Organizational Forming: Re(dis)covering Hybridization

The topic of organizational form has gained increased attention in the scholarly literature over the past couple of decades or so. Scholars have identified the emergence and evolution of new organizational forms as a critical issue to be addressed. The increased interest and relevance of this topic is often portrayed as ‘new times’ driving the need for new forms, however, what is more evident in the literature is that the need for new ways of looking at organizational form has yet to be addressed. In general, it is my argument that the problem of “organizational form” cannot be addressed by following extant analytical approaches because such approaches focus on purification at the expense of translation and hybridization. Through the contributions of Latour’s (1993) amodern thesis and actor-network theory, then, my paper demonstrates the possibilities to look beyond the limitations of modernist ways of thinking, while still addressing the concerns in the literature with regard to process, history and new ways of theorizing and studying organizational form(ing), in so doing maintaining an opening toward organizational forming in organizational theorizing and research.