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Paper short abstract:

Focusing on how an experimental approach to organizing may pave the way for organizational resilience, we explore opportunities and barriers of experimental organizing by following a concrete social experiment in civil society and discuss its adaptability in traditional organizations. The social experiment is called Civic Desire. The founders explicitly call for new ways of organizing that can develop social sustainability. We discuss how these experiments may create platforms of new unforeseen goals that organizations may choose to follow. In conclusion we argue for organizational resilience through balancing a strategic and anticipatory strategy with experimental setups inspired by civil society organizing initiatives.

Paper long abstract:

In recent years numerous organizing initiatives departing from civil society have paved the way for alternative forms of organizing where experimentations often have been the core premise (Parker et al. 2014). One of the reasons for an experimental approach in these cases could be that organizing principles reflect the purpose and value of the organization, and civil society organizing initiatives often depart from a wish to create different goals, different ways of being together in society and redistribute resources. In their organizational setup these experimental civil society organizing initiatives explicitly wish to create a different platform. The purpose of this paper is not to critically scrutinize traditional organizations for having the wrong goals, but rather to explore how an experimental approach to organizing may pave the way for organizational resilience. We explore opportunities and barriers of experimental organizing by following a concrete social experiment in civil society and discuss its adaptability and meaningfulness in more traditional organizations. The social experiment is called Civic Desire. The founders explicitly call for new ways of organizing that can develop and sustain social sustainability. Through analytical concepts like anticipation, rigid response, tight control in contrast to resilience, flexible control and open output taken from organizational theory and an STS-inspired reading in organization studies we discuss how these experiments may create platforms of new unforeseen aspirations and goals that organizations may choose to follow. In conclusion we argue for organizational resilience through balancing a strategic and anticipatory strategy with experimental setups inspired by civil society organizing initiatives.