Some Suggestions about the Transitory-Permanence Dimension of Organizations

The literature about organizations focuses on those of the permanent variety and tends to ignore temporary or transitory associations of either the voluntary or non-voluntary type. The main purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of 'transitory organizations' and to suggest some differences between transitory and more permanent organizations.' The ideas presented were engendered by some observations made by the author while participating in a conference on race relations. A subsequent review of the literature uncovered very few attempts to deal with transitoriness of organizations. However, the ideas presented are based upon the available literature as well as personal observations.