TEMPORARY COLLABORATIVE NETWORKS AS A MANAGEMENT PROBLEM: A REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17512/znpcz.2026.3.04Keywords:
network governance, project networks, quality management, temporary collaborative networks, temporary organizingAbstract
The aim of this article is to conceptualize Temporary Collaborative Networks (TCNs) as a distinct management problem and to develop a framework for analysing how such networks become actionable under time pressure, distributed authority and incomplete goal clarity. The article treats TCNs as a practical and theoretical puzzle: how actors who do not share one hierarchy can organize joint action before stable routines, authority and trust have time to form. The argument is that time-bounded, multi-actor arrangements cannot be reduced either to temporary organizations, project networks or general collaborative networks, because their central challenge is temporary stabilization: the limited but sufficient stabilization of coordination, roles, goals, knowledge flows and performance criteria before durable routines or settled authority can emerge. The study is based on a systematizing literature review combined with a conceptual synthesis. Searches in Scopus and EBSCOhost identified 296 records. After deduplication, title-abstract screening and selective full-text retrieval, 66 full texts were coded, and 36 publications formed the detailed analytical core. The resulting framework organizes TCNs around 10 dimensions: temporariness, networked multi-actor structure, governance architecture, coordination, goal and value alignment, knowledge integration, quality and performance assurance, adaptive reconfiguration, relational conditions and embeddedness. The article contributes to management studies by showing what has to be stabilized, and what must remain open, for temporary collaboration to become actionable while remaining able to adapt, dissolve or reconfigure.
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