Liminality in Management and Organization Studies: Process, Position and Place

Abstract

This paper explores liminality, a concept receiving increased attention in management and organization studies and gaining prominence because of its capacity to capture the interstitial and temporary elements of organizing and work. The authors present a systematic review of the literature on liminality, covering 61 published papers, and undertake a critical analysis of how the concept of liminality has been used in prior research. This review reveals associations with three main themes: process; position; and place. For each theme, the authors identify the central research questions posed, while comparing individual and collective levels of analysis. During this process, the authors revisit several ideas central to the original, anthropological research on liminality, a perspective from which they suggest a rejuvenation of liminality research in management and organization studies. This paper argues for a greater focus on the liminal experience itself – especially its ritual and temporal dimensions – and for improving the comparative analysis of liminality following the three themes identified in this paper. The authors suggest that revising the agenda for liminality research along these lines could facilitate more informed responses to the challenges of an increasingly temporary and dynamic work life.

Full text

International Journal of Management Reviews, Vol. 00, 1–23 (2017)
DOI: 10.1111/ijmr.12168
Liminality in Management and
Organization Studies: Process, Position
and Place
Jonas S¨
oderlund and Elisabeth Borg1
Department of Leadership and Organizational Behavior, BI Norwegian Business School, Norway, and 1Department of
Management and Engineering, Link¨
oping University, Sweden
Corresponding author email: jonas.soderlund@bi.no
This paper explores liminality, a concept receiving increased attention in management
and organization studies and gaining prominence because of its capacity to capture
the interstitial and temporary elements of organizing and work. The authors present
a systematic review of the literature on liminality, covering 61 published papers, and
undertake a critical analysis of how the concept of liminality has been used in prior re-
search. This review reveals associations with three main themes: process; position; and
place. For each theme, the authors identify the central research questions posed, while
comparing individual and collective levels of analysis. During this process, the authors
revisit several ideas central to the original, anthropological research on liminality, a
perspective from which they suggest a rejuvenation of liminality research in manage-
ment and organization studies. This paper argues for a greater focus on the liminal
experience itself – especially its ritual and temporal dimensions – and for improving the
comparative analysis of liminality following the three themes identified in this paper.
The authors suggest that revising the agenda for liminality research along these lines
could facilitate more informed responses to the challenges of an increasingly temporary
and dynamic work life.
Introduction
Much of contemporary work is ‘projectified’,
whereby organizational structures adopt temporary
characteristics, and organizational membership be-
comes associated with project-based and flexible par-
ticipation (Cappelli and Keller 2013; Lundin et al.
2015). Such developments call for scrutiny of the in-
terstitial occurrences and ongoing processes of social-
ization (Bryman et al. 1987) typical of post-modern
organizations and work conditions (Bauman 2000;
Boltanski and Chiapello 2005). Organizational ana-
lysts have argued that there is a need for concepts
and metaphors that better grasp this emerging ‘be-
twixt and between’ veracity: the fluid, the temporary
We acknowledge the constructive comments from the edi-
tor and four anonymous reviewers. This research received
financial support from the Swedish Research Council.
and the ambiguous elements of work and organizing
(Walsh et al. 2006). One concept that has gained much
ground in management and organization studies,
largely because of its ability to capture the essence and
emergence of such realities, is that of ‘liminality’ –
a concept with its roots in anthropology.
In recent years, an increasing and broadened use
of the liminality concept in management and orga-
nization studies has helped further address and ad-
vance various aspects of contemporary organization–
individual dynamics as well as present-day challenges
associated with an increasingly changeful world of
work. Liminality research in management and organi-
zation studies have, inter alia, advanced understand-
ing of the inherent problems and tensions involved
in transitioning from one condition and identity to
another, and the profound challenges and significant
consequences of developing and living with multiple
identities and competing value systems. Research has
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2J. S ¨
oderlund and E. Borg
also identified the central mechanisms that individu-
als rely on to forge new identities and cope with limi-
nal periods and phases in working life. Adding further
to the understanding of individual-level concerns as-
sociated with liminality, recent empirical research has
addressed the competences and skills that individuals
need to develop to cope with liminality at work and
how individuals can learn to live with and take ad-
vantage of their liminality (Barley and Kunda 2004).
However, this broadened use increases the risk
of conceptual confusion and analytical vagueness
(Johnsen and Sorensen 2015; Thomassen 2009),
which calls for regular conceptual developments to
keep pace with the rapid expansion of liminality re-
search (Ibarra and Obodaru 2016). In particular, the
wider application of liminality makes more likely an
intellectual disconnect – from the original anthropo-
logical ideas of liminality – that may hamper further
theoretical progress. Therefore, the main goal of this
paper is to improve understanding of how the concept
of liminality is currently used in the field of man-
agement and organization. This aim motivated our
systematic review of the literature; and, on the basis
of that review, we identify distinct themes in extant
research, discuss problems with the concept’s use in
management and organization studies, and suggest
possible avenues for future research.
A central idea of this paper is its emphasis on the
need to revisit some of the core elements of the origi-
nal and classic anthropological research on liminality.
We focus in particular on the need to analyze more
thoroughly the essence of the liminal experience, the
ritualization of liminal processes, and the temporality
of liminality. Additionally, this paper accords with
early anthropological research on liminality in ar-
guing for the benefit to be gained from developing
a stronger comparative research agenda. Revisiting
these original ideas on liminality renders us better
equipped to grasp the intricacies of modern organiz-
ing and contemporary work life and thus improve
future research on liminality.
The paper is structured as follows. We start
by briefly reviewing the origins of the liminality
concept. Next, we describe our method for reviewing
the literature; this includes presenting the inclusion
and exclusion criteria for the papers sampled. We
then review the selected papers, summarizing them
in terms of three broad themes (process, position and
place) and identifying the main questions addressed
by each theme. After offering a detailed analysis
based on a close reading of early liminality research,
we conclude by proposing a rejuvenated research
agenda for liminality in the field of management and
organization.
Origins of liminality
The word ‘liminality’ derives from the Latin limen,
which roughly translates as threshold. In his book
Les Rites de Passage, van Gennep (1909) reported on
his studies of the ritual behavior and the dynamics
of individual and collective life. He introduced the
concept of liminality when referring to a transition
from one social state to another – for example, in the
ritual initiation of an adolescent to adulthood or in
rituals following seasonal changes.
In his empirical work, van Gennep (1909) identified
a rather specific pattern and ‘ritual form’ (Thomassen
2009, p. 6). The identified passage rites were de-
scribed as associated with three distinct phases. Van
Gennep argued that this sequence was generic and
offered a profound approach to understanding hu-
man experience. First is the ‘separation phase’, dur-
ing which the individual is disjointed ‘from the ev-
eryday flow of activities’ (Turner 1969, p. ix); this
phase typically involves symbols of detachment and
anxiety. Next is the ‘liminal phase’, where the lim-
inality corresponds to a transition over time that is
ambiguous and inherently uncertain for the liminal
subject (whether individual or collective) experienc-
ing the transition. As originally understood, the status
of liminality is imposed on the individual or collective
in conjunction with certain evolutionary and natural
cues. Finally, the ‘incorporation phase’ demarcates
integration leading to a new and relatively stable state
in which obligations and norms differ from those of
the initial state. This generic sequence is illustrated
schematically in Figure 1.
Van Gennep was interested in the evolution of these
stages over time during an individual’s lifetime. For
that reason, his analysis was structured around the
ages and aging of human beings. As pointed out by
Thomassen (2015), a main argument was that the
liminal phase constitutes a uniquely intense period of
development that could yield insights into both past
and future experiences.
Van Gennep’s work became widely known in the
Anglo-Saxon anthropology community with the 1960
translation of Les Rites de Passage (van Gennep 1909,
1960), in the wake of the renewed interest among
British anthropologists in French anthropology
(Belier 1994). It was, however, not until the late 1960s
that British anthropologist Victor Turner discovered
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Liminality in Management and Organization Studies 3
Figure 1. Stages in the rites of passage
the significance and relevance of van Gennep’s work
and began elaborating further on the notion and im-
plications of liminality. Turner (1969) explored how
an individual’s experience and personality are shaped
by liminality as well as the integration of thought
and experience. Turner demonstrated that individu-
als sometimes voluntarily enter a state of liminality
by engaging in a performative act, such as engaging
in non-routine activities or in performing on stage;
in any such activity, the individual adopts behavior
unrestrained by the mundane classifications of every-
day life by ‘suspending ordinary social structures’
(Johnsen and Sorensen 2015, p. 321). Thus, Turner
(1969, p. 95) regarded the liminal subject as ‘betwixt
and between’ conventional and everyday structures –
a societal position in which the individual is not
strictly definable. Turner (1982, p. 24) suggested that
the liminal phase can be viewed as a sort of ‘social
limbo’ that shares few attributes with either the pre-
ceding or the subsequent state, but which is central
to developing a more nuanced understanding of both
states, i.e. where the individual comes from and where
she is heading.
When one considers that the notion of liminal-
ity was ignored by the social sciences for well over
half a century (see Thomassen 2014) for a detailed
analysis) and that many years have passed since
Turner’s discovery of van Gennep’s work, research
on liminality has made quite a remarkable come-
back in recent years, not only in management and
organization studies. For instance, the concept has
been used, though not always critically scrutinized,
by scholars in literature (for example, see Byatt
2012; De Michelis 2012; Zarate 2011), sociology
(Berkowitz 2011; Lahad 2012; Smith 2013), religion
(Junker 2013; Kaltner 1997; Ludlow 2012), political
science (Thomassen 2009), and marketing and con-
sumption (Al-Abdin et al. 2016; Cody and Lawlor
2011; Izak 2015; Noble and Walker 1997; Schouten
1991; Thomsen and Sorensen 2006).
In management and organization studies, the use
of the concept has evolved considerably during the
decade, yet few scholars have engaged in a critical
analysis of its current use and how contemporary
writings on liminality relate to van Gennep’s origi-
nal ideas (for an exception see Johnsen and Sorensen
(2015)). Applications of liminality in this field are
diverse and focus only in part on rites of passage and
their processual features (Ibarra and Obodaru 2016),
aspects that were central to van Gennep’s analysis.
Thus, our key objectives of the present paper may
be listed as follows: (1) identifying the various ways
in which the concept of liminality is used in man-
agement and organization studies, thereby facilitating
meaningful comparisons and contrasts across empir-
ical studies; and (2) offering ideas on how historical
notions of liminality can be revisited and translated
in a contemporary context for analyzing liminality
at work. In the next section, we describe our pro-
cedures, research methods and literature search – in
other words, the groundwork for untangling the ex-
tant contributions on liminality in management and
organization studies.
Methodology
In order to enhance understanding of the prevalence,
meanings and dissemination of the concept and idea
of liminality in management and organization studies,
we performed a systematic review of the published
literature. Our choice of a systematic – rather than
the more traditional narrative – literature review was
motivated by two reasons: to increase transparency
(Tranfield et al. 2003); and to establish a foundation
for the comparative analysis of liminality in empirical
research.
Because our aim was to investigate the prevalence
and applications of a specific concept, the main search
term used was simply ‘liminal*’; we did not search for
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4J. S ¨
oderlund and E. Borg
related terms (e.g. ‘dual commitment’, ‘ambiguity’,
‘rite of passage’) that could be considered synony-
mous or overlapping. We entered ‘liminal*’ into two
international academic search engines, ISI Web of
Science and Scopus, thereby following general rec-
ommendations on systematic literature reviews in the
field of organization and management (M¨
uller-Seitz
2012). Our search in the ISI Web of Science was
limited to social sciences and the field of ‘business
economics’, while our search in Scopus was limited to
social sciences and the field of ‘business, accounting,
and management’. These restrictions were employed
because our objective was to find papers addressing
how liminality is used in organizational and work-
related contexts.
The preliminary search was carried out in January
2015 and yielded 173 unique hits: papers published
between 1983 and 2014. We performed another search
in December 2016 to cover papers published in 2015
and 2016 and to test the persistence over time of
our initial search’s accuracy. We collected a total of
201 papers, after which we systematically narrowed
down this sample by analyzing each paper and eval-
uating its relevance to our review. We deployed a
‘snowball’ approach, tracing citations backwards and
forwards (Greenhalgh and Peacock 2005) by way of
searches via Google Scholar and Web of Science; in
this respect, we followed the procedures used by other
literature reviews (e.g. Berends and Antonocopolou
2015). For these latter searches, we used the same
selection criteria, even though the target papers may
not have been published in the traditional manage-
ment and organization journals covered by our initial
searches.
Our compilation of a credible and trustworthy sam-
ple of papers relied on the following five selection
criteria.
1. We included only peer-reviewed journal articles
in which liminality was a core concept. Thus, we
excluded papers that mentioned ‘liminality’ only
in passing and with no description of its meaning
(cf. Tranfield et al. 2003). We used two coders
to decide whether a given paper treated liminality
as a core concept; disagreements were resolved in
collaboration with a third coder. The next step was
a case-by-case treatment of the papers.
2. We focused on scholarly and peer-reviewed arti-
cles published in well-known international aca-
demic journals in order to ensure that papers in-
cluded in our systematic review were of sufficient
scholarly quality (Bakker 2010).
3. We included only journal articles that described
liminality as being part of organizational life and
work conditions. This criterion excluded papers
that addressed liminality in individuals’ lives with-
out a strong connection to their work; it also ex-
cluded studies of liminality among consumers and
clients (e.g. Cody and Lawlor 2011; Noble and
Walker 1997; Schouten 1991) as well as papers
on education and teaching that did not specifically
relate to either management or organization (e.g.
Mansaray 2006). This criterion also excluded pa-
pers that focused on sociological phenomena at
the governance level – for example, legislation
and institutional movements (e.g. Wydra 2009) –
because these works did not address the organiza-
tional and work-related implications of liminality.
4. We required that papers be written in English;
however, this criterion led to the exclusion of
just one paper. Our motive here was replicabil-
ity: we presumed that English-language accounts
are more easily reviewed by scholars seeking to
assess our study’s quality (M ¨
uller-Seitz 2012).
5. We selected papers that reported empirical stud-
ies or addressed liminality in specific empirical
contexts, such as leadership and learning in or-
ganizations, that were thematically clearly delin-
eated. This criterion, too, was motivated by our
need to maximize the review’s coherence and to
respond to van Gennep’s original ideas on the ex-
perience and contextualized nature of liminality.
We therefore excluded related literature reviews
or narrative analyses of liminality, although those
papers set the stage for our paper and so are used
to frame the discussion.
After scrutinizing the papers from the initial se-
lection phases and then excluding those that did not
meet our five inclusion criteria, 52 journal articles
remained. All papers were examined using a detailed
analysis protocol that was developed and gradually
improved over the course of our research (cf. Jesson
et al. 2011). That protocol included several review
questions for each article; including the paper’s def-
inition of liminality, the subject of inquiry, research
methods, how liminality is used in the paper, and
the specific work roles that the paper associates with
liminality. In this process, we also checked each pa-
per’s reference list to see whether any of those cited
works were overlooked by our initial search. The re-
sult was that nine more papers were added to our
sample, so the review is based on a total sample of
61 papers. The three journals in which a large part of
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Liminality in Management and Organization Studies 5
papers appeared were Human Relations (nine papers),
Management Learning (five papers) and Administra-
tive Science Quarterly (three papers). Interestingly,
and demonstrating the rapid expansion of liminal-
ity research in management and organization studies,
the majority of our sample papers were published in
2008 or after; only ten papers were published before
2008, and as few as two papers were published before
2000.
Following Bakker’s (2010) approach for a targeted
systematic review, we made an initial classification
based on Turner’s (1967) research – in which the au-
thor describes liminality and the liminal process. We
initially identified these themes as ‘transition’, ‘limi-
nar’ and ‘space’. After categorizing our sample papers
in those terms, we read them again towards the end of
confirming, and perhaps refining, our classification.
We discovered in this re-reading that our initial cat-
egorization did not fit squarely with how liminality
was used in our sample papers. Many papers instead
approached the liminal subject as one who holds a
liminal position in working life, and others referred
more broadly to the process of liminality and not any
particular transition; still others, especially among the
more recent studies, discussed liminality with regard
to a particular place or ‘threshold zone’. These obser-
vations led us to adopt, for the purpose of structuring
and analyzing the literature, a revised set of themes:
liminality as process; liminality as position; and lim-
inality as place.
Most of our sample papers focused on just one of
these three themes, though several did bear implica-
tions for one or both of the other themes. A thorough
analysis of the papers allowed us to identify both
their main topics and key contributions to the current
discourse on liminality. We present these findings
next, addressing each theme in turn.
There are two important and noteworthy limita-
tions with the study presented here. First, we only
cover journal articles. There are certainly several
more in-depth accounts of liminality that would have
been included in our sample if we had included other
scholarly outlets, such as books, research reports and
essays. Second, we cover journal articles found pri-
marily in databases in management and organization
studies. Even though we searched in reference lists
and citation analysis for other articles addressing the
contexts of management, organization and work pub-
lished outside conventional management and orga-
nizational journals, we are aware that many impor-
tant contributions in this area might be published in
other journals, such as in sociology, psychology and
anthropology. We hope that future reviews will amend
these shortcomings.
Theme 1: Liminality as process
The papers adopting van Gennep’s traditional ap-
proach to liminality have variously addressed ei-
ther individual change within work-related settings
or change in the organization itself. The main ques-
tions and the most significant contributions are sum-
marized in Table 1.
Individual liminal processes
A core application of the concept of liminality in orga-
nizational contexts has been to describe individuals’
transitioning between different states, situations and
Table 1. Liminality as process: key questions and contributions
Level of
analysis Main research questions Contributions
Individual How are individuals affected by transitioning through liminal
phases at work? How do individuals experience the liminal
phase? How do they develop new identities to face the new
situation? What specific problems and tensions are involved
in transitioning from one state and identity to another? What
mechanisms are individuals relying on to forge new identities
and cope with the liminal phase?
Beech (2011), Conroy and O’Leary-Kelly (2014),
Harter (2014), Ladge et al. (2012), Powley
(2009), Powley and Piderit (2008), Simpson
et al. (2010), Tansley and Tietze (2013)
Collective How are organizational liminal processes managed? What are
the preconditions and processes associated with liminal
transitions and conditions? What mechanisms are important
for organizations to transition through liminal phases? What
role do consultants and other ‘masters of ceremonies’ play in
the transition process? What tensions are involved in such
processes?
Boudreau et al. (2014), Cunha et al. (2010),
Czarniawska and Mazza (2003), Gioia et al.
(2005), Howard-Grenville et al. (2011),
Petriglieri (2015), Wagner et al. (2012)
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6J. S ¨
oderlund and E. Borg
professional identities. Many papers dealing with rites
of passage address the liminal phase as a fundamental
challenge and view it as a process that implies identity
pressure that calls for active identity formation and re-
formation (e.g. Conroy and O’Leary-Kelly 2014). In
other words, undergoing a liminality phase provokes
an identity change needed for adjusting to a new con-
text, normally because of a change in the environ-
ment or the organization. Thus, the liminal phase has
been associated with the reconstruction of identity
(Beech 2011; Ladge et al. 2012) and with identity
work (Tansley and Tietze 2013), whereby the individ-
ual actively constructs and reconstructs a new identity
through a dialogue between context and self.
Studies have addressed how the transition period
may induce individuals to engage in sensemaking
and emotional regulation in order to determine who
they were, who they are, who they are becoming,
and who they would like to become (Conroy and
O’Leary-Kelly 2014). Therefore, research on liminal-
ity as process emphasizes that the liminal experience
is strongly dependent on identity formation (Thurlow
and Mills 2009) and the loss of identity (Conroy and
O’Leary-Kelly 2014) and that – because it interrupts
an ongoing flow of occurrences – the liminal experi-
ence has the capacity to intensify sensemaking pro-
cesses. The liminality process thus actively shapes ar-
ticulated thinking about identity, contemplations that
are not likely to occur otherwise, by engaging actively
with what was and with what is becoming.
As observed in several papers, external events and
testing episodes can impel an individual into a liminal
phase that may have wide-ranging effects on profes-
sional identity, which requires the individual to cope
with the rather nested and challenging transition from
one identity to another and with the pressures emerg-
ing from two contrasting identities (for instance ex-
pert and manager). Research thus contributes to the
understanding of the interaction between an individ-
ual and their social structures at the point of identity
change, putting the focus on the actual and intensive
change process when the individual is in-between two
identity constructions, when they are neither one thing
nor the other.
In a much-cited paper, Beech (2011) addresses the
change of identity as a liminal process involving three
distinct liminal practices in identity work: experimen-
tation; recognition; and reflection. The proposition is
that liminality in identity work can be constituted by
one or more of these practices: experimentation, in
which the individual attempts to actively construct
and envision a new identity; reflection, in which the
individual considers the views of others and ques-
tions the self; and recognition, in which the individ-
ual reacts to an identity that is projected onto them.
He notes that this process often begins with orga-
nizational changes that later essentially induce the
individual to enter a liminal phase, becoming struc-
turally invisible and hence adopting a ‘paradoxical
identity’. This conceptualization provides a way of
focusing on the phase of ‘in-between-ness’ in identity
reconstruction as a dialectic process between identi-
ties and between self and context, and highlights the
process of coping with the psychological dysfunc-
tions of liminality. In that respect, liminality research
has not only identified the specific challenges associ-
ated with identity construction and multiple identities,
but also demonstrated how individuals actively cope
with such challenges.
Other authors have focused on the voluntary
inducements of liminality, suggesting that liminal
phases can be entered by choice – as in the case
of management programs (Tansley and Tietze 2013),
MBA programs (Simpson et al. 2010) and en-
trepreneurial ventures (Henfridsson and Yoo 2014).
These studies address a growing individual aware-
ness of both present and future states, and they ac-
knowledge that the liminal subject recognizes present
limitations and hence engages in a search process
that constitutes the basis for coping with trajectory
shifts. The papers adhering to these ideas point out
that individuals need actively to recognize problems
with present states and explore new ways of form-
ing identities to be able to shape new circumstances.
For instance, Henfridsson and Yoo (2014) address en-
trepreneurial periods where the new possible future
is not fully formed and exists in parallel to the estab-
lished situation. These periods constitute ‘moments
of truth’ for individuals seeking to establish a new
future, demonstrating the value of understanding and
managing these intensive periods well for the creation
of the new future. Their study demonstrates how in-
dividuals deal with liminality to conceive and bring
forth new entrepreneurial trajectories through relying
on three central mechanisms: reflective dissension;
imaginative projection; and eliminatory exploration.
Through these mechanisms, the entrepreneurs are ca-
pable of positioning themselves in the ambiguities
emerging from the past–future tensions involved in
entrepreneurial processes.
In line with van Gennep’s original work, all pa-
pers that address liminality as process at the indi-
vidual level consider liminality to be a temporary
and ambiguous phase that individuals undergo either
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Liminality in Management and Organization Studies 7
by compulsion (Beech 2011), which follows more
strongly van Gennep’s original ideas, or their own
choice (Henfridsson and Yoo 2014; Simpson et al.
2010; Tansley and Tietze 2013), which is more in
line with Turner’s reinterpretation of liminal phases.
Scholars also report dual effects of the liminality pro-
cess: some studies focus on positive effects (e.g. cre-
ativity, reflection and learning), whereas others center
on liminality’s more troublesome implications (e.g.
psychological dysfunctions and paradoxical identi-
ties). In that respect, research has advanced a more
nuanced description of the duality of liminality.
It is noteworthy also that only in the examples of
talent and MBA programs do we see a formal rite of
passage from one stage to the next. Contrast that setup
with the studies of Ladge et al. (2012) and Beech
(2011), where subjects are ‘thrown into’ a liminal
state without any specific rite of passage to help them
become securely incorporated into a new state. Over-
all, these studies underscore the differences that exist
as regards institutionalization of the rituals for guid-
ing an individual through the liminal process (Ibarra
and Obodaru 2016). In that respect, liminality re-
search has demonstrated the significance of differ-
entiating between highly institutionalized liminality
contexts and less institutionalized ones.
In sum, studies addressing the individual level
and the process nature of liminality point out the
importance of analyzing identity formation and re-
formation in periods when multiple identity forma-
tions are ongoing. They focus on the sensemaking as-
pects of the liminal experience and the active phase of
living through such liminal phases. Yet these studies
differ in some important respects, of which the first are
the specific triggers of liminality and of intentions to
enter transitional phases. Second, studies differ with
respect to liminality’s overall postive and negative
framing. Finally, papers in this line of research dif-
fer also in terms of the degree of institutionalization
of the liminality process, especially concerning both
ritualization and the delineation of end states.
Collective liminal processes
Several authors have employed liminality as a means
to address collective-level processes, such as orga-
nizational change processes, especially the transition
from one relatively fixed set of organizational reper-
toires to another (Czarniawska and Mazza 2003) or
the creation of a new organization, and to explore
how organizational members forge a collective iden-
tity during such formative processes (Gioia et al.
2005). In these studies, the liminal state is described
as a period when organizations are somewhat disso-
ciated from ‘typical action [as] governed by struc-
tural norms and roles’ (Howard-Grenville et al. 2011,
p. 4). This transitional period is time-limited yet am-
biguous enough for participants to modify prevailing
collective understandings and social norms (Wagner
et al. 2012). Many of these authors also specify what
actually occurs during the liminal phase, and identify
the mechanisms organizations rely on to cope with
such fluid conditions, and describe how organizations
balance the past and the future when creating a new
organizational reality and collective identity.
In general, organizational change can be described
as transforming from a stable phase to an ambigu-
ous liminal phase and then finally consolidating to a
more stable phase (e.g. Lewin 1947; Weick and Quinn
1999). Research on collective/organizational liminal-
ity highlights the centrality of the collective’s ability
to focus on the middle, highly ambiguous phase – the
in-between – and on how the organization, its mem-
bers and change agents can collectively respond to
and manage this part of the transformation and the
many tensions involved in dealing with the past and
present simultaneously. In many respects, this liter-
ature seems to argue that an explicit focus on the
middle phase is necessary to grasp fully and under-
stand how actors envision the future and how new
organizational conditions are possible to forge col-
lectively and what tensions that are involved in such
processes. The liminal phase thus provides the actors
involved with an understanding of who they were,
why they behaved like they did as a collective, and in
what direction they are currently moving.
We discern that the concept of liminality has en-
couraged scholars to explore the inherent uncertainty
and ambiguity of change, and several studies high-
light the negative outcomes associated with such tran-
sition processes. Here the focus is on the ambiguous
episodes of a prolonged change process, an approach
that renders the liminal phase critical for an overall
understanding of that process. Prior research has ad-
dressed a number of dilemmas that may occur in these
situations. For instance, Cunha et al. (2010) describe
how liminality recurs in organizations in response
to quandaries that arise when internal communities
attempt to reconcile diverse and conflicting norms
and values. In this case, liminality as process implies
the upsetting of standards and procedures that – un-
der normal circumstances – make it possible for col-
lectives to draw on multiple regulatory frameworks
and sources of legitimacy. In that respect, liminality
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8J. S ¨
oderlund and E. Borg
research addressing the collective level has demon-
strated the dynamic that may explain why a collective
would be interested in either prolonging or reduc-
ing the liminal phase’s anticipated duration, and more
generally, what might explain the logics and rationales
inherent in organizational change processes.
Much as in studies keyed to the individual level,
collective-level papers discern both external and in-
ternal cues of the liminal process as well as two types
of consequences: positive (Powley 2009) and nega-
tive (Meira 2014). External cues involve something
exogenous to the organization’s actors; examples in-
clude a crisis (Petriglieri 2015), a major regulatory
change, and external yet powerful stakeholders im-
posing a major initiative whose effects reverberate
throughout the organization (e.g. Powley and Piderit
2008). In the case of internal (endogenous) liminal-
ity, either the individual or the collective decides that
change is necessary and so change efforts are initi-
ated by voluntarily entering an ambiguous and fluid
liminal state. For instance, Howard-Grenville et al.
(2011) suggest that organizational members inten-
tionally rely on three central processes to assist the
organization through the various (liminal) stages of
transitional change: resourcing the everyday as limi-
nal; engaging the liminal; and translating liminal ex-
perience to seed change. Again, we note, although
here at the collective level, how recent liminality re-
search has addressed the specific challenges associ-
ated with the liminal phase, and how collectives cope
with these challenges.
Furthermore, studies differ regarding the extent to
which the liminal process is institutionalized. On this
score, they have addressed differences in the degree of
ritualization while considering both the liminal tran-
sition’s duration and how clearly defined the end state
is. With regard to ritualization of the liminal process,
studies have centered on the role of certain ‘mas-
ters of ceremonies’ (Thomassen 2014). For example,
Czarniawska and Mazza (2003) describe manage-
ment consultants who help clients through a liminal
state by offering stringent rites of passage that must
be passed before the new state can be entered. These
authors point out that consultants operate as exter-
nal actors who are summoned to organize the rites
of passage by incorporating their external expertise
into the client organization. Wagner et al. (2012) sim-
ilarly describe how change is managed by individuals
who are external to the organization that undergoes
the change process, thus serving as a master of cer-
emonies within the ritual. In that respect, liminality
research in the context of organizations has shed light
on the variety of masters of ceremonies involved in
the liminal process, and documented how these might
trigger and shape the liminal experience.
In addition, studies differ concerning the a priori
definition of the end state of the liminal process. In
some studies, no particular end state exists – a circum-
stance that obviously has important implications for
the entire process of liminality. For instance, Meira
(2014) introduces the idea of the ‘liminal organiza-
tion’ when exploring the emergence of new organi-
zational forms. This author investigates a company
that was taken over by its employees; that takeover
established a new precondition for organizing under
which structure and ‘anti-structure’ were in perpet-
ual tension. This observation generally underscores
the importance of the degree of institutionalization
of liminality: a feature that has also been noted in
individual-level studies of liminality.
In sum, studies addressing the process nature of
liminality at the collective level emphasize the impor-
tance of analyzing how collective identities change
(Petriglieri 2015). This research is typically interested
in various types of transgressional events that desta-
bilize identification and that trigger the co-creation
of some means to resolve the ambivalence. A com-
mon element of these papers is an analysis of how
collectives rethink their history and how they make
sense of what is emerging – that the liminal phase
not only provides the actors involved with a sense
of direction, but also a sense of their common past.
Of course, these studies also differ in several re-
spects. First, they focus on different types of limi-
nality cues and consequences (internal or external,
positive or negative). Second, their settings are char-
acterized by varied degrees of institutionalization of
the liminality process (Ibarra and Obodaru 2016) and
by different pre-definitions of the end state (Meira
2014). Third, the studies in this stream of research
differ concerning the role played by consultants and
other types of masters of ceremonies in enacting
organizations to engage in liminal experiences and
providing them with a ritualistic scheme that they
could follow to live through the tensions involved in
these transition processes (Czarniawska and Mazza
2003).
Theme 2: Liminality as position
Many of the sampled papers view certain types of
work-related positions and roles as being profoundly
liminal; that they are neither this nor that, neither A
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Liminality in Management and Organization Studies 9
Table 2. Liminality as position: key questions and contributions
Level of
analysis Main research questions Contributions
Individual How does holding a liminal position betwixt and
between organizations and/or social structures affect
the individual? What type of identity is developed?
How do individuals switch between identities and
positions? What identity problems may arise? What
skills and competences must individuals develop to
cope with their liminal position?
Borg and S¨
oderlund (2014; 2015a,b), Czarniawska and
Mazza (2003), Daly and Armstrong (2016), Daly
et al. (2015), Ellis and Ybema (2010), Garsten (1999),
Guimar˜
aes-Costa and Cunha (2009), Gulbrandsen
(2005), Hawkins and Edwards (2015), Jeyaraj (2004),
Mahadevan (2015), Paton and Hodgson (2016),
Sturdy et al. (2009), Sturdy et al. (2006), Tansley and
Tietze (2013), Tempest and Starkey (2004), Tempest
et al. (2007), Winkler and Mahmood (2015), Ybema
et al., (2011), Zabusky and Barley (1997)
Collective How do organizations in liminal positions operate?
What governance systems are central for such
organizations? How are organizations affected by
involving individuals holding liminal positions? What
should organizations do to benefit from hiring liminal
persons? What problems do such organizations face?
Clegg et al. (2015), Cunha and Cabral-Cardoso (2006),
Meira (2014), Nissim and De Vries (2014), Tempest
and Starkey (2004), Tempest et al. (2007), Wagner
et al. (2012), Zabusky and Barley (1997)
nor B (Ybema et al. 2011). These studies focus on
the subject (the liminar) facing liminality and to a
lesser extent on the transition process itself. Research
along these lines has demonstrated actors’ sense of
being in-between two identity positions for prolonged
periods of time. In that respect, these studies have
addressed liminality as an ‘ongoing state of affairs’
and analyzed how individuals and collectives respond
to conflicting loyalties and contrasting obligations by
switching form one position to the other (Ybema et al.
2011, p. 21).
The papers addressing liminality as position differ
in terms of their primary level of analysis, again be-
tween the individual and collective levels. They simi-
larly differ in their framing of liminality as something
primarily positive or negative. Moreover, recent stud-
ies address differences reflecting positions within vs.
between organizational boundaries. Table 2 gives an
overview of the research questions posed and lists
authors who have contributed to this stream.
Individual liminal positions
Most research addressing individuals in liminal posi-
tions argue that individuals find themselves in posi-
tions of liminality when they operate between collec-
tive contexts, organizational structures, positions or
professional identities. As a consequence, individuals
will need to develop ways in which they can separate
or integrate conflicting requirements emerging from
these distinct value systems (e.g. as both insider and
outsider) (Ybema et al. 2011). In a study that is of-
ten cited in work-related liminality research, Zabusky
and Barley (1997) report that individuals sometimes
develop a unique liminal identity that is both ‘un-
locatable and indefinable’. These authors argue that
holding a liminal position and then developing a lim-
inal professional identity offers the individual more
freedom of movement among different professional
communities; one outcome is that such individuals are
ideally suited to negotiating and integrating knowl-
edge across professional communities and knowledge
domains.
A similar take is presented by Gulbrandsen (2005)
in a study of academic entrepreneurs, where the au-
thor observes positive effects in terms of knowl-
edge breadth and flexibility. Also on a positive
note, Mahadevan (2015) addresses the liminal indi-
vidual’s ability to bridge cross-cultural differences
and demonstrates how a bicultural identity facili-
tates intercultural negotiations through cultural other-
ness and marginality (see also Guimar˜
aes-Costa and
Cunha 2009). Similarly, Borg and S ¨
oderlund (2014)
demonstrate that individuals working in-between or-
ganizations can use a set of ‘liminality practices’ to
cope with their work situation and, in some cases,
develop a distinct ‘liminality competence’ (Borg and
S¨
oderlund 2015a,b), which allow them to benefit from
being betwixt and between. In a slightly different con-
text but with a similar claim, Hawkins and Edwards
(2015) use a liminality framework to address learn-
ing processes. The authors demonstrate that liminality
may convey a transformation of perspective and that
learning is strongly associated with identity work,
which in turn rests upon the individual’s ability to
forge such an identity.
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10 J. S ¨
oderlund and E. Borg
Expanding on the analysis of liminality as position,
although zooming in on its negative consequences,
Jeyaraj (2004) presents a study of technical writers,
and concludes that they are marginalized by the dom-
inant disciplinary communities and thus not accepted
and affiliated with any of them. Similarly, Kirton
(2013) discusses the plight of individuals occupying
a liminal position. In that study, the liminal situation
is between work and family, which leads to a tension
between competing value systems that has profound
implications for individual well-being. These themes
are further explored by Johnsen and Sorensen (2015),
who discuss the paradox of ‘permanent liminality’
and describe how liminality may, over time, lead to
a state that erupts in a crisis, owing to the conflict-
ing requirements and logics of work life and private
life. Even broader is the focus of Daly et al. (2015),
who study the work of private companions and their
unique work-related situation between the formal and
the formal and between the paid and non-paid duties
of work (see also Daly and Armstrong 2016), which
constitutes an ongoing work-related tension shaping
an invisible and precarious work situation.
In a much-cited paper, Garsten (1999) argues that
individuals who are positioned between stable struc-
tures are ‘necessarily ambiguous’, because their po-
sitions do not fit within the established, conventional
and formal classifications. Such positions entail sev-
eral challenges particularly related to the development
of community in the workplace and the forging of a
self-identity. A similar conclusion is drawn by Boland
and Griffin (2015) and Winkler and Mahmood (2015);
each of these studies focuses on a particular type of
liminal position – respectively, job seekers and tem-
porary workers. Boland and Griffin (2015) point out
the tedious and meaningless part of being between
jobs, which have detrimental effects on identity for-
mation. Winkler and Mahmood (2015) study tempo-
rary workers looking for permanent employment and
demonstrate that such workers are viewed as ‘per-
manent newcomers’ and strangers in the workplace,
underscoring the complexity of liminal positions and
the detrimental effects of holding a liminal positon
over time.
Along the same lines, Swart and Kinnie (2014)
discuss the individual’s experience of working across
boundaries, focusing on people engaged in project-
based and network-oriented labor. These authors ex-
plore the properties of working within different types
of networks at the individual level. Conflicting hu-
man resources practices pose challenges for the in-
dividual worker trying to meet various and often
incompatible demands from professional and organi-
zational domains. With a slightly different empirical
focus, Roberts et al. (2014) similarly address the com-
plexities arising from blurred volunteer–practitioner
boundaries as a salient feature of an increasing share
of employment, illuminating some of the inherent
challenges in a growing part of contemporary work
life.
The view of liminality as position implies that the
individual is either ‘identifying with none in particu-
lar and/or many at the same time’ (Ellis and Ybema
2010, p. 300). Most contemporary studies of the limi-
nal persona ignore its temporal and process character.
Instead, liminality is addressed as an institutionalized
and ongoing phenomenon, which implies a specific
form of perpetual liminality (Ybema et al. 2011).
In that respect, these scholars argue that liminality
can be unfolding on a long-term basis if the individ-
ual continues to hold a position between traditional
organizational boundaries (as in the case of the con-
sultant), or outside dominant systems (as in the case
of the job seeker) and professional communities.
Scholars have recently remarked that liminality
might occur not only between, but also within organi-
zational contexts. The latter occurrence is presumed
to become even more likely when organizational
structures have dualistic and heterarchical proper-
ties (e.g. matrix organizations and network organi-
zations). Emphasizing the role of liminality within
organizational boundaries, Swan et al. (2016) identify
the role of coordinators of knowledge-sharing com-
munities within a company. These individuals may
consciously increase the extent of creative agency
allowed. The authors show how particular organiza-
tional forms may be reproduced and renewed through
the creative responses of individual managers. As a
consequence of increasing corporate professionaliza-
tion, Paton and Hodgson (2016) address the situation
of project managers facing two competing profes-
sional logics. The authors show how project managers
attempt either to negotiate the tensions between these
professional logics, or to integrate them in creative
and distinctive ways.
In sum, these studies share an interest in iden-
tity formation and re-formation among individuals
located in-between or outside organizations. They dif-
fer regarding the liminal positions’ potential of facil-
itating the forging of multiple identities or whether
liminality instead deters the possibilities for the for-
mation of a coherent identity. Most notably, some
studies point out the possibilities of individuals to
develop multiple identities and the ability to balance
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Liminality in Management and Organization Studies 11
competing value systems and associated identity pres-
sures. Other studies have a much more pessimistic
view of that ability, stressing the detrimental conse-
quences of being located in a liminal position over
a lengthy period. The studies also differ with re-
gard to the location of liminal positions – that is,
beyond, within or between organizational boundaries
(Swan et al. 2016), and what pressures that emerge
from these different, sometimes competing, value sys-
tems and communities. Furthermore, research differs
concerning whether liminality constitutes primarily a
positive learning experience and that individuals in-
volved in such positions develop unique competences
and skills (Borg and S¨
oderlund 2015b) or, instead, that
liminality is fundamentally detrimental to learning
and performance (Tempest and Starkey 2004), caus-
ing difficulties in nurturing competences and skills
over time (Winkler and Mahmood 2015).
Collective liminal positions
Some of the papers in our sample address the ef-
fects on organizations from hosting people in liminal
positions, and others describe cases in which the or-
ganization itself takes on the liminal position. A few
studies have focused on the challenges for organiza-
tions employing people with liminal positions. These
studies emphasize, inter alia, the resulting difficulties
with employee relationships and how easily those re-
lationships can become distorted (Swart and Kinnie
2014). Research also highlights the problem of exer-
cising control over those who hold liminal positions,
and shows how governmentality becomes problem-
atic in contexts of project-focused and network or-
ganization (Clegg et al. 2015) – that is, situations
that seemingly compel organizations to assume lim-
inal positions. Most notably, Clegg et al. (2015) de-
scribe the variety of measures that organizations can
take to cope with the associated ambiguity and sug-
gest that one of its likely effects is the futile search
for more control that would have counter-productive
effects.
As for the positive effects of hosting liminal work-
ers, it is argued that the organization can thereby im-
prove its innovation capabilities and collective cre-
ative abilities, while simultaneously expanding its
scope of learning. These anticipated results are usu-
ally explained in terms of people finding it easier
to transcend established knowledge boundaries and
thereby contribute to organizational effectiveness and
competitiveness (Garsten 1999; Tempest and Starkey
2004; Wagner et al. 2012; Zabusky and Barley 1997).
However, Tempest and Starkey (2004) point out
that the development and retention of long-term or-
ganizational capabilities could be jeopardized by re-
lying too much on liminal human resources, which
might lead an organization to reduce its support to
liminal workers who are needed to perform important
tasks for the focal organization. The result could be
that the organization becomes distrusted by regular
as well as liminal workers alike, leading to frustra-
tion and inefficiencies. Nissim and De Vries (2014)
emphasize that individuals located in liminal posi-
tions are less inclined to adopt a long-term organiza-
tional perspective, which has a number of negative ef-
fects, such as short-termism and poor integration with
the overall organization, which could jeopardize its
survival.
Some studies show that organizations can be in a
permanent state of tension between structure and anti-
structure. Meira (2014) shows that such organizations
may swing between those two extremes, a contradic-
tory process that amounts to an ongoing challenge.
The author shows how such tension can foster revo-
lutionary thinking and creativity, thereby fostering the
development of idiosyncratic organizational forms
and practices. Cunha and Cabral-Cardoso (2006) fo-
cus on organizations that find themselves positioned
between legality and illegality. These authors identify
organizational contexts in which it is difficult to de-
termine whether certain actions are (or are not) legal.
In such contexts, an ambiguous liminal condition su-
persedes the usual categories, yet may facilitate the
organization’s restructuring.
In sum, all these studies address the organiza-
tional level of liminality as a particular type of in-
between position. For that purpose, they either ad-
dress the organization in its entirety as a driver of
certain collective behaviors or the consequences, for
the organization, of hosting individuals who are in-
between established structures. The former studies
address the nature and problems associated with the
liminal organization on a more permanent basis and
the specific tensions involved for such an organiza-
tion. The latter studies investigate the situation for
organizations employing people holding liminal po-
sitions and is thus in a sense covering a larger spec-
trum of organizations. Studies that address these con-
sequences of employing liminal workers typically
discuss the associated problems (e.g. regarding af-
filiations, conflicts and tensions) and whether such
problems could lead to undesirable or even para-
doxical responses by the organization (Clegg et al.
2015).
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12 J. S ¨
oderlund and E. Borg
Table 3. Liminality as place: key questions and contributions
Level of
analysis Main research questions Contributions
Individual What characterizes individual liminal places? What
mechanisms are important to allow such places to function as
liminal places? What is the purpose of such liminal places?
How do such liminal spaces and places affect individual
learning and work conditions?
Bar-Lev and Vitner (2012), Cliggett (2014),
Daniel and Ellis-Chadwick (2016), Daskalaki
et al., (2016); Di Domenico and Daniel (2014),
Lucas (2014), Page et al. (2014), Parent and
MacIntosh (2013), Shortt (2015), Sturdy et al.
(2006), Werr and Stranneg˚
ard (2014)
Collective What constitutes a liminal place in organizational contexts?
What is the purpose of such liminal places for the
organization and for the collective engaged in the focal
liminal place? What implications do these places have on
innovation, change, and knowledge creation for the
organization and collective involved?
Bar-Lev and Vitner (2012), Edwards (2011),
Johanisova et al. (2013), Johnson et al. (2010),
Parent and MacIntosh (2013), Rao and Dutta
(2012), Sturdy et al. (2006)
Theme 3: Liminality as place
The third theme identified in our review is that of
liminality as place and/or space. We prefer to sim-
plify and speak of it as ‘liminality as place’, although
‘place’ is here viewed broadly – that is, in both its
physical and the mental sense. Research subscribing
to this notion of liminality typically emphasizes phys-
ical (and, though somewhat less so, mental) spaces
created as liminal scenes in which traditional rou-
tines, norms and activities are suspended or renegoti-
ated. Accordingly, studies in this category of research
tend to focus on the spatial dimensions of liminality.
Liminality thus refers to specific zones, and various
types of ‘third places’ (Oldenburg 1989), where ac-
tivities can unfold in a manner that is unconstrained
by conventional norms and traditions.
This theme exhibits the same bifurcation as the
others vis-`
a-vis levels of analysis (individual and col-
lective). The main questions and contributions under
this theme, sorted by these two levels of analysis, are
summarized in Table 3.
Individual liminal places
The primary focus of studies conducted solely at
the individual level is on the spaces where individ-
uals perform work within non-traditional structures
or while navigating among various structures in close
association to work. This includes research on vari-
ous transitory dwelling places such as lifts, corridors
and doorways (Shortt 2015) as well as the translocal-
ity (Daskalaki et al. 2016) of individuals who regu-
larly travel between locations, working in two cities
and developing identities on the move. In several of
these studies, both the materiality and the particular
physical features of liminal places are viewed as crit-
ical aspects (see, for example, Lucas (2014)). Ex-
amples of work in liminal places include commuters
working as they travel to their jobs (Edwards 2011),
entrepreneurs working from home (Di Domenico and
Daniel 2014) and members of a temporary festival
organization moving in and out of physical places
during the co-construction of a liminal place (Lucas
2014). Work in liminal places is also performed by in-
dividuals who participate remotely on virtual teams,
and includes various cases in which traditional organi-
zational boundaries and conventional everyday work
routines are repeatedly challenged (Di Domenico and
Daniel 2014). For instance, Cliggett (2014) focuses
on life and organizing in a buffer zone, which creates
a marginal space where different m´
elanges of individ-
uals come together at different times. In these places,
the individual is neither exiled nor completely secure.
Questions that arise in this research include the
specific nature of these locations, how working from
home affects work relationships, how individuals in
such work situations respond to the dual pressure of
family and work responsibilities (Di Domenico and
Daniel 2014), and how such pressure is affected by
work being performed outside a normal work environ-
ment. Other studies have identified specific organiza-
tional contexts as important for facilitating new ideas
and new thinking. For instance, Werr and Stranneg˚
ard
(2014) study an executive development program in
which participants/managers collaborate with senior
faculty members of a business school. The authors
demonstrate that this program constituted an off-site
space that provided a liminal location where individ-
uals could develop new and relevant knowledge –
mainly because the locational context was a novel
one, which made it easier for them to establish new
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Liminality in Management and Organization Studies 13
roles and undertake learning initiatives that differed
sharply from their regular routine. Similar observa-
tions are presented by Hay and Samra-Fredericks
(2016) and Page et al. (2014). These authors demon-
strate the transformative potential of liminal places
and posit that such locations may encourage cre-
ative thinking as well as increase diversity and cross-
fertilization among disciplines and paradigms. Along
similar lines, Daniel and Ellis-Chadwick (2016) ex-
amine entrepreneurial locations and their capacity to
attract entrepreneurs with particular characteristics
and abilities; they also explore how these physical
locations could be used by individuals seeking to
develop an entrepreneurial lifestyle. The location as
such with its unique properties thus played an im-
portant role when these people embarked on a new
identity and developed a new lifestyle.
In sum, research addressing the nature and con-
sequences of individual liminal places has primarily
emphasized their positive and change-inducing fea-
tures, such as engendering locations and contexts that
might foster learning and creativity. Studies differ re-
garding what sort of combinations are fostered by
such places, as when a commuter is offered a buffer
zone on her way home from work or when an individ-
ual works in a place so different from the everyday
that it triggers new ways of thinking and alternative
behavior. Research has also, to some extent, docu-
mented the marginalized character of these spaces –
that is, as potential free spaces, but with limited ef-
fects on everyday activities, other than affording the
individual with some room for thought and peace of
mind. Instead, those spaces exist in a ‘parallel uni-
verse’ whose primary virtue is to give the individual
somewhere to go when facing highly stressful or, oth-
erwise, mentally challenging circumstances.
Collective liminal places
The papers that address the collective/organizational
level of liminal places generally take one of two ap-
proaches, where the distinction centers on whether
liminal places are established beyond or, instead,
within organizational boundaries.
According to Edwards (2011, p. 306), leaders in
contemporary organizations must pursue more of
their work in various types of liminal organizational
spaces that are ‘outside normality for communities’
and/or in-between normal places. Similarly, Johnson
et al. (2010) argue that liminal places arise when orga-
nizational members as a collective are removed from
everyday work and relocated to another geographical
setting. The removal from normal surroundings can
take various forms that include geographical distance,
changed activities and reduced social formality. In
Johnson et al. (2010, p. 1591), such tactics are em-
ployed to encourage the development of a ‘liturgy’ ca-
pable of inducing people to think and act in ways that
differ significantly from established organizational
routines and practices. The authors study strategic
workshops and ‘away days’, which encourage partic-
ipants to consider issues in a critical and reflective
manner; the goal is to spawn new ideas for guiding an
organization into the future. Sturdy et al. (2006) also
discuss such external liminal places. These authors
address not only geographical places but also spaces
in time: periods when the boundaries between private
and professional spheres are blurred. Their study fo-
cuses on consultants and clients sharing meals, which
the authors describe as a space where ‘the regular
routines of the formal organization are suspended’
(Sturdy et al. 2006, p. 930). Such places and instances
therefore serve to bypass traditional routines and to
encourage some informality and spontaneity. In either
cases, the physical location and the setting are framed
in a way to allow the collective to explore new roles
and interrelationships, howsoever restricted by the or-
ganization’s ordinary protocols.
Some studies focus instead on liminal spaces that
occur internally – that is, within the boundaries of a
focal organization. On this front, Wagner et al. (2012)
view an organization’s own project as a liminal space
and particular type of separate and temporary orga-
nizational scene. In that respect, the studied project
constitutes a learning zone that simultaneously estab-
lishes a learning boundary that may have negative ef-
fects on the success of implementing the output from
the project. A main driver of this self-defeating dy-
namic is that individuals who have not been involved
in the liminal experience itself may resist the newly
developed solution and thereby fail to understand its
contextual qualities. The authors demonstrate that the
actual experience of liminality is an important com-
ponent of the output of the temporary organization.
Bar-Lev and Vitner (2012) describe how an orga-
nizational unit became a liminal space when political
decisions threatened the safety of patients and chaos
pervaded the organization, which was ‘ruled by tur-
bulence and uncertainty’ (Bar-Lev and Vitner 2012,
p. 681); the focal unit became a burden for the prac-
titioners involved, because the organization’s rational
rituals had been suspended. The authors emphasize
that the liminality of this place was an intentional
and collective construction. In contrast, Clark and
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14 J. S ¨
oderlund and E. Borg
Mangham (2004) acknowledge the positive effects of
liminal places; they draw on Turner’s (1969) classic
work when analyzing a ‘corporate theater’ as a limi-
nal space where the individuals in an organization can
come together to reflect on the organization’s values
and performance.
In their study of how the Olympic Games are or-
ganized, Parent and MacIntosh (2013) investigate the
emergence of a culture when stakeholders from dif-
ferent organizations are joined by a common project.
The authors claim that liminal spaces emerge when
people meet to share temporary formal or informal
spaces during which time they have the opportunity
to learn about their various roles, sometimes within
a particular designated and temporary area and other
times outside the formal organization. Along these
same lines, Johanisova et al. (2013) suggest that such
liminal zones provide a shared innovation arena for
businesses and not-for-profit organizations: a place
for breaking new ground, initiating new collabora-
tions, and proposing new ideas that might otherwise
never have seen the light of day.
There is no question that research on liminal places
has addressed a number of contemporary organiza-
tional and managerial challenges, including the in-
crease of work performed at the shared borders of
established structures and work performed while in
transit. Some papers have identified a number of prob-
lems associated with that work, such as the difficulty
of satisfying the demands imposed by two nonaligned
structures. Others have focused on the possibilities
inherent in such exceptional places – given that they
promote organizational freedom and encourage col-
lective creativity (Rao and Dutta 2012). In most of
these studies, liminal places exist beyond everyday
constraints and so have the capacity to liberate partic-
ipants from routine activity. These interstitial spaces
constitute occasions for legitimate performance of
behavior that in normal contexts could, by challeng-
ing established order, undermine the organization’s
functioning.
In sum, in the contributions that subscribe to the
idea of liminality as place at the collective level, its
importance stems from giving rise to new possibilities
for the creation of alternative organizational arenas
(Sturdy et al. 2006), altered power positions (Bar-Lev
and Vitner 2012; Johnson et al. 2010) or cultural
malleability (Parent and MacIntosh 2013). Although
these liminal spaces are removed from traditional
structures of the organizations, they are not presumed
to function in the complete absence of structure;
rather, the spaces are viewed as being ‘colored’ by
organizational structures, even as they allow room
for the creation of novel rituals and the pursuit of new
collective opportunities (Wagner et al. 2012).
Critical analysis and future outlook
As this review indicates, despite some overlap, prior
research exhibits notable differences in terms of types
of inquiry and views toward liminality. Nonetheless,
there remains an evident pattern with regard to three
dominant themes in the treatment of liminality by
management and organization studies: process, posi-
tion and place, which represent different definitions
and meanings of liminality. One can therefore view
these themes as reflecting a particular focus on (re-
spectively) temporal liminality, positional liminality
and spatial liminality. Table 4 summarizes the differ-
ent fields of inquiry identified in our review.
Surprisingly few papers make use of van Gennep’s
more elaborate theoretical ideas; most treat liminality
as an empirical phenomenon or simply use the term
as a label, not as a distinct and elaborate theoretical
construct. To develop an improved and theoretically
informed analysis of liminality, it should be worth-
while to revisit van Gennep’s central ideas regarding
transition as a fact of existence and the importance
of examining not only the ‘living facts’, but also the
ambiguous moments of transitions and the variety of
rituals across different organizational boundaries and
settings. In the following, we therefore highlight four
interrelated cornerstones – in van Gennep’s original
ideas that we believe would foster an improved agenda
of management and organizational research into limi-
nality: (1) the liminal experience; (2) the ritualization
of liminality; (3) the temporality of liminality; and
(4) a comparative approach to research on liminality.
Liminal experience
Central to all scholarly work on liminality is the in-
terest in the liminal experience itself (Thomassen
2009). With its focus on experience, traditional an-
thropological work on liminality emphasizes a rela-
tively strong ‘performative turn’ (Alexander 2004) in
its study of social interaction and organizing, which
also has important implications for how organiza-
tional and work-related research on liminality might
be conducted (Turner 1987). At liminal moments,
there is ambiguity, frustration and chaos that upsets
normal sensemaking (Engwall and Westling 2004)
and established social and professional identities
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Liminality in Management and Organization Studies 15
Table 4. Liminality in management and organization studies: three themes
Theme 1: Liminality as process Theme 2: Liminality as position Theme 3: Liminality as place
Type of
liminality
Temporal liminality (liminality is
associated with a passing,
transitional and temporary
condition)
Positional liminality (liminality is
associated with a particular role and
position, predominantly a fixed
condition beyond or between
organizational boundaries)
Spatial liminality (liminality is
associated with a particular place
or space that is outside normal
contexts, conditions and everyday
routines)
Individual-level
concerns
Individuals going through a process
from one stable situation/structure
to another. The main focus is on
what happens in-between the two
stable states – that is, during the
middle, transitional stage and how
individuals handle the pressure
and tensions from transitioning
among multiple identities. Key
issues include identity formation
and re-formation as well as how
provisional identities are
developed as part of the liminal
experience.
Individuals holding in-between
positions – that is, those (e.g.
consultants and project workers) who
work in-between established structures
and organizational settings. The main
focus is on how such individuals relate
to their dual affiliations and develop
new or alternative identities. Key
issues are the alternative identity and
difficulties of being a liminal persona
as well as developing the competence
to cope with and benefit from their
liminal position.
Individuals working in specific
places, between workplaces, on the
way to work, or working in
non-traditional physical work
contexts. Key issues are the spatial
elements of liminality and the
means by which liminal places
induce individuals to reflect on
everyday structures while also
preparing them to operate in
contexts that have competing
values and institutional logics.
Collective-level
concerns
Organizations transitioning from a
familiar and established
structure/context to a new and
unfamiliar one. The focus is on the
middle stage and on how that
liminal period induces the
collective (organization,
community, team) to grow by
combining knowledge and
understandings of the past with
anticipation of the future.
How organizations hosting liminal
positions are affected by those who are
not bona fide organizational members.
The main focus is on what the holders
of those positions learn, the problems
they face, and how those problems
should be managed and controlled.
Some attention is paid also to the
collective (the liminal organization)
itself being in a liminal position, as
when a particular group or
organization is operating between two
dominant institutional domains and
value systems.
Organizations exploring new
territories and locating activities in
new places outside the ordinary
premises of the organization (e.g.
various activities that are held
off-site). Key issues concern the
function that liminal places have
for the organization as a whole and
the collective (team, project)
involved in terms of producing
alternative social forms, norms
and value systems.
(Ybema et al. 2011), which calls for active and inten-
sive engagement in provisional identities to transcend
continuously changing intertidal zones that exist be-
tween order and disorder (Gell-Mann 1994). Accord-
ing to Szakolczai’s (2009) analysis of van Gennep’s
work, the liminality concept captures an experience
in which, to facilitate a passing through, all limits
are removed, and the very structure of society is
suspended.
It is fair to say that research in organizational con-
texts has not paid enough attention to the nature and
dynamics of the liminal experience: how individuals
view the liminal experience and how it is perceived
when it unfolds and what tensions are involved in
the liminal experience. More attention to the limi-
nal experience is critical given that individuals and
organizations are, to a greater extent, both increas-
ingly changeful, yet simultaneously and somewhat
paradoxically actively seeking out such tensional ex-
periences (Boeve 1999). For instance, a key function
of many innovative, off-site projects is that they al-
low for experimentation and play (Sydow et al. 2004),
thus triggering transcendence and liminal experiences
(Wagner et al. 2012). It follows that an organization
can encourage the emergence of collective liminal ex-
perience by launching such uncertain and inherently
ambiguous ventures that offer organizational mem-
bers the chance to play, yet, simultaneously, force
them to question taken-for-granted structures and
identities, which requires them to envision new struc-
tures, collective identities and alternative realities.
Such collective liminal projects may have the capacity
to intensify the sensory experience (Obstfeld 2012)
and trigger reflexive playfulness to generate nov-
elty and improve self-understanding (March 1991),
as well as shape collective identities and knowledge
(Girard and Stark 2002; Kellogg et al. 2006). The
result would be to shake and reverse social roles, hi-
erarchies, values and established views (Thomassen
2014), which could make collectives better equipped
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16 J. S ¨
oderlund and E. Borg
to handle ongoing tensions and pressures to face com-
peting value systems and requirements to rethink the
current social order.
For the foregoing reasons, we are impelled to ad-
dress how best to introduce liminality into an or-
ganization, how organizations may use self-induced
liminality to drive growth and innovation, and how
organizations use and deal with boundary-breaking
projects that can strain and stretch the collectives and
individuals involved. In short, it is important to un-
derstand how some collective endeavors – such as
certain types of experimental projects – operate as
triggers of liminal experience and also to describe in
detail the type of liminal experience that is fostered
by such undertakings, and more specifically how such
experiences unfold. Moreover, future work on the na-
ture and dynamics of liminal experience should in-
vestigate how individuals cope with organizational
processes that are strongly liminal (e.g. participation
in experimental projects, joining a new and unknown
collective). Of interest then are also the rites of pas-
sage involved in these processes and to establish how
individuals come to view past experiences and former
identities as being valuable for creating knowledge
about future states and for being able to create and
live through such uncertain knowledge creation pro-
cesses. It would thus also be important to further the
understanding of how individuals face the challenge
of simultaneously losing one’s identity and building
a new one to either construct a new context or meet
the new challenges imposed on the individual.
These considerations reveal that the subjective part
of liminality remains an understudied area that mer-
its closer attention (Ibarra and Obodaru 2016). Such
explorations would obviously entail more processual
research, as would be needed for truly grasping what
individuals experience before, during and after the
liminal period. This would certainly call for method-
ologies that are able to capture the unfolding of lim-
inal experience, which needs to go beyond conven-
tional interview techniques and embark on alternative
methodologies that are both more in-depth and more
processual (Walsh et al. 2006), such as ethnographies,
diaries, video recordings and shadowing. Research
thus needs to become as flexible as the workplaces it
studies (Czarniawska and Mazza 2003) in its desire to
grasp the emergence of liminality and how individuals
and collectives live through liminality. This generally
calls for research approaches that are considerably
more liminal, with the ability to grasp ongoing acts
of sensemaking, frustrations, uncertainties, ambigui-
ties and ill-defined end states.
Beyond making deeper qualitative inquiries into
the liminal experience, another worthwhile pursuit
would be to develop stronger quantitative measures
and instruments for the study of liminal experience
(Sankowska and S¨
oderlund 2015). These develop-
ments might include a scale of liminality that could
help researchers to classify liminality in terms of dif-
ferent types (for example, see Ibarra and Obodaru
2016), including temporal, positional and spatial lim-
inality, and could also be used for repeated and longi-
tudinal data collection, which could add further depth
and nuance to the processual and multidimensional
understanding of liminality, mentioned earlier, form-
ing the rationale for a mixed methods approach to
liminality. It is also equally clear that such unveil-
ing of the organized and structuring elements of the
liminal experience will require greater awareness of
the dynamics between individual-level concerns and
collective ones, and more scrutiny of the role played
by ritualization of liminal processes.
Ritualization of liminality
Rituals and ritualization constitute an important part
of the lived experience of liminality. Rituals can be
viewed from many perspectives: as an evolutionary
trait of an individual or a collective; as a specialized
structure with formal qualities and relationships; as
a performance process with its own dynamic system
or action; as an event experienced by a person ei-
ther individually or as part of a collective; and as a
set of operations in social life (Schechner 1987). It
follows that accounting for rituals and the nature of
ritualization are central to exploring life and patterned
collective behavior in general and for understanding
liminality in particular. To van Gennep (1909), the
study of society was meant to ‘show the interaction
of the feelings, concepts and judgments that constitute
individual psychic activity and collective psychic ac-
tivity within a given social group’ (quoted by Belmont
1979, p. 130). In his view, any custom is thus ‘the ex-
pression of a psychic, rational, emotional and social
complex’, and no custom exists on its own; all cus-
toms are organically linked to each other (Thomassen
2014, p. 226).
In van Gennep’s (1909) framing, collective expe-
rience is directed by a specific type of periodicity
and ritualized procedure that have ramifications for
human experience; this periodicity has fairly well-
defined stages as well as critical moments of transi-
tion, forward progress and spans of relative inactivity.
In the anthropological study of liminality, ritual stages
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Liminality in Management and Organization Studies 17
are fundamental to understanding social life, because
‘life itself progresses by oscillations and by stages’
(Belmont 1979, p. 98). Hence, the identification and
acknowledgment of these rhythms stand at the fore of
van Gennep’s social analysis, which also underlines
the importance of discovering the rhythmic elements
of rituals: their timing, duration (and that of limi-
nal phases), sequence and frequency (i.e. how often
the rituals are observed by the individual or within a
collective). In this way, van Gennep’s analysis urges
us to explore the ‘hidden rhythms’ of individual and
collective life (Zerubavel 1981) and discern the ritual
elements of liminality. Most notably, this calls for ex-
aminations of how these rituals emerge and influence
the liminal experience, and how more active and in-
tense periods interrelate and oscillate with less active
periods.
As is evident from our review, only a few empirical
papers pay much attention to rituals and collective
ceremonies, and how they shape and relate to the
liminal experience (Czarniawska and Mazza 2003;
Johnson et al. 2010). Although several papers de-
scribe sequences of actions and other patterned be-
haviors, they offer no explicit analysis of them and
make few connections to anthropological theory (but
see Johnson et al. (2010)). Hence, given the increasing
dynamics of organizing and the fluctuation of organi-
zational membership in many sectors (Guest 2004),
it is reasonable to call for more research into the spe-
cific rituals associated with individual–organizational
life in terms of joining an organization, the processes
and ceremonies that typically (or exclusively) occur
during the liminal phase, and the separation ritu-
als invoked upon leaving an organization. Such re-
search would also give us a better understanding of
the dynamics of liminality, which was central to van
Gennep’s (1909) work and which remains a significant
component of the liminal experience, and equally how
these more permanent and institutionally prescribed
elements of organizing relate to alternative forms of
fluid and temporary organizing.
In the study of contemporary organizational phe-
nomena, it is thus essential to view rituals as more than
simple reflections of social order. Scholars could ben-
efit greatly by acknowledging that the anthropological
approach can yield insights of a more general na-
ture with regard to organizational functioning and the
process and temporality of organizing. Such a study
would be less about rituals per se than a means of
better comprehending the essence of organizational
conditions. Indeed, rituals are obviously relevant to
the organizational level through the effects they have
on the different collectives involved. Examples in-
clude rituals tied to the founding of an organization;
to the development of formal procedures and order
in an organization, and the ongoing life of an organi-
zation; and to, perhaps increasingly, the demise of an
organization. In that regard, the specific temporality
of liminality is worthy of further investigation.
Temporality of liminality
Given van Gennep’s (1909) idea of looking at life
through rituals and as undertaking rites of passages,
a natural topic of analysis is the temporality of
liminality. Recall that several of the papers that
we reviewed address temporary social organization
(projects, programs) and/or temporary participation
in a social organization (temporary workers, project
workers, consultants); this provides further evidence
that accounting for temporality is crucial for a
better understanding of the nature and dynamics of
liminality. Temporary social organization is seen in
specific change initiatives and development programs
(Henfridsson and Yoo 2014, Parent and MacIntosh
2013), and in the various instances of temporary
spaces in organizations (Lucas 2014; Werr and
Stranneg˚
ard 2014). Temporary participation is ex-
emplified by consultants and other contract workers
engaged in temporary assignments (for example,
see Garsten 1999; Winkler and Mahmood 2015) or
arises from job termination (Conroy and O’Leary-
Kelly 2014). In both its collective and individual
incarnations (Miles 1964), temporary organizing
thus tends to follow a structure and sequence similar
to that observed in van Gennep’s (1909) work.
The first stage is one of initiation, which typically
involves forming the organization, clearly defining
boundaries that determine who participates, and
identifying the organization’s purpose (Goodman
and Goodman 1972). The next stage consists of
development and implementation; this stage pro-
ceeds in collaboration with other members of the
organization, follows a pre-established trajectory,
and encounters formal milestones and administrative
procedures – events that provide a ritualized form
to the process of temporary organizing (Lindgren
et al. 2014; Packendorff 1995). Finally, there follows
a stage of re-integration (Johansson et al. 2007)
and dismantling of the organization (Goodman and
Goodman 1976). Temporary organizing is transi-
tional (Lundin and S¨
oderholm 1995) and transient
(Palisi 1970), and normally deadline-pressured
(Gersick 1995; Lindkvist et al. 1998). Indeed, as
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18 J. S ¨
oderlund and E. Borg
seen in the papers covered by our review, temporary
organizing might also unfold beyond pre-existing
boundaries, separated from other parts of the or-
ganization or located in new areas to facilitate the
breaking of traditions and conventions (for example,
see Parent and MacIntosh 2013; Wagner et al. 2012).
Addressing the temporality of liminality thus
seems appropriate as a response to the increasingly
temporary features of organizational life (Bakker
et al. 2016; Burke and Morley 2016; Cappelli and
Keller 2013), which, as several papers in this re-
view point out, is an important backdrop for limi-
nality research within management and organization
studies (e.g. Garsten 1999). For instance, it is now
more often the case that organizations and teams are
designed to last for only a limited and pre-defined
period (Burke and Morley 2016), and that organiza-
tions are explicitly set up to produce high-intensity
experiences (March 1995). Given an acknowledged
life span, each stage of that life features specific
rites and rituals that we must interpret in order to
make sense of just how such organizations evolve
(Lindkvist et al. 1998), and how individuals han-
dle the rhythm of moving in and out of such collec-
tive processes (Ancona and Chong 1996). However,
the temporariness of such processes may take on nu-
merous forms and relate to short-term evens, exten-
sive, periods, or entire epochs (Thomassen 2009),
producing very different and distinct forms of tem-
poralities. It is particularly worthwhile to examine
how liminality differs, depending on the duration of
the change process or rites of passage, and to deter-
mine how shorter periods of liminality differ from
prolonged liminality. This point also highlights, on a
more general level, the need for detailed comparative
research across liminal situations.
A comparative approach to research on liminality
Even as our review indicates that more research is
needed in each of the identified thematic areas and
across levels of analysis (collective and individual),
it also points to the potential value of research that
spans these themes to combine insights from pro-
cess research while exploring liminality in different
types of places. This opportunity is yet another im-
portant revitalization of the original work on limi-
nality among anthropologists – namely, the careful
crafting of comparative analysis. Accordingly, limi-
nality can be best understood by way of meaningful
classifications and the identification of emerging pat-
terns and differences. It would also be instructive to
explore the relationship between process and position,
since this would enhance our knowledge of the lim-
inality processes experienced by individuals and our
understanding of how processes differ, depending on
specific liminal positions – for example, among indi-
viduals undergoing short-term vs. enduring liminality
or among different occupational groups and cultures.
Another comparison would be to specify how, and to
explain why, liminal processes differ across liminal
places and spaces. A third comparative option would
be to explore the relationship between position and
place with regard to different types of liminal posi-
tions and to describe how the experience of liminality
varies across liminal places. In sum, to pursue such
research would require a more robust framing of dif-
ferent types of liminal experiences, liminal processes,
liminal positions and liminal places.
Conclusions
There have been many recent and important advances
in the research on liminality. As this review indicates,
the literature addressing liminality in organizational
and work contexts has developed rapidly in recent
years to develop a more nuanced understanding of
this notion’s multifaceted nature. Prior research has
clearly demonstrated liminality’s potential for captur-
ing contemporary challenges and the complexities of
change and development at work. Yet, there also is a
problematic disconnect from the original, anthropo-
logical research on liminality, which is why we call
for reconsideration of some of these original ideas
in contemporary research on the subject. There is
much to gain from paying closer attention to – and
exploring in greater depth – the four cornerstones of
van Gennep’s (1909) seminal work: the liminal ex-
perience; the ritualization of liminality; its temporal-
ity; and the comparative approach to understanding
liminality.
First, despite the considerable research effort de-
voted to the liminal experience, few studies have as-
sayed a full exploration of the liminal experience as
a pure occasion for sensemaking (Weick 1996). The
raison d’ˆ
etre of such occasions is that they offer a
contrast that triggers reflexivity and learning. This
experience motivates the liminal subject to question
taken-for-granted facts and to explore new realities
with a more open and ‘alternative’ mindset; thus
the liminal experience is a high-intensity event from
which new perspectives can emerge, which leads to
a broader and improved understanding of prevailing
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Liminality in Management and Organization Studies 19
conventions. Second, and also related to the anthropo-
logical approach, is the potential for increased knowl-
edge from studying the rituals and ritualization per se.
Hitherto, there have been only a few empirical stud-
ies of these rituals, their origins, and the extent to
which they have been institutionalized in the con-
text of organization and work (Ibarra and Obodaru
2016). The focus of that research is less on the rites
themselves and more on what they signify and their
relative positions within ceremonial wholes (i.e. their
order in the process). It is therefore crucial to ex-
amine rites of separation, of transition and of incor-
poration as well as their respective roles and vigor
in the ongoing creation of collective and individual
identity. This task is especially important if we are to
grasp the dynamic unfolding of liminal experience –
because every development and movement is associ-
ated with a threshold, and to cross that threshold is ‘to
unite oneself with the new world’ (van Gennep 1909,
p. 20). Hence, we believe it is essential to integrate
the individual and collective levels of analysis toward
the end of delivering an improved account of how
concerns at the individual level are tied to those at the
collective level.
Third, our review underscores the importance of
more thoroughly investigating the temporality of lim-
inality. We argue that there is a fundamental problem
when research addressing the permanence of liminal-
ity fails to detect the ritual order often associated with
it. An individual who is permanently in one phase is
unable to engage fully in the liminal experience. Thus,
we establish the need to highlight the intentional tem-
porariness of the liminal experience if liminality is
to play a meaningful role in our understanding of
learning and life in a changeful society. Finally, we
demonstrated the value of elaborating a comparative
research agenda under which different types, progres-
sions and contexts of liminality can be explored more
rigorously. The distinctions made here with regard
to liminality as process, position and place should
serve well as a framework on which to flesh out that
agenda.
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