They stated (pp. 231–232) that ‘this type of col-
laboration and coordination among two or more organizations has been
observed in a wide range of industries such as advertising, construction,
biotechnology, computers, film, financial services, and fashion, among
others’. A crucial characteristic of these interorganizational projects, in
contrast to more common forms of interorganizational coordination such
as joint ventures and alliances, is that these collaborations are by defini-
tion temporary, existing for a limited period of time and terminated either
at a pre-established point or when pre-specified goals are met. As Mathieu
et al. (2008) observed, the increasing attention to temporary organiza-
tions fits into a more general trend in organization science in which the
15
16 Temporary organizations
implications of time on the outcomes and performance of organizational

forms has grown in importance (see also Rämö, 2002).
Interorganizational temporary collaboration (IOTC) can generate sig-
nificant benefits for the participating organizations and for completing
their tasks. For example, in a study of 41 temporary projects in the US
construction industry, Albanese (1994) found significant improvements in
project results – costs, quality, schedule completion, safety and improved
working relationships – as a result of using interorganizational team-
building processes. Moreover, these collaborations were often suitable for
knowledge creation and innovation (Lubatkin et al., 2001).
Although there have been a number of theoretical studies on the subject,
extant empirical research exploring the phenomenon of interorganiza-
tional projects and teams has been largely absent. Most studies, such as
Grabher (2000), Winch (1989) and Bechky (2006), are small sample studies
and to our knowledge there is hardly any large-scale empirical evidence on
the prevalence of interorganizational temporary collaboration.
In order to fill the gap in the empirical literature, this chapter explores
the prevalence and characteristics of temporary collaborations using data
from small and medium-sized Dutch firms. A focus on these SMEs, organ-
izations with less than 250 employees, is interesting because smaller firms
often experience higher levels of dependence and more intense resource
deficits than larger organizations (Hannan and Freeman, 1984), poten-
tially forcing them into interorganizational linkage in general, and into
interorganizational temporary collaborations in particular. Drawing on a
dataset with information on about 1500 organizations, we have attempted
to answer two main research questions:
● What is the prevalence of interorganizational temporary collabora-

tion among Dutch SMEs?
● What are the characteristics of these interorganizational temporary
collaborations?
This chapter has three aims. The first is to demonstrate that from an
empirical point of view, temporary organizations are a significant phe-
nomenon for small and medium-sized Dutch firms. The second is to
provide insight into a number of characteristics of interorganizational
temporary collaborations, such as composition, tasks, temporal features
and interorganizationality. Last is to successfully use the theoretical typol-
ogy on interorganizational temporary collaboration developed by Jones
and Lichtenstein (2008) to further describe our population of temporary
organizations.
Until now the concepts of interorganizational temporary projects and
Interorganizational temporary collaborations of Dutch SMEs 17
Table 1.1 Taxonomy of organizational teams
Temporal Product type

duration
Processing information Production task
Temporary (cell 1) Ad hoc project team: (cell 2) Ad hoc production
Exists for a finite period to team: Is temporary in nature
solve problems, make plans and formed on a case-by-case
and decisions, or interact basis to build, construct or
with clients or customers. assemble products; perform
artistically or competitively;
or provide a public service.
Permanent (cell 3) Ongoing project team: (cell 4) Ongoing production
Standing team with relatively team: Same as the ad hoc
stable membership that solves production team but forms on
problems, makes plans and a regular or recurrent basis.
decisions, or interacts with
clients or customers.
teams were used interchangeably. However, in this chapter the focus will
be on two specific types of temporary organization. To position these
forms, a framework developed by Devine et al. (1999) will be used; they
categorized teams using two dimensions: product type and temporal
duration. With regard to product type, they distinguished between tasks
that revolved around processing information – as in planning, creating
and innovating – and production tasks involving a certain degree of
hands-on physical activity. With regard to temporal duration, Devine
et al. distinguished between ‘short-term’ teams completing tasks within
a limited time and ‘ongoing teams’ which may be continually assigned
new tasks or perform the same task in a cyclical way. When crossed,
these two dimensions resulted in a simple taxonomy of four types of
organizational teams that can be either inter- or intraorganizational (see
Table 1.1).
In this chapter we focus on interorganizational versions of the ad hoc
project and production teams (cells 1 and 2 in Table 1.1). More specifi-
cally, we present descriptive empirical data on temporary collaborations
in which Dutch SMEs participated. These temporary interorganizational
collaborations are characterized by jointly-conducted tasks and/or shared
risks among participating firms.
The remainder of this chapter has the following structure. After discuss-
ing the characteristics of the sample used for this research, we investigate
the prevalence of interorganizational temporary collaborations. Next,
we present a number of characteristics of these collaborations mainly by

using descriptive statistics. The presentation of data is structured by using
categories that are generally accepted in team research (Stewart, 2006). In
the next section, a typology developed by Jones and Lichtenstein (2008)
is used to categorize and describe the temporary organizations in our
sample, and to empirically explore its discriminatory value. In the last
section we will formulate a number of conclusions.
PROJECT SAMPLE AND DATA CATEGORIZATION
Questionnaire
The data for this project was gathered via a telephone survey. Prior to this
survey a pre-test version of the questionnaire1 was submitted to a limited
number of Dutch SMEs. Based on these responses, the final questionnaire
was improved by simplifying questions and adding brief explanations. The
telephone survey was adjusted accordingly.
Stratification Plan
The two main research questions result in two different requirements

regarding the stratification plan. To gain insight into the prevalence
of interorganizational temporary collaboration (IOTC) among Dutch
SMEs, our sample of 1500 included firms from all relevant sectors and
size classes. To learn more about the characteristics of the IOTCs in which
the firms participated, the sample should identify a number of firms that
participated in at least one IOTC. Our stratified sample plan had to meet
both of these requirements.
These requirements were met by using a large sample size and by con-
sciously sampling a disproportionally large number of firms from sectors
and size classes where prevalence of interorganizational temporary col-
laborations (IOTCs) was assumed to be high. A priori, it was assumed
that the prevalence of IOTCs would be relatively high in sectors such as
construction, engineering, consultancy and film and entertainment. To
identify other promising sectors, the fieldwork was split into two waves of
data collection. In the first wave, 500 interviews were completed across all
relevant sectors and size classes, with a specific focus on the engineering,
consultancy and entertainment sectors. The results of this wave were used
to obtain a first impression of the prevalence of IOTCs across sectors.
This information was then used to determine the stratification plan for the
second wave of 1000 completed interviews.
Table 1.2 Breakdown of response rate
Number Per cent

Sampled enterprises 6066 100
No response 1564 26
Response, no interview attempt* 1252 21
Refusal to participate in interview 1731 29
Interview not completed 19 0
Completed interview 1500 25
Note: *A response occurs, but an interview is not undertaken. Examples include a

responding firm employing more than 250 employees and a respondent who qualifies but
has no time to participate.
Sample
In the first and second interview waves, 1500 interviews were completed.
A total of 6066 enterprises were sampled in order to obtain this dataset
of 1500. A breakdown of the response rate is presented in Table 1.2. The
sample of 1500 enterprises covered all relevant economic sectors and size
classes, with a disproportionally large number of firms from sectors and
size classes where IOTCs can be found relatively often (see Tables 1.3 and
1.4).
There are two obvious observations from Tables 1.3 and 1.4. Of the
sampled enterprises, 73 per cent originated from specifically targeted
industries such as: oil, chemical and metal; construction; land transporta-
tion; engineering; consulting; and entertainment, which included theatre
and media. Firms with 50 or more employees accounted for 80 per cent of
the sample.
Data Categorization
In the next two sections of the chapter, we present descriptive statistics on

interorganizational temporary collaborations of Dutch SMEs by apply-
ing a framework developed by Stewart (2006) for classifying research
on teams. Stewart’s classification was adapted from Cohen and Bailey’s
(1997) work on group effectiveness. Stewart, as well as Cohen and Bailey,
used three broad classification categories: organizational context, group
composition and task characteristics. In this chapter, we add a fourth,
temporal characteristics of IOTCs.
IOTCs do not operate in a vacuum but in an organizational context.
For example, some sectors, such as construction, might have a higher
Table 1.3 Breakdown of the sample by sector
Sectors Number Share (%)

Manufacturing 281 18.7
Paper, petroleum products, chemicals, 267 17.8
plastics, glass, basic metals and machinery
Food, textile, leather, wood, electronics, 14 0.9
transportation and furniture
Construction 295 19.7
Trade and repair 62 4.1
Hotels and catering 60 4.0
Transportation and communication 188 12.5
Across land 171 11.4
Other transportation and communication 17 1.1
Financial services 134 8.9
Business services 234 15.7
Engineering 73 4.9
Consulting 55 3.7
Other business 106 7.1
Other services 243 16.1
Theatre, media and entertainment 128 8.5
Employer organizations 110 7.3
Others 5 0.3
Other 3
Total 1500 100
Table 1.4 Breakdown of the sample by size class
Class size (number of employees) Number Share (%)

0 9 0.6
1–9 87 5.8
10–49 199 13.3
50–99 638 42.5
100–250 567 37.8
Total 1500 100
prevalence of IOTC due to their specific activities. Group composition,

our second category for classifying IOTCs, focuses on the characteristics
of IOTCs and their participating members, and also includes IOTC heter-
ogeneity and size, since both of these issues can relate to the processes and
performance of interorganizational temporary collaborations. Category

number three, task characteristics, refers to the division of and coordina-
tion among IOTC activities. Autonomy is a key construct that has emerged
in research to describe how an IOTC’s tasks are coordinated with those of
other – often parent – organizations. Intra-IOTC coordination captures
task coordination activities within the IOTC. Because time plays a unique
role for temporary organizations (Lundin and Söderholm, 1995), we have
added a fourth category for classifying research on teams: the temporal
characteristics of IOTCs, which includes duration and termination.
A subsequent section draws on a typology of temporary interorgani-
zational collaborations developed by Jones and Lichtenstein (2008). This
typology was designed using the theoretical dimensions of both temporary
and social embeddedness. The authors used a small number of cases to
explore the insights derived from combining these dimensions. We use
their framework in this chapter for two reasons: first, to present additional
insights into this Dutch SME population of interorganizational tempo-
rary organizations and second to explore the discriminatory power and
assess the external validity of the typology when it is applied to a large
dataset. First, however, we focus on the prevalence of IOTCs among
Dutch SMEs.
PREVALENCE OF TEMPORARY COLLABORATION

AMONG DUTCH SMES
To what extent do Dutch small and medium-sized firms participate in

interorganizational temporary collaborations? In order to answer this
question, we asked SMEs if they were involved in interorganizational
partnerships, and if so, in what type of collaboration. We distinguished
among three types of collaboration in the questionnaire: collaboration,
but not temporary; temporary collaboration, but not joint; and joint tem-
porary collaboration. In this context, joint refers to the conditions under
which the partners in the collaboration were involved in the execution of a
joint task and jointly carried the financial risk for the collaboration. Table
1.5 shows the sample distribution.
Based on the prevalence of outcomes reported in Table 1.5, we can
make a number of observations. A small majority (56.7 per cent) of the
SME firms in our sample had some form of interorganizational collabora-
tion. This finding stresses the importance of interorganizational relation-
ships and networks among firms in general and specifically among SMEs.
Of the firms in our sample, 31.1 per cent had a temporary interorganiza-
tional collaboration, and about 17 per cent of all responding firms had a
Table 1.5 Prevalence of collaboration among all firms with 1–250

employees
Firms with collaboration Number Per cent of Per cent of all

all firms collaborating
surveyed* firms**
Any collaboration 848 56.7 100
of which:
Temporary collaboration 465 31.1 54.8
of which:
Joint task execution 375 25.1 44.2
Joint risk sharing 273 18.2 32.2
Joint temporary 252 16.8 29.7
collaboration
Notes: * n = 1496 firms; **n = 848 firms; four firms did not know whether or not they
were involved in any collaboration.
joint temporary collaboration. Since the sample was deliberately designed

to identify firms with temporary interorganizational collaborations, these
percentages are an overestimation of the actual percentages for the popu-
lation of all Dutch private SMEs. Nevertheless, both figures highlight
the relative importance of interorganizational temporary collaboration.
Based on the responses, 54.8 per cent of all collaborations were temporary,
and joint temporary collaborations accounted for about 30 per cent of all
collaborations.
CHARACTERISTICS OF TEMPORARY
COLLABORATIONS AMONG DUTCH SMES
Composition of Interorganizational Temporary Collaborations
IOTCs are composed of individual member organizations2 and the skills,

abilities and dispositions they bring to the collaboration. Stewart’s research
on teams (2006) elaborated on the relationship between these three traits
and member performance and showed that there was a direct correlation
between them. However, characteristics of individual IOTC members do
not necessarily imply that the IOTC as a collective will perform well. As
Schneider et al. pointed out (2000, p. 99), ‘The effects of a valid selection
procedure [of individual members] can be nullified by any lack of coop-
eration within groups and by bottlenecks, shirking, and social loafing’. In
Table 1.6 SMEs participating in IOTCs – industries and size class*
Industry** % Size class ** %

Manufacturing 8.7 1–9 3.2
Construction 29.0 10–49 8.4
Trade and repair 1.6 50–99 38.6
Hotels and catering 1.2 100–250 49.8
Transportation and 7.1
communication
Financial services 5.6
Business services 15.5
Other services 31.3
Total 100 Total 100
Notes: Size class is expressed in number of employees; **n = 252.
other words, both the characteristics of the individual IOTC member and
the collective features of the IOTC must be studied to fully understand
the impact of temporary collaboration. Our discussion starts with the
individual IOTC member characteristics.
IOTC Parent Organization Characteristics
In this section we focus on the characteristics of the SMEs participating in

IOTCs. First, we looked at the sector distribution and size class of SMEs
participating in IOTCs. Table 1.6 reveals that 31.3 per cent of the SMEs
interviewed were in other services and 29 per cent in the construction
industries. A total of 24.2 per cent of the SMEs, 8.7 per cent in manufac-
turing industries and 15.5 per cent in business services, participated in the
IOTCs. A logistic regression3 confirms that SMEs from these sectors have
the largest likelihood of participating in an IOTC, and SMEs from trade
and repair are least likely to be involved.
Most of the interviewed firms participating in IOTCs (88.4 per cent)
employed 50 or more people. Further analysis demonstrates that the
likelihood of participating in a joint temporary collaboration increases
with firm size: whereas 3.2 per cent of the sampled firms with 1 to 9
employees were involved in a joint temporary collaboration, this share
increased to 49.8 per cent for the sampled firms with 100–250 employees.
In other words, there is a clear tendency for larger SMEs to be involved in
temporary organizations more often than smaller ones.
In addition to distribution across industries and size class, we looked
Table 1.7 SMEs participating in IOTCs – different age groups
Age of SME in years Percentage of SMEs

participating in an IOTC
1–10 20.5
11–20 25.1
21–30 26.1
31–50 24.3
51–75 29.5
76–100 25.4
100 or older 35.8
All 26.0
at the age distribution of SMEs that participated in IOTCs. By applying

organization ecology theory logic, we propose that younger firms have
a higher probability of participating in IOTCs. There are two reasons
for this. First, younger firms are imprinted with the latest management
insights. This, combined with the fact that temporary organizations are
a relatively new phenomenon, indicates that younger firms could show
a higher propensity for participating in an IOTC. In addition, younger
SMEs have the highest need to establish linkages as a way to secure
resources and lower uncertainty.
Based on the results presented in Table 1.7, there is no clear evidence
that IOTC participation by SMEs is age related. Although the youngest
SMEs were less likely to participate in an IOTC, the margin by which the
oldest firms were more likely to do so is small. However, regardless of this
small margin and contrary to our expectations, the results do suggest a
positive relationship between firm age and IOTC participation. On the
other hand, for the older firms, such as SMEs 11 to 100 years old, there
does not seem to be any relationship between firm age and IOTC partici-
pation. This is confirmed by a logistic regression4 in which the likelihood
of participating in a joint temporary collaboration is related to the natural
log of economic sector, firm size and firm age. While size and sector were
both related to IOTC participation, the age of the SME parent organiza-
tion was not. Therefore, we conclude that IOTC participation by SMEs is
not age dependent.
The indication that the prevalence of IOTCs among SMEs is size depend-
ent is supported by the available information about the sales volumes of
the SMEs in Table 1.8 and confirmed in the above logistic regression.
In this example, size is defined as sales volume. SMEs with larger sales
volumes tend to participate in an IOTC more often than those with lower
Table 1.8 SMEs participating in IOTCs – sales data by volume
Sales volume in 2005, excluding VAT (€m) Percentage of SMEs

participating in IOTCs within
each sales category
Less than 2.5 21.9
2.5–5 20.2
5–10 26.3
10–20 26.6
20–50 31.7
50 or more 35.4
All 26.8
Table 1.9 Motives for joining the IOTC
Motive Percentage
Increasing sales volume 46.0
Access to new markets 36.9
Innovation 43.7
New knowledge 34.1
Monitoring of external developments 17.1
To extend the organizational network 35.7
Other reasons 28.6
Note: Multiple responses are possible.
sales volumes. However, because a high percentage of the organizations

(22 per cent) did not report their sales volumes, this interpretation must be
made with some caution.
An important question to consider is why the SME respondents joined
an IOTC. The motives for joining are listed in Table 1.9. This table shows
that 43.7 per cent of the responding firms joined an IOTC because they
were planning product or service innovation; another 34.1 per cent joined
to acquire new knowledge; and 46 per cent saw the IOTC as a way to
increase sales volume. To a large extent these findings mirror the distinc-
tion we make in the introduction of this chapter between ad hoc project
teams planning innovation and knowledge development and those ad hoc
production teams aiming to sell new products.
By applying a K-means cluster analysis, we explored which combina-
tions of motivations reported in Table 1.9 can be grouped together. The
results distinguished four combinations. First, the largest group of firms
(about 46 per cent) participated in the IOTC to increase sales volumes.
Table 1.10 SMEs participating in IOTCs – using intraorganizational

project teams?
Use Percentage
Yes 86.8
No 12.0
Does not know 1.2
The second group’s main motive to join the IOTC (27 per cent of the
cases) was to innovate in combination with getting access to new markets.
A third group of firms (also 27 per cent of the respondents) joined the
IOTC for multiple reasons. With the exception of ‘new market access’,
these firms indicated that all remaining motives applied. The fourth and
smallest group of 1 per cent responded that a combination of two motives
prompted them to join an IOTC – access to new markets and extension
of the interorganizational network. One way to interpret this last result
could be the belief by the SME that membership in an IOTC is a way of
extending the distribution network of the firm.
A last item for discussion in this subsection on IOTC parent organiza-
tion characteristics is whether or not the SME worked internally with
project teams. Having intraorganizational project teams indicates that the
organization has had some experience with working in a project-based
way, an experience they bring to the IOTC. It is clear that a vast majority
of the SMEs participating in IOTC have had interorganizational project
team experience.
IOTC Size – Human Resources, Financial Resources
The relationships between team size and performance vary. In some

studies on teams, large teams suffered from a lack of coordination and
process losses (Gooding and Wagner, 1985). In other studies large
teams were found to be more effective than smaller teams (Magjuka and
Baldwin, 1991) because they may have been more able to obtain resources
such as time, energy, money and expertise. These resource acquisitions
were expected to be particularly beneficial for teams conducting complex
tasks in uncertain environments (Stewart, 2006). Assuming that research
findings on teams apply largely to IOTCs, indicators of IOTC size are
presented in Table 1.11. This describes the number of parent organizations
– or participants – in each IOTC to which our sample of Dutch SMEs
belonged. About one-third of the IOTCs had two parent organizations;
another third had three or four parent organizations. In other words, a
Table 1.11 IOTC size – number of parent organizations
Number of parent Percentage of IOTCs Cumulative percentage of

organizations in the with this number of IOTCs with this number
IOTC (n = 252) parent organizations of parent organizations
in IOTCs
2 33.3 33.3
3–4 37.7 71.0
5–9 18.7 89.7
10 or more 10.3 100
Table 1.12 Number of parent organizations in IOTCs by sector
Sector Number of parent organizations

2 (%) 3 (%) 4 or more (%)
Manufacturing 36.4 22.7 40.9
Construction 37.0 28.8 34.2
Trade and repair 25.0 75.0 0.0
Hotels and catering 66.7 33.3 0.0
Transport and communication 41.2 17.6 41.2
Financial services 14.3 14.3 71.4
Business services 41.0 12.8 46.2
Other services 26.9 20.5 52.6
Total (n = 252) 33.6 22.4 44.0
vast majority, 71 per cent, of the IOTCs were relatively small, with four or
fewer parent organizations.
Table 1.12 shows the relative distribution of the number of parent
organizations in the IOTCs by economic sector. Multi-actor collabora-
tions with four or more participants comprised 44 per cent of the IOTCs,
whereas two partners were involved in about 33 per cent of the IOTCs.
Moreover, there were collaborations with four or more partners in both
the financial and other services sectors, and to a lesser degree in the busi-
ness services sector. The small IOTCs, with two participating partners,
were predominantly in the hotel and catering industry, and to a lesser
degree in transport and communication and business services.
The breakdown by class size in Table 1.13 reveals that smaller firms
(less than 50 employees) tended to participate in IOTCs with at least four
partners more often than in those with fewer partners. However, these
differences between the class sizes were statistically insignificant.
Table 1.13 Number of parent organizations in IOTCs by class size
Class size or number of 2 partners 3 partners 4 or more

employees (%) (%) partners (%)
1–9 25.0 25.0 50.0
10–49 28.6 14.3 57.1
50–99 33.3 25.0 41.7
100–250 35.5 21.8 42.7
Total (n = 251) 33.7 22.5 43.8
Table 1.14 IOTC budget from parent organizations
Budget for IOTC Percentage

Yes 65.9
No 33.3
Does not know 0.8
Total (n = 252) 100
To conduct their activities and tasks, IOTCs need resources such as

finance and personnel. The volume of these resources can be regarded as
indicators of IOTC size. When respondents were asked whether or not
a specific budget was allocated to the IOTC by the participating parent
organizations, 65.9 per cent of the IOTCs responded positively (see Table
1.14). However, further analyses showed that there were no direct relation-
ships between either sectors, industries or class size and financial budget.
Table 1.15 provides information on the actual size of the budget avail-
able to the IOTC. As expected, there are major differences among them.
In this sample of 113 respondents, IOTC budgets ranged from 2000 to 300
million euros and averaged 12.1 million. Further analyses showed that
there were no direct relationships between budget size and the number of
IOTC participants, the number of employees in the IOTC or the tasks for
which IOTCs were established.
In our survey, we also asked IOTC participants what types of funds
were used for financing the IOTC. From Table 1.16, it is clear that equity
funding and subsidies were by far the most frequently used types of
funding. Equity funding was used by 79 per cent of the participants in
IOTCs. On one hand, this reflects that many participants in IOTCs are
risk takers. On the other hand, the literature on governance regards equity
financing as a strong way to govern interorganizational relationships
Table 1.15 IOTC budgets
Budget size (in euros) Percentage

<20,000 6.2
20,000–50,000 8.1
50,001–100,000 8.9
100,001–500,000 16.1
500,001–1,000,000 8.9
1,000,001–5,000,000 25.9
5,000,001–10,000,000 7.2
10,000,001–50,000,000 11.7
50,000,000 or more 7.0
Total (n = 113) 100
Table 1.16 Types of funds used to finance the IOTC
Type of funding Percentage

Equity funding 79.0
Debt capital 11.5
Subsidies 36.5
Other 15.1
Does not know 1.2
Note: n = 252.
because it most closely replicates the hierarchical control features of

organizations (Gulati and Singh, 1998).
In addition to financial resources, IOTCs use human resources to
accomplish tasks and activities. For a second IOTC size indicator, we
asked respondents how many of their employees participated in IOTC
activities (Table 1.17). The average number of employees involved in an
IOTC was 67. However, in a majority of IOTCs (80.3 per cent), less than
50 employees participated. These findings indicate that although some of
the IOTCs were quite large, only about 5 per cent employed 250 or more
persons.
The next human resource characteristic we looked at was the percent-
age of SME employees who worked in IOTCs. The outcome provided
some insight into the share of available human resources with which the
responding parent organization was willing and able to provide the IOTC.
Table 1.18 shows that about 86 per cent of the parent organizations in our
sample assigned 25 per cent or less of their workforce to the IOTC. For
Table 1.17 Size and percentage of employees involved in IOTCs
Number of IOTC employees Percentage involved in

IOTC activities
<10 25.8
10–19 26.6
20–49 27.9
50–99 8.6
100 or more 11.1
Total 100
Mean = 67.3
Mode = 10
Standard deviation = 197.5
n = 233
Table 1.18 Percentage of SME employees involved in the IOTC
Percentage of SME employees Percentage of parent Cumulative

assigned to the IOTC organizations percentage (n = 247)
<25 86.2 86.2
26–50 6.1 92.3
51–75 2.4 94.7
76–100 5.3 100
92.3 per cent of the SMEs surveyed, 50 per cent or fewer employees were
involved in the IOTC. In only 7.7 per cent of the cases were more than 50
per cent of SME employees assigned to the IOTC.
Table 1.19 describes the relative participation of firms in the IOTC,
based on total number of employees involved in the IOTC by each
responding SME. These percentages were calculated by dividing the
total number of employees working on the IOTC into the number of
employees that the responding firm actually assigned to work on the
IOTC. Thus, a figure of 50 per cent would indicate that half of the
employees of the IOTC were on the payroll of the responding firm. On
average, 35 per cent of the employees of IOTCs were on the payroll of
the responding SME. In 23.7 per cent of the cases, this participation
level was between 50 per cent and 69 per cent. Therefore, we concluded
that there was some considerable variation in the relative levels of
participation by involved SMEs.
Table 1.19 Relative participation of SME employees in IOTCs
Relative SME participation (%) Percentage

< 1 of total IOTC employees 1.7
1–9 9.1
10–29 32.3
30–49 25.9
50–69 23.7
70 or more 7.3
Total 100
Mean = 34.8%
Mode = 50%
Standard deviation = 21.5
n = 232
IOTC Heterogeneity
In addition to IOTC parent organization characteristics and size, we

looked at IOTC composition in a third way: member characteristics do
not aggregate linearly. In this view Kristof-Brown et al. (2001) empha-
sized the importance of fit between members of an organizational unit.
Research in this area focused on both the heterogeneity and homogeneity
of member characteristics.
Some studies have advocated that a heterogeneous group functions
optimally. Theoretical arguments for this point of view have focused on the
advantage of creativity that can be derived from diverse viewpoints, cul-
tural backgrounds and skills. Conversely, proponents of homogeneity have
stressed the notion that similarity among members lowers the probability
of conflict. Therefore, heterogeneity of members of an organizational unit
is usually advocated for units performing creative but not routine tasks.
In the remainder of this section, we focus on the type of partners
involved in the IOTC and hypothesize that IOTC diversity will probably
have an impact on the processes and outcomes of IOTCs. Respondents
were asked to indicate what types of partners were involved in the IOTC.
Possible types to choose from included for-profit, governmental and not-
for-profit organizations. Table 1.20 presents an overview in which the size
– the number of participants in the IOTC – is also taken into account. In
most cases, the responding firms were for-profit organizations. The vast
majority, 81 per cent, of IOTCs in which two participants were involved
were collaborations between two for-profit organizations. Six per cent
Table 1.20 IOTC participants and composition
Number of IOTC composition by industry Frequency of

participants occurrence (%)
2 (n = 84) 100% for-profit 81.0
50% governmental 6.0
50% other not-for-profit 13.0
3–4 (n = 95) % for-profit organizations involved
< 25 36.8
25–75 63.2
≥ 75 0.0
5–9 (n = 46) % for-profit organizations involved
< 25 32.6
25–75 34.8
≥ 75 32.6
> 10 (n = 24) % for-profit organizations involved
< 25 37.5
25–75 16.7
≥ 75 45.8
of the projects were collaborations between a for-profit and a govern-

mental organization. For multi-actor IOTCs, those with more than two
participants, the basic pattern of domination by for-profit firms remained
consistent. Specifically, as the number of participants increased, the per-
centage of IOTCs composed of mainly for-profit firms increased. There
were no IOTCs with three to four members in which 75 per cent or more
of the participants were for-profit organizations. This increased to 45.8 per
cent for IOTCs comprised of ten or more organizations.
To find out whether there were groups of IOTCs in which specific
combinations of types of partners were clustered, a K-means cluster
analysis was conducted for multi-actor IOTCs. The results of a three-
cluster solution are presented in Table 1.21. The largest cluster (cluster
3) consisted of multi-actor IOTCs populated by predominantly for-profit
organizations in combination with other not-for-profit organizations. The
smaller clusters 1 and 2 were multi-actor IOTCs in which not-for-profit
organizations collaborated with a relatively high number of government
organizations (cluster 1) or in which governmental organizations collabo-
rated with non-profit organizations (cluster 2). In other words, all clusters
were quite heterogeneous.
Next, we investigated whether there were different levels of satisfaction
Table 1.21 Results of a K-means cluster analysis (final cluster centers)
Type of partner Cluster

1 (n = 41) 2 (n = 29) 3 (n = 95)
For-profit 7.9 10.4 67.8
Government 10.4 67.0 7.4
Other not-for-profit 81.7 22.6 24.8
Table 1.22 Most important IOTC tasks
Task Percentage
Produce a specific product or service 53.4
Improve or innovate a production process 12.0
Penetrate a new market 9.6
Organize events 5.6
Share knowledge or development 4.8
Other 14.7
among the three clusters. There were statistically insignificant differences,

although the level of satisfaction was clearly the highest in cluster 3.5 In
other words, there is some indication that homogeneity is advantageous.
IOTC TASK CHARACTERISTICS
Task design is defined as the differentiation and integration of those

activities conducted by the IOTC. In this section, we investigate which
tasks were conducted by the sampled IOTCs, whether they were unique or
recurrent, and what the intra-IOTC coordination looked like.
Importance of IOTC Tasks
IOTC members were asked an open question: to indicate the most impor-
tant task of their temporary collaboration. After recoding, five major task
categories emerged: to produce a specific product or service; to improve or
innovate the production process or the development of a new production
technology; to explore or penetrate a new market; to organize events; and
to share knowledge or development. The distribution over these different
tasks is shown in Table 1.22. In a majority of cases (53.4 per cent) the most
important task of the IOTC was to produce a specific product or service,
Table 1.23 IOTC tasks – importance by industry (%)
Sector Most important task

1 2 3 4 5 6
Manufacturing 36.4 36.4 13.6 0.0 4.5 9.1
Construction 72.2 4.2 1.4 0.0 6.9 15.3
Trade and repair 25.0 0.0 25.0 0.0 0.0 50.0
Hotels and catering 33.3 0.0 33.3 0.0 0.0 33.3
Transport and 55.6 22.2 0.0 0.0 5.6 16.7
communication
Financial services 35.7 21.4 7.1 0.0 21.4 14.3
Business services 56.4 5.1 17.9 7.7 0.0 12.8
Other services 44.3 12.7 12.7 13.9 2.5 13.9
Total (n = 251) 53.4 12.0 9.6 5.6 4.8 14.7
Notes:
1 = Produce a specific product or service
2 = Improve or innovate a production process
3 = Penetrate a new market
4 = Organize events
5 = Share knowledge or development
6 = Other
while improving or innovating a production process was an important

task for 12 per cent of the IOTCs. In other words, a significant number
of the IOTCs can be regarded as ad hoc production collaborations,
whereas a smaller proportion of the IOTCs can be labelled ad hoc project
collaborations (see Table 1.1).
In Table 1.23, most sectors of IOTC members indicated that producing
specific products or services was the most important task of the IOTC. This
was true especially for firms in the construction, business services and trans-
port and communication industries, where responses exceeded 50 per cent.
Improving or innovating a production process was generally considered to
be the second most important task across most of the industries studied.
The major exception to these findings was in the trade and repair industry,
where ‘other tasks’ was considered to be the most important task.
The distribution in Table 1.24 is not statistically significant. The find-
ings lead to the conclusion that both larger and smaller IOTCs (based on
numbers of parent organizations or partners) conducted the same tasks.
For all size classes, it is clear that producing a specific product or service
was the most important task of the temporary collaboration. IOTCs with
five to nine participants deviated a bit from this general pattern because a
larger share of them improved or innovated production processes.
Table 1.24 Most important IOTC task by IOTC size (number of

partners) (%)
Size class (number Most important task of the IOTC

of partners)
1 2 3 4 5 6
2 partners 55.4 10.8 12.0 9.6 3.6 8.4
3–4 partners 54.7 10.5 7.4 2.1 5.3 20.0
5–9 partners 42.6 21.3 10.6 4.3 6.4 14.9
10 or more partners 64.0 4.0 8.0 8.0 4.0 12.0
Total (n = 251) 53.6 12.0 9.6 5.6 4.8 14.4
Notes:
1 = Produce a specific product or service
2 = Improve or innovate a production process
3 = Penetrate a new market
4 = Organize events
5 = Share knowledge or development
6 = Other
IOTC parent organizations were asked to indicate whether the task of

the temporary collaboration was project-specific or recurrent. This distinc-
tion is important, since in project-specific tasks, the IOTC is confronted
with higher levels of uncertainty and participating organizations can rely
less on routines. The data show that there is a 50–50 overall distribution.
Neither the size of the IOTC – in terms of number of employees – nor its
most important task resulted in specific patterns. In other words, both
smaller and larger IOTCs performed project-specific and recurrent tasks
in similar proportions. The same would be true if the most important task
of the IOTC is considered.
Intra-IOTC Coordination
Intra-IOTC coordination focuses on task coordination within the IOTC.

This task coordination focus differs from autonomy because it looks
at relationships within the IOTC rather than at relationships between
the IOTC and other organizational units, such as the parent organiza-
tions (see Chapter 8, this volume). Collaborating groups such as IOTCs
have high intraorganizational coordination when they are interdependent
and when members depend upon each other for information, resources
and other inputs. Research (Stewart and Barrick, 2000) has shown that
high levels of coordination stimulate members to work together closely
and develop shared norms and values. Moreover, this coordination has
Table 1.25 IOTC management strategies
Management strategies Percentage

By one of the participating organizations 30.2
Joint management 30.2
Special management team 33.1
Other 6.5
Total (n = 172) 100
improved intraorganizational processes by opening communication chan-

nels and building a group feeling. Others disagree. Saavedra et al. (1993)
found that high levels of coordination created interdependencies that, in
turn, had negative performance effects, whereas Wageman (1995) main-
tained that lower levels of independence were beneficial for efficiency and
creative problem solving.
To shed light on the ways the IOTCs in our sample are coordinated, we
discuss findings on a number of dimensions of intra-IOTC coordination,
including the way the IOTC is managed and the modes and frequency of
intra-IOTC communication.
IOTCs can be managed in multiple ways: by one of the participating
organizations conducting the main managerial functions, by joint man-
agement, or through management by a special management team. Table
1.25 presents an overview of the different arrangements by which IOTCs
are managed. In 30.2 per cent of the cases researched, IOTC management
was the responsibility of one of the participating members; in 33.1 per cent
a special management team was established, and joint management was
found in 30.2 per cent of the IOTCs. Further analyses (not presented here)
show that IOTC size often dictated the management method. The higher
the number of organizations that participated in the IOTC, the lower the
percentage of joint management and the higher the percentage of manage-
ment by a special management team. For example, in 53.8 per cent of the
cases, small IOTCs – those with two parent organizations – were governed
jointly; only 16.7 per cent of the IOTCs with 5 to 9 parent organizations
were jointly managed; and 38.9 per cent of the IOTCs of this size class
were managed by a special management team.
Size is thought to be an important determinant for how frequently
IOTCs communicate. We expected a positive relationship between size
and frequency of communication, thus the larger IOTCs – especially those
with many employees – would be more complex and need to communicate
more frequently in order to coordinate activities. Two main conclusions
about size and frequency of communication can be drawn from the figures
Table 1.26 Frequency of intra-IOTC communication by IOTC size

(number of employees) (%)
IOTC size (employee Frequency of interpersonal communication

number)
Daily Weekly Monthly Less than Never
monthly
< 10 8.3 41.7 35.0 15.0 0.0
10–19 16.1 45.2 33.9 3.2 1.6
20–49 23.1 35.4 40.0 1.5 0.0
50–99 40.0 20.0 40.0 0.0 0.0
100 or more 38.5 38.5 15.4 7.6 0.0
Total (n = 233) 20.6 38.6 34.3 6.0 0.5
Frequency of non-personal communication
< 10 26.7 43.3 23.3 5.0 1.7
10–19 37.1 54.8 6.5 0.0 1.6
20–49 40.0 52.3 7.7 0.0 0.0
50–99 50.0 35.0 10.0 0.0 5.0
100 or more 61.6 27.0 3.8 3.8 3.8
Total (n = 233) 39.1 46.3 11.2 1.7 1.7
in Table 1.26. First, there is frequent interpersonal and non-personal com-

munication in the IOTCs. For interpersonal communications, 38.6 per
cent engaged in it weekly and 20.6 per cent on a daily basis, and 46.3 per
cent weekly and 39.1 per cent daily for non-personal communication. It
turned out however, that the frequency of interpersonal and non-personal
communication was not size dependent.
TEMPORAL CHARACTERISTICS OF IOTCS
The most distinct characteristic of an interorganizational temporary col-

laboration is its limited duration. Because IOTCs have different tasks, the
duration of a temporary collaboration may vary. Several scholars have
noted that time is an important issue in organizational life and impacts
readily on observable and measurable processes, such as completing tasks,
but also those processes that are not easily observable, such as thinking,
reflecting and learning (Goddard, 2001; Bluedorn and Denhardt, 1998).
The average duration of an interorganizational temporary collaboration
was 4.2 years, and 59 per cent of the IOTCs had a maximum duration of
3 years (Table 1.27). While there was a large proportion of short-term
Table 1.27 IOTC duration
Duration in years Percentage Cumulative

percentage
Shorter than 0.5 year 4 4
0.5 – < 1 year 9 13
1 – < 2 years 23 36
2 – < 3 years 23 59
3 – < 4 years 12 71
4 – < 5 years 7 78
5 – < 10 years 15 93
10 years or longer 7 100
Total 100
Mean = 4.2 years
Median = 2.9 years
Mode = 3 years
Standard deviation = 4.47 years
n = 252
Table 1.28 How IOTCs are terminated
How Percentage
On a fixed date 25.8
Upon task completion 67.5
Other 6.3
Do not know 0.4
Total (n = 252) 100
collaboration in our sample, a considerable number of all the IOTCs had

a relatively long time horizon: 29 per cent lasted longer than four years.
How IOTCs are terminated is the next logical question we addressed.
Respondents were asked whether termination took place on a fixed date,
upon task completion or in another way. As Table 1.28 shows, in a major-
ity of cases the IOTCs were terminated upon task completion, while 25.8
per cent responded that the IOTC was terminated on a pre-planned date.
Because the majority of IOTCs were terminated upon task completion, we
might assume that, in practice, time limitations were less pressing, allow-
ing actors to have more flexibility. As is evidenced by the figures in Table
1.29, there are hardly any differences between size classes with respect to
the way of project termination.
Table 1.29 IOTC termination by number of employees
Number of employees Fixed date Task completion Other way

< 10 23.3 66.7 10.0
10 – 19 30.6 66.1 3.2
20 – 49 24.6 72.3 3.1
50 – 99 35.0 65.0 0.0
100 or more 19.2 73.1 7.7
Total (n = 233) 26.2 68.7 5.1
Table 1.30 IOTC termination by sector (%)
Sector Fixed date Task completion Other way

Manufacturing 31.8 59.1 9.1
Construction 12.4 84.9 2.7
Trade and repair 25.0 75.0 0.0
Hotels and catering 0.0 100.0 0.0
Transport and communication 27.8 72.2 0.0
Financial services 21.4 78.6 0.0
Business services 30.8 56.4 12.8
Other services 35.4 54.4 10.2
Total (n = 252) 25.8 67.5 6.7
To find out if there were differences in IOTC termination among

sectors, we constructed Table 1.30, based on SME responses to our survey.
The results show clear differences among sectors for terminating IOTCs,
with most favoring termination upon task completion over a fixed date
termination. Only the business and other services sectors had a relatively
high percentage of IOTCs with fixed termination. Termination upon
task completion was found relatively often in the construction, trade and
repair, hotel and catering, and financial services industries.
Whether or not there was an association between an IOTC’s task and
the way in which the collaboration is terminated is presented in Table 1.31.
There was no association.6 IOTCs that had penetrating a new market as their
most important task deviated slightly from the general pattern. The results
reported in Table 1.32 show that a large majority of IOTCs conducting a
one-time unique task were terminated after completing their assignments.
This was also true, but to a lesser extent (56.9 per cent), for IOTCs perform-
ing recurrent tasks. The distribution found is statistically significant.7
Table 1.31 IOTC termination by task (%)
Tasks Fixed date Task Other way

completion
Production of a specific product 22.4 73.2 4.4
or service
Improvement or innovation of 16.7 73.3 10.0
production process
Penetration of a new market 45.8 50.0 4.2
Events organization 28.6 64.3 7.1
Share knowledge or development 33.3 58.3 8.4
Other 29.7 56.8 13.5
Total (n = 251) 25.9 67.3 6.8
Table 1.32 IOTC termination by task recurrence (%)
Task Fixed date Task Other way

completion
Once only 21.3 76.4 2.4
Recurrent 31.0 56.9 12.1
Does not know 22.2 77.8 0.0
Total (n = 252) 25.8 67.5 6.7
Although the main way in which IOTCs are different from permanent
organizations is their predetermined limited duration, there can be a
tendency towards permanency in temporary collaborations over time.
In other words, in principle, independent organizations can collaborate
with the same partners on a temporary basis repeatedly. In his 1995 study,
Gulati proposed that repeated interactions generated interorganizational
trust and lowered the need for formal governance. From the figures in
Table 1.33, we can deduce that these repeated ties are common. The
occurrence of repeated interorganizational temporary collaborations is
apparent in Table 1.34. When we asked SMEs with repeated ties how fre-
quently they occurred, 38.5 per cent of the respondents replied that they
had collaborated three or more times with the same partners in the last
three years.
Several conclusions can be formulated on the basis of the findings pre-
sented in this section on the temporal characteristics of IOTCs. Of these,
two are the most important. First, there is a large variation in the duration
of temporary collaborations, leading us to believe that there is no such
Table 1.33 IOTC partnerships – prior experience in the previous three

years
Prior experience with same partners Percentage

Yes 58.3
No 40.9
Does not know 0.8
Total (n = 252) 100
Table 1.34 IOTC partnerships – same partners in the previous three years
Number of repeat collaborations Percentage

1 29.4
2 30.3
3 19.3
4–9 12.9
10–19 2.7
20 or more 3.6
Does not want to report 1.8
Total (n = 109) 100
thing as the typical temporary organization. Second, based on the levels of

atemporality (see Chapter 5, this volume), we find that many SMEs have
collaborated repeatedly and on a temporary basis with the same partners.
Therefore, one could argue that for these firms, temporary collaboration
is, to a certain extent, routine behavior.
INTERORGANIZATIONALITY
In her study on interorganizational teams of suppliers and buyers, Stock

(2006) developed the concept of interorganizationality. This concept
referred to the extent to which each parent organization was equally repre-
sented by the same number of members in their IOTC, and to what extent
power was equally distributed among those organizations.
Interorganizationality is connected to effectiveness. Therefore, effec-
tiveness of an interorganizational unit will be highest when interorgani-
zationality is maximal; that is, when parent organizations are equally
represented and power is equally distributed. If interorganizationality is
low because of dominance by one parent organization, the voice of other
Table 1.35 IOTC size (number of parent organizations) and equality of

financial contributions in the previous three years (%)
Equality of financial IOTC size Total

contributions
2 3–4 5–9 10 or more
Equal 28.8 26.7 14.6 23.5 24.6
Fairly equal 43.9 38.7 41.5 29.5 40.2
Unequal 19.7 14.7 24.4 17.6 18.6
Very unequal 6.1 18.7 19.5 23.5 15.1
Does not know 1.5 1.2 0.0 5.9 1.5
Total (n = 199) 100 100 100 100 100
Table 1.36 Perceived influence of SME in IOTC relative to the other

partners
Relative SME influence Percentage

Much higher 28.2
Higher 12.3
Fairly equal 47.2
Lower 11.1
Much lower 1.2
Total (n = 252) 100
participants will probably be ignored, increasing the probability of conflict

and impacting negatively on effectiveness.
In a previous section, we addressed IOTC composition. In this section,
we focus on the balance of power in the IOTC based on the concept of
interorganizationality. Two indicators of this balance will be discussed:
equality of financial contributions and equality of perceived influence.
In Table 1.35 we present a breakdown of the equality of financial con-
tributions – by the SMEs to the IOTCs – based on the number of IOTC
participants. About 65 per cent of the respondents stated that the financial
contributions of the IOTC participants were fairly equal or equal, but a
breakdown by IOTC size shows some differences. Although there was a
tendency for the amount of contributions to be less equal as IOTC size
increased, these differences were not statistically significant.8
Equal or unequal financial contributions do not necessarily translate
into (un)equal levels of influence by the SME on the IOTC, as is evidenced
by Table 1.36. It was thought by 47.2 per cent of the SMEs that their
influence on the IOTC was equal to the influence of other IOTC partners.
However, 40.5 per cent of SMEs thought that their organizations’ influ-
ence on the IOTC was comparatively higher or much higher. Further
analyses – not presented here – showed that there was clearly a statistically
significant association between the perceived levels of influence of the
respondent, and the level of balance in financial contributions of IOTC
participants. More unequal financial contributions tended to be associ-
ated with a higher level of perceived influence of the responding firm on
the IOTC.9 In other words, higher financial contributions translated into a
more powerful position in the IOTC.
TYPES OF INTERORGANIZATIONAL
COLLABORATION
Jones and Lichtenstein (2008) proposed four prototypical interorgani-

zational collaboration projects that can be distinguished based on com-
binations of duration and repeated ties. The researchers used these two
combinations to show how multiple organizational actors coordinate their
joint activities to reduce the uncertainty of demand, that is, uncertainty due
to rapid shifts in user tastes and preferences, and transactional uncertainty
– uncertainty due to interdependencies emerging from the joint produc-
tion of services and products. This typology also captures how variance in
project duration affects the kinds of coordination techniques put in place
when multiple organizations collaborate to conduct a joint task. Based on
research by Clark (1985) and Gersick (1994), these authors have argued
that variance in project duration is coordinated by three combinations of
temporal markers: chronological-, event- and entrainment-based pacing.
According to Jones and Lichtenstein, interorganizational projects can
also be influenced by repeated ties (see also Gulati, 1995). Their basic
argument is: when interactions evolve from one of a kind single exchanges
to repeated, durable interorganizational ties, understandings become
more widely shared and trust that facilitates coordination and guides
collaborative activities is built.
In Table 1.37, we explore the discriminatory power and external validity
of Jones and Lichtenstein’s typology by applying it to our sample of SME
temporary organizations. In the next section we will investigate the preva-
lence of the four types of IOTCs in our sample. To construct these four
types, we used their two variables – repeated ties and project duration. We
defined repeated ties as prior collaboration with the same partners in the
previous three years and project duration as temporal embeddedness. We
dummy coded temporal embeddedness so that one category contained all
Table 1.37 Four types of IOTCs
Repeated ties Project duration

Shorter project duration Longer project duration
Relations unlikely Type I: Single project Type II: Multi-party
to recur and organizing organizing
endure across Exemplar: Film Exemplar: Crisis response
projects
Who coordinates: Specific Who coordinates: Multiple
role – such as director 3rd party organizations
and a general contractor – such as Red Cross
and national and local
authorities
How they coordinate: How they coordinate:
Temporal embeddedness Temporal embeddedness
Temporal pacing with Entrainment pacing – timed
deadlines encoded in to crisis needs
contracts Event-based pacing – phases
Event-based pacing – of crisis efforts
sequences of project Social embeddedness
Social embeddedness Relational embeddedness
Relational embeddedness – – low for key emergency
low for manufacturing; organizations; low for
high for a few key country agency and
players emergency NGOs
Structural embeddedness Structural embeddedness
– dense but fleeting – higher overlap for key
relations for most NGOs
organizations due to Use of hierarchical roles –
people working across key NGOs and government
projects
Use of hierarchical roles
Relations recur Type III: Network alliances Type IV: Constellations
and endure Exemplar: Architecture Exemplar: Large-scale
across projects and construction engineering design and
construction
Who coordinates: Lead
firm – provides products Who coordinates: Lead firm
and services or government agency
How they coordinate: How they coordinate:
Temporal embeddedness Temporal embeddedness
Temporal pacing – Event-based pacing – phases
deadlines and roles of project
encoded in contracts
Table 1.37 (continued)
Repeated ties Project duration

Event-based pacing – Temporal pacing –
sequences of project milestones
Social embeddedness Social embeddedness
Relational embeddedness Relational embeddedness
– recurring relations among large firms – low
between some partners with governmental clients
across projects and local firms
Structural embeddedness Structural embeddedness
– intermediate density – fragmented with
due to repeated relations constellations of key
among groups of organizations and little
partners repetition among those in
the market or field
Source: Jones and Lichtenstein (2008: 241).
Table 1.38 Frequencies of four types of IOTCs (%)
Social embeddedness Temporary embeddedness

No prior collaboration 20.8 (Type I) 21.7 (Type II)
Prior collaboration 29.6 (Type III) 27.9 (Type IV)
Total (n = 226) 100
IOTCs with a project duration of less than or equal to the median project
duration, 35 months. The second category comprised all IOTCs whose
project duration lasted 36 months or longer. The second variable, social
embeddedness, consisted of two categories: one having no prior collabora-
tion with the same partners in the recent past (40.9 per cent) and the other
having collaboration in the recent past (58.3 per cent).
Prevalence of the Four Types of IOTCs
The results of combining high and low levels of temporal and social
embeddedness are presented in Table 1.38. At the one end of the combined
scales (Type I: the upper left corner of the table) are the one-time joint
Table 1.39 IOTC types and size (number of parent organizations) (%)
Size Type of IOTC Total

(n = 225)
Type I Type II Type III Type IV
2 57.4 34.7 24.3 20.6 32.4
3–4 29.8 40.8 43.9 42.9 40.0
5–9 10.6 10.2 21.2 27.0 18.2
10 or more 2.2 14.3 10.6 9.5 9.4
Total 100 100 100 100 100
projects (like film productions) that have a relatively short lifespan and
that are composed of organizations that did not interact before. So-called
constellations (Type IV) can be found in the lower right corner of the
table, where longer lasting IOTCs can be found. Based on our findings,
Type III IOTCs are the most common. Short-term collective endeavors
with repeated ties comprised 29.6 per cent of the interorganizational tem-
poral collaborations. Short-term collaborations with no prior ties emerged
in 20.8 per cent of the cases.
IOTC TYPES AND COMPOSITION
Types of IOTC and Size
There were clear differences in size among the four types of IOTCs. Type I
collaborations – short project duration and no prior collaboration – had an
average of three parent organizations. With almost six, Type III – shorter
projects and prior collaboration – had the highest average number of part-
ners, and Types II and IV collaborations averaged 4.5 partners each. Based
on our results (Table 1.39) we can make the following observations:
● A large majority of Type I IOTCs (57.4 per cent) had two parent
organizations while IOTCs with three or more partners were far
more prevalent in Types II, III and IV;
● 14.3 per cent of Type II IOTCs had ten or more partners. While
this number may appear low, it is higher than any of the other three
types;
● Types III and IV IOTCs had relatively high percentages of
IOTCs with five to eight partners (21.2 per cent and 27.0 per cent
respectively).
Table 1.40 IOTC types and size (number of employees involved) (%)
Size Type of IOTC Total

Type I Type II Type III Type IV (n = 215)
< 10 21.7 29.8 24.2 23.3 24.7
10–19 23.9 25.5 29.0 26.7 26.5
20–49 34.8 27.7 24.2 31.7 29.3
50–99 10.9 8.5 12.9 5.0 9.3
100 or more 8.7 8.5 9.7 13.3 10.2
Total 100 100 100 100 100
Table 1.41 IOTC types by project (budget) size in euros (%)
IOTC size Type of IOTC Total

(n = 154)
< 80 000 20.8 15.6 14.9 4.3 13.1
80 001–600 000 17.2 6.2 21.3 17.4 16.2
600 001–4 500 000 17.2 31.3 17.0 17.4 20.1
> 4 500 000 44.8 46.9 46.8 60.9 50.6
Total 100 100 100 100 100
We found no strong relationships between IOTC types and the number

of its employees (Table 1.40). The only indications were that Types II and
III were relatively small, and Type IV was somewhat overrepresented in
the larger size classes. However, none of these differences were statistically
significant. If IOTC size were measured by budget size, the pattern emerg-
ing from Table 1.40 would be strengthened. However, in Table 1.41 it is
clear that the smallest projects in terms of funds available can be found
among Type I IOTCs: 20.8 per cent of them had a budget below 80 000
euros. On the other hand, Type IV often had large projects: 60.9 per cent
had a budget larger than 4.5 million euros. Types II and III were typically
more medium-sized projects.
IOTC Types and Heterogeneity
The breakdown of the four IOTC types and their partners is an indicator
of the level of IOTC heterogeneity. We have analyzed the results in two
steps: first, for IOTCs in which two partners participated and second, for
multi-partner IOTCs.
Table 1.42 IOTC types and heterogeneity (two-partner IOTCs) (%)
Type of partner (by sector) Type of IOTC

For-profit organization 88.9 82.4 93.8 61.5
Governmental organization 3.7 11.8 0.0 7.7
Other not-for-profit organizations 7.4 5.8 6.2 30.8
Total (n = 73) 100 100 100 100
Table 1.43 IOTC types and heterogeneity (multi-partner IOTCs) (%)
Type of partner Type of IOTC

Cluster 1 (predominantly not-for-profit) 30.0 21.9 28.0 24.0
Cluster 2 (government + not-for-profit) 5.0 12.5 18.0 22.0
Cluster 3 (predominantly for-profit) 65.0 65.6 54.0 54.0
Total (n = 152) 100 100 100 100
Aside from slight variations in each of the four IOTC types, there was
more collaboration among for-profit than not-for-profit organizations for
two-partner IOTCs in our SME study (Table 1.42). Only Type IV had a
relatively large proportion (30.8 per cent) of collaborations among not-for-
profit, as well as for-profit organizations. Other than this, there were only
minor, statistically insignificant differences among the four IOTC types.
In our analysis of IOTC types and multi-partner IOTCs, we applied the
results of our cluster analysis to the composition of multi-partner IOTCs
and found more distinct differences among the four IOTC types. We now
observed that a relatively high percentage (65.0 per cent) of Type I (short-
term with no prior collaboration) and of Type II was a collaboration in
which most of the participating actors were for-profits (cluster 3). This is
partly in line with Jones and Lichtenstein’s typology of temporary interor-
ganizational collaboration. Moreover, in particular, multi-partner interor-
ganizational temporary collaborations with governmental organizations
(cluster 2) were found relatively often in Type III (short-term with prior
collaboration) and Type IV (long-term with prior collaboration) IOTCs.
Our findings for Type III IOTCs largely failed to resemble Jones and
Lichtenstein’s predictions. Based on this we concluded that their typology
did not work very well for the Dutch IOTCs.
Table 1.44 IOTC types and recurrence of task (%)
Recurrence of task Type of IOTC

Once 61.7 51.0 55.2 49.2
Recurrent 29.8 44.9 44.8 46.0
Does not know 8.5 4.1 0.0 4.8
Total (n = 226) 100 100 100 100
Table 1.45 IOTC types and management type (%)
IOTC management type Type of IOTC

One of the IOTC participants 19.4 36.0 32.1 24.9
Jointly by participants 38.7 28.0 21.4 35.1
Special management team 32.3 24.0 41.1 35.0
Other way 9.6 12.0 5.4 5.0
Total (n = 152) 100 100 100 100
IOTC Types and Task Characteristics
The four types of IOTCs were established to perform either a recurring or

a one-time task (Table 1.44). The Jones and Lichtenstein typology pro-
posed that Type I IOTCs would show a high percentage of non-recurring
tasks. Our data confirmed this. Although high percentages were also found
for the rest of the IOTC types, they were not statistically significant. Type
I IOTCs had the lowest percentage of recurrent tasks, with 29.8 per cent,
and 46 per cent of Type IV IOTCs had recurrent tasks. In other words,
the level of routine was the highest for long-term IOTCs with no prior
collaboration.
Intra-IOTC Coordination
According to Jones and Lichtenstein, hierarchical management by one

lead organization was prevalent in most IOTCs (Types I, III and IV) but
multi-party management was characteristic of Type II IOTCs. Our results,
however, showed no statistically significant differences among IOTC types
(Table 1.45). Management by one of the IOTC participants was relatively
Table 1.46 IOTC types and legal forms (%)
Legal form Type of IOTC

Yes 34.0 49.0 16.4 36.5
No 66.0 51.0 83.6 63.5
Total (n = 226) 100 100 100 100
strong among Type II and III IOTCs. Type I and Type IV IOTCs applied
joint management relatively often. The establishment of a special manage-
ment team was often the preferred way of managing an IOTC for Types
III and IV, although the difference from joint management was very small
for Type IV.
Interorganizational governance literature argues that low trust levels,
especially for those partners who have not collaborated in the past, will
result in appropriations concerns. In IOTCs with a longer duration, rents
of the collaboration emerged over time and outcomes became unclear.
These concerns have been mitigated through the use of hierarchical gov-
ernance structures such as legal forms to guide and monitor behavior. If
concerns were truly allayed by means of such structures, most long-term
IOTCs between partners with no prior ties (Type II) would use a legal
form most frequently. Table 1.46 shows that this was indeed the case with
the Dutch IOTCs. Of Type II – long-term partners with no prior ties – 49
per cent had a legal form, confirming our expectations. The percentages
of other types with legal forms were much lower. Only 16.4 per cent of
Type III used a separate legal entity, possibly indicating that these part-
ners had collaborated repeatedly on short-term projects. Because of this
shadow of the past, partners that have already collaborated have higher
trust levels and less need for formal legal forms.
IOTC Types and Temporal Characteristics
This chapter contains two relevant temporal characteristics: duration and

method of termination. Termination methods were discussed in a previous
section of this chapter; here we discuss them across types of IOTCs. In our
study of Dutch IOTCs, there were no major differences in how IOTC types
were terminated. In the majority of all types, collaboration was terminated
after task completion, although this percentage was considerably lower in
the Type IV case.
Table 1.47 IOTC types and duration (when IOTCs are terminated) (%)
When Type of IOTC

On a fixed date 21.3 24.5 22.4 39.7
Upon task completion 78.7 73.5 70.1 54.0
Other 0.0 2.0 6.0 6.3
Does not know 0.0 0.0 1.5 0.0
Total (n = 226) 100 100 100 100
INTERORGANIZATIONALITY
In a previous section, we argued that IOTC performance might benefit

from high levels of interorganizationality. In particular, higher levels of
equality of financial contributions and of influence are regarded as favo-
rable for higher outcomes. In this section, we investigate the extent of the
differences between the IOTC types for these two indicators. There were
no statistically significant differences among the IOTC types for either
equality of financial contributions or the influence indicators (see Table
1.48). SME respondents stated that regardless of interorganizationality,
overall financial contributions by IOTC participants were fairly equal or
equal. The percentages ranged from 60.8 per cent for Type IV to 76.3 per
cent for Type II. The level of influence was also equal. For each IOTC
type, 39.7 per cent or more of the respondents evaluated their influence
more-or-less equal to that of the other participants.
CONCLUSIONS
This chapter provides an initial understanding of the prevalence and charac-

teristics of interorganizational temporary collaborations (IOTCs), focusing
specifically on those IOTCs in which Dutch small and medium-sized enter-
prises (SMEs) participate. The study was based on a survey of 1500 Dutch
enterprises with up to 250 employees. The results showed that 31 per cent of
the sampled SMEs were involved in an IOTC and 17 per cent were involved
in an IOTC with either joint task execution or joint risk sharing, which
qualifies as a true temporary collaboration in the context of this chapter.
Due to the stratification plan of the sample, the dataset did not permit
us to provide an unbiased estimate of the total number of Dutch SMEs
Table 1.48 IOTC types – equality of financial contributions and influence

indicators (%)
Equality of financial Type of IOTC

contributions
Equal 22.5 34.2 28.3 19.6
Fairly equal 40.0 42.1 34.0 41.2
Unequal 22.5 18.4 17.0 21.6
Very unequal 15.0 5.3 20.7 15.7
Does not know 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.9
Total (n = 182) 100 100 100 100
Equality of influence Type of IOTC

Much higher 29.8 20.4 31.3 31.7
Higher 10.6 12.2 13.4 12.7
Fairly equal 44.7 51.0 49.3 39.7
Lower 14.9 12.2 4.5 15.9
Much lower 0.0 4.2 1.5 0.0
Total (n = 226) 100 100 100 100
involved in IOTCs. Nevertheless, the data strongly suggest that a consid-

erable share of SMEs were involved in one or several IOTCs. Moreover,
it is important to remember that the data presented in this chapter only
apply to Dutch SMEs.
Prevalence
The prevalence of IOTCs among SMEs varied along a number of dimen-

sions such as firm size – employee number or sales volume of the parent
firm – and sector. Also, some factors contributed to a high prevalence
while others, such as age, were not relevant.
Characteristics
In addition to prevalence, in this chapter we discussed the characteristics

of IOTCs based on composition, tasks, temporality and activity. The most
obvious characteristic of IOTCs was heterogeneity. The number of IOTC
parent organizations ranged from two to more than 20. The number of
employees involved in the surveyed IOTCs ranged from two to more than
500, with a mean of 67 employees and a budget of between 2000 and 300
million euros. This large range in the size of IOTCs is consistent with the
range of size found for individual enterprises. The surveyed SMEs men-
tioned a variety of motives for participating in IOTCs. The two that were
most often cited were increasing sales volume and innovating. Other often-
mentioned motives that were cited by the respondents were gaining access
to new markets, acquiring new knowledge and extending networks.
There was little variation in what was considered the most important
task of the IOTC. The SMEs responded that IOTCs were often organized
to produce a specific product or service. The second most mentioned task –
improving or innovating a production process – occurred with only 12 per
cent of the IOTCs. Combined, these findings indicate that the production
of a specific product or service may serve several objectives, ranging from
increasing sales volume and innovating to gaining access to new markets,
thereby extending a firm’s network and acquiring new knowledge.
An IOTC task can be based either on a single or a recurrent project.
Our empirical findings indicated that both options occurred equally and
that neither was related to the nature of the task. The task of the IOTC
was managed by the parent organizations, by one of the parent organiza-
tions, or by a specific management team. In general, these three occurred
equally, but joint management occurred more often in those IOTCs with
relatively few parent organizations.
There was evidence of a skewed distribution in the temporal character-
istics of IOTCs. The mean duration of those sampled was 4.2 years, the
median duration was 2.9 years and 36 per cent of the IOTCs lasted two
years or less. In 67.5 per cent of cases, IOTCs were terminated upon task
completion. Approximately 25 per cent of the surveyed SMEs responded
that the IOTC would be terminated on a fixed date. This occurred most
often in the case of IOTCs with recurrent tasks and those whose main task
was penetrating a new market or organizing an event. In sum, one can
conclude that interorganizational temporary collaboration comes in many
different shapes. Moreover, for many SMEs, temporary collaboration was
a continuous affair, as was indicated by the number of times the SMEs had
collaborated with the same partner in the past.
Exploring a Typology of IOTCs
In this chapter we applied the typology based on temporal and social

embeddedness developed by Jones and Lichtenstein (2008). This was done
by classifying the IOTCs in our sample into four categories, based on
prior collaboration with the current partner organizations – as a proxy
for social embeddedness – and the length of the project duration – as a
proxy for temporal embeddedness. The characteristics of the resulting

four IOTC types partially fitted the Jones and Lichtenstein framework,
particularly regarding the heterogeneity of the involved parent organiza-
tions and intra-IOTC coordination. However, in many other respects this
classification did not result in relatively homogeneous subsets of IOTCs.
For example, there were no significant differences in the main task, the
recurrence of tasks, the number of employees involved, or interorganiza-
tionality. It is clear that much research is still needed to arrive at an IOTC
typology that is both theoretically and empirically valid.
NOTES
1. The survey questionnaire was developed in close cooperation by researchers of Tilburg

University and EIM Business and Policy Research.
2. When referring to members, we mean organizations. Thus, IOTC composition refers to
characteristics of organizations and not people participating in temporary organizations.
3. The results of the logistic regression analysis are available on request from the authors.
4. The results of the logistic regression analysis are available on request from the authors.
5. Kruskal-Wallis Chi Square is 2.303 with two degrees of freedom. Level of significance is
0.316.
6. Significance level of Pearson Chi-square is 0.475.
9. Spearman’s rho is 0.217 with a level of significance of 0.047.
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Temporary Organizations: Prevalence, Logic and Effectiveness

Book · September 2009

Patrick Kenis Martyna Janowicz-Panjaitan

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Teams – both permanent and temporary – are ubiquitous in organizations.

implications of time on the outcomes and performance of organizational

● What is the prevalence of interorganizational temporary collabora-

Table 1.1 Taxonomy of organizational teams

Temporal Product type

we present a number of characteristics of these collaborations mainly by

PROJECT SAMPLE AND DATA CATEGORIZATION

The two main research questions result in two different requirements

Table 1.2 Breakdown of response rate

Number Per cent

Note: *A response occurs, but an interview is not undertaken. Examples include a

In the next two sections of the chapter, we present descriptive statistics on

Table 1.3 Breakdown of the sample by sector

Sectors Number Share (%)

Table 1.4 Breakdown of the sample by size class

Class size (number of employees) Number Share (%)

prevalence of IOTC due to their specific activities. Group composition,

performance of interorganizational temporary collaborations. Category

PREVALENCE OF TEMPORARY COLLABORATION

To what extent do Dutch small and medium-sized firms participate in

Table 1.5 Prevalence of collaboration among all firms with 1–250

Firms with collaboration Number Per cent of Per cent of all

joint temporary collaboration. Since the sample was deliberately designed

Composition of Interorganizational Temporary Collaborations

IOTCs are composed of individual member organizations2 and the skills,

Table 1.6 SMEs participating in IOTCs – industries and size class*

Industry** % Size class ** %

Notes: Size class is expressed in number of employees; **n = 252.

IOTC Parent Organization Characteristics

In this section we focus on the characteristics of the SMEs participating in

Table 1.7 SMEs participating in IOTCs – different age groups

Age of SME in years Percentage of SMEs

at the age distribution of SMEs that participated in IOTCs. By applying

Table 1.8 SMEs participating in IOTCs – sales data by volume

Sales volume in 2005, excluding VAT (€m) Percentage of SMEs

Table 1.9 Motives for joining the IOTC

Note: Multiple responses are possible.

sales volumes. However, because a high percentage of the organizations

Table 1.10 SMEs participating in IOTCs – using intraorganizational

IOTC Size – Human Resources, Financial Resources

The relationships between team size and performance vary. In some

Table 1.11 IOTC size – number of parent organizations

Number of parent Percentage of IOTCs Cumulative percentage of

Table 1.12 Number of parent organizations in IOTCs by sector

Sector Number of parent organizations

Table 1.13 Number of parent organizations in IOTCs by class size

Class size or number of 2 partners 3 partners 4 or more

Table 1.14 IOTC budget from parent organizations

Budget for IOTC Percentage

Industry % Size class %