Abstract
Contemporary disruptions often last months or years, not days or weeks, requiring bureaucratic organizations that provide consistency and continuity. However, bureaucracies are typically rigid and inferior to temporary organizations in terms of flexibility in dealing with disruptions. Conversely, temporary organizations lack the continuity needed during prolonged disruptions. We learned about this poorly understood puzzle during our case study of Sweden’s defense administration’s military response to the greyzone between peace and war following Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Longitudinal data reveal how managerial hierarchies select internal trustees based on the trustees knowledge of local contexts and how the trustees reactivate former employees, chosen for their professional expertise, as external trustees to mobilize local resources. These trustees collectively engage in a liminal process of strategizing through familiarity that makes a bureaucracy flexible during prolonged disruptions, blending transparency with secrecy. This discovery challenges extant research that underestimates the ability of bureaucracies to become flexible during disruptions. As a basis for further theory development, we propose a “liminal strategizing through familiarity” model that is socio-culturally rooted among internal and external trustees. Our pre-theory reintroduces flexible bureaucracy, assigning familiarity with a new strategic role for continuity during prolonged disruptions.