Crafting and developing alternative organizations: temporal work and ideology in social movements

This dissertation investigates the emergence and evolution of alternative organizational forms within social movement contexts. Alternative organizations arise in juxtaposition to dominant organizational models, embodying specific values and practices. Social movements play a critical role in creating and diffusing these alternative organizational forms, as they establish a shared system of meanings that legitimizes and promotes these new templates. Two empirical studies aim to illuminate this process, particularly focusing on a key challenge faced by alternative organizations: their reliance on future expectations. The empirical analysis centers on the Platform Cooperativism movement, which seeks to promote democracy and equality in the digital economy through the establishment of alternative digital platforms. Data were collected from transcripts of video recordings of the movement's conferences and analyzed using a combination of computational and manual text analysis techniques. Firstly, one study examines how social movements collectively craft these alternatives. This investigation reveals that actors engage in various forms of temporal work – the interpretation of past, present, and future scenarios – to shape both the perceived desirability and feasibility of alternative organizations. These efforts serve the double objective of mobilizing support for action and defining the characteristics of the proposed alternatives. Secondly, the other study explores the evolution of the collective system of meanings that underpins the movement as the advocated alternatives begin to materialize. Findings illustrate that, at its inception, the movement had a solid ideological traction, aimed at defining its values, identity, and objectives. However, over time, this ideological emphasis gives way to a more practical orientation focused on grappling with the challenges of implementing the proposed alternative structures and practices. Overall, these insights enhance our understanding of the processes by which social movements develop alternative organizational structures, thus paving the way for further research at the intersection of social movements and organizational studies.