Purpose and Organisation Studies: On the Limits to Organisational Repurposing

ABSTRACT The repurposing agenda has become a dominant narrative in contemporary organisation studies, urging firms, universities and public institutions to align their operations with global challenges such as climate change, inequality, and democratic decay. While often framed as an ethical imperative, this article questions the implicit assumption that organisational purpose can and should be expanded without limit. We identify four prevailing conceptions of purpose—ranging from shareholder value to constructivist openness—and analyse their structural implications through the lens of functional differentiation. We argue that as repurposing advocacy shifts expectations from monofunctional to multifunctional organisational structures, it risks abetting systemic incoherence and legitimacy erosion—a condition we call purpose overload. To address this, we introduce the concept of stop conditions : systemic thresholds that help organisations recognise when further purpose integration compromises their structural viability. We also develop the idea of a fiscal paradox: If for‐profit organisations comply with political and other institutional pressures to fully internalise nonprofit purposes, they may reasonably claim the fiscal treatment of nonprofits, thereby undermining the tax base of the very public actors that advocate repurposing. Together, these insights call for a more differentiated, limit‐aware approach to organisational transformation—one that recognises when the pursuit of more purpose becomes self‐defeating.