Abstract
This study explores how the past, present, and future relationships with employees’ home organisations have influenced their ongoing sensemaking of collective identity in a temporary collaboration to which those employees are seconded. Collective identity is critical in temporary organisations. However, how collective identity is constructed across the lifespan of such organisations remains largely unclear. This study examines a unique case of the Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team (SCIRT), a temporary organisation established in the aftermath of the 2011 Canterbury earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand. Drawn on multiple data sources, it finds that employees’ experience of SCIRT collective identity is intertwined with their past, present, and future relations with their home organisation and ongoing interactions within SCIRT via diverse communicative activities. A conceptual model is developed to capture the interplay between social relations and collective identity in temporary organisations like SCIRT. The study contributes to a nuanced understanding of the nexus of temporality, relationality, and collective identity in temporary organisations.
Keywords: collective identity; organisational identity; relationality; temporality; temporary collaboration.
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