Project teams and temporary organizing Sub-theme 37: Studying Project-based Organizing through a Temporal Lens 30th EGOS Colloquium: Reimagining, Rethinking, Reshaping: Organizational Scholarship in Unsettled Times July 3–5, 2014, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, The Netherlands How project teams cope with temporary organizing: The role of boundary management strategies. Lucia Garcia-Lorenzo Social Psychology Department, London School of Economics l.garcia@lse.ac.uk & Isidora Kourti Regents University, London kourtii@regents.ac.uk Abstract Using material from three longitudinal qualitative studies into the social psychological processes surrounding inter-organizational project team work; this paper explores the insights gained from conceptualizing boundary management as the strategy that enables project teams to manage the multiple identities generated by temporary organizing while pursuing project work. The empirical material illustrates how during project work physical and psychosocial boundaries are (de)activated to both separate the project team from other stakeholders as well as to enable inter(actions) and ‘contamination’. The secondary qualitative analysis of a total of 81 in-depth interviews, 36 observations of team meetings as well as organizational documents indicate that boundary management strategies enable project teams to integrate into stable organizational structures as a way to regulate their activities while at the same time allowing them to separate to respond flexibly and innovate. The tension between separation and integration through boundary management strategies needs to be maintained rather than resolved if project teams are to accomplish project work in temporary working environments. Key words: project teams, boundary (de)activation and management, organizational identity, inclusion and exclusion processes