Explains how social collectives (such as Anonymous) gain "organizationality" despite their fluidity

What is it about?

Internet and digital technology gave rise to new forms of organizing. One such example is Anonymous, a radically decentralized collective of hacker activists ("hacktivists") that engage in online and offline activism ("operations"). Seemingly, anyone can join Anonymous by attributing the label "Anonymous" to her or his actions. But if anyone can speak on behalf of Anonymous, who cannot speak on behalf of Anonymous? And what can we learn about organizing in fluidity from an extreme case were even members do not now each others individual identity? We investigate these questions by taking an in-depth look at hacker operations, where the attribution to Anonymous was disputed and challenged. Our findings show how some actors are able to at least temporarilly draw a boundary by deliberately and laboriously "staging" speech acts such as a live-broadcasted on-air website hack.

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Why is it important?

Our study of the Anonymous case allows to derive insights on how to manage organizational fluidity - for example, in the course of radical change such as mergers & acquisitions. As our study shows, maintaining an organizational identity and boundary around an organizational phenomenon that is rather loose and fluid depends nvery much on (public) identity claims and how they are performed.