Liminality competence: An interpretative study of mobile project workers’ conception of liminality at work

Elisabeth Borg · Jonas Söderlund

76 citations0/0 files storedManagement Learning

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Innovative Education and Learning Practices Work-Family Balance Challenges Management and Organizational Studies

Abstract

This study focuses on individuals working under transient and mobile conditions and the specific competences that they develop to deal with such work conditions. The article examines a specific type of knowledge worker, namely, the mobile project worker who is employed by a technical consultancy but who performs work on various client projects together with members from client organizations. The overall aim of this article is to improve our understanding of the differences among people’s abilities to handle fluid and flexible work conditions. We elaborate on the notion of “liminality” to denote a particular element of flexible work conditions, which consists of continuous movement among assignments and of simultaneous engagement with several organizations. Based on qualitative and interpretative research involving a combination of interviews, diaries, and workshops, this article identifies three levels of specific “liminality competence” that mobile project workers develop to deal with liminality at work.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 76 citations exist upstream.

References

1984Research in Organizational Behavior 1975Beyond boredom and anxiety 1961The Rites Of Passage 2002Diary Methods: Capturing Life as it is Lived 1999The corrosion of character: the personal consequences of work in the new capitalism 2000The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism 1983From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play 2000The project-based organisation: an ideal form for managing complex products and systems?

Cited by

2017Project studies: What it is, where it is going 2017Identity Work and Organizational Identification 2017Liminality in Management and Organization Studies: Process, Position and Place 2019The negative consequences of knowledge hiding in NPD project teams: The roles of project work attributes 2017Liminal Entrepreneuring: The Creative Practices of Nascent Necessity Entrepreneurs 2015Liminal roles as a source of creative agency in management: The case of knowledge-sharing communities

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.