Temporariness in appreciative reflection: managing participatory and appreciative, action and reflection projects through temporary organisations

The time dimension has become increasingly important in organisational management studies. Various concepts have been developed: temporary work, temporary systems, projectification and temporary organisations. Many aspects have already been studied; for example, relationship structures, the characteristics of projects that temporary organisations (TOs) intend to implement and develop, legal forms, the different sectors in which TOs have been disseminated, and the degree to which they have been formalised. However, one aspect that has still not been studied in depth is the specificity of their temporariness and the specificities of the organisational, social and learning systems that this encourages. In this paper, we consider a temporary organisation as an organisation composed of teams belonging to two or more non-temporary organisations (NTOs) collaborating to achieve a certain objective and giving themselves a precise structure and roles and a set timescale established ex ante. The paper seeks to answer the following questions: What were the characteristics of the Reflect-OR project, as 'read' through a TO lens? What type of relationships take shape in TOs between the two qualities of persistence and temporariness, and what effects do these have on individual and organisational learning? In what way does the ex ante limited timescale affect participants' empowerment? How does the specificity of the TO affect social processes and the results achievable? What characteristics should a participatory and appreciative, action and reflection (PAAR) TO have, i. e., a TO that helps generate systems of activity within which learning and reflection can be appreciative, democratic, participatory and ethical? What type of project management do TOs require?