By the People, for the People: Emergence and Spread of the ‘Unconference’ as a New Temporary Organizational Form

New and radically different forms of temporary organisations often have to
attract audiences in organisational fields that are dominated by temporary
organisations that conform to ‘taken-for-granted’ organising template. The
authors argue that adopters of new temporary organisations must contend with
the tensions that arise when audiences compare the new temporary organisational
form to the temporary organisations that conform to the institutionalised
organising template. The authors therefore argue that as new temporary
organisations are introduced into new contexts, organisers often use legitimacy
claims based on novelty in the context where the new temporary organisation
emerged to counter the threat of illegitimacy. However, because the strength
of legitimacy claims based on novelty declines in contexts that are further
removed, organisers will modify the template of a new temporary organisation
in these contexts. The authors examine this using the case of the so called
‘unconferences’: an alternative conference form that emerged within the software
development community at the start of the millennium in conjunction
with the Web 2.0 movement. The authors’ data comprise 228 distinct unconferences
between 2004 – when the unconference was first launched, and 2015.