Purpose: The purpose of this article is to examine how masculinities are reproduced in academic workplace cultures through homosocial and heterosocial relations in the context of neoliberal university reforms.

Design/methodology/approach: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with senior lecturers across two departments of a major social science subject at two Swedish universities. We employ the analytical dimensions of Masculine Contest Cultures (MCC) to analyse gender dynamics within academic settings undergoing managerialist transformation.

Findings: The study identifies patterns of harmonic versus competitive homosociality and homogenous versus fragmented heterosociality. Competitive homosociality emerges when neoliberal performance management systems disrupt traditional academic hierarchies, while harmonic homosociality persists where organisational narratives celebrate men's achievements. Women's responses vary correspondingly through fragmented heterosociality (withdrawal from traditional supportive roles) or homogenous heterosociality (maintaining collective support for men's privileges and advancement).

Research limitations/implications: The study is limited to Swedish universities and senior lecturers. Future research should examine intersectional factors and conduct comparative studies across national contexts and career stages.

Practical implications: Findings suggest that performance management systems can reinforce gender hierarchies when implemented without attention to homosocial and heterosocial dynamics. Universities need to provide better institutional support for middle managers, particularly women, who face contradictory expectations from multiple directions.

Social implications: Understanding academic institutions as sites of masculinity contests offers insights for creating more equitable academic environments and addressing persistent gender inequalities in higher education by recognising the complex dynamics between men's competitive relations and women's varied responses to masculine workplace cultures.

Originality/value: This study contributes to understanding gender dynamics in higher education by developing a nuanced conceptual framework for understanding masculinity contests in academic settings and demonstrating how seemingly similar neoliberal transformations produce different gendered outcomes across institutions through the interplay of homosocial and heterosocial relations.

In male-dominated organisational cultures, women often orient themselves towards men to gain inclusion, a phenomenon known as heterosociality (Lipman-Blumen, 1976; Holgersson, 2013). Drawing on studies of Swedish academic institutions, this paper advances theoretical understanding of heterosociality by identifying four distinct manifestations: first-party (self-imposed discipline), second-party (gifts of work/responsibility to men), third-party (diminishment of other women), and fourth-party (organisational care benefiting men). We demonstrate how these heterosocial practices manifest through assumption of low-status tasks, relational responsibility, meticulous task execution, conflict mediation, and strategic non-action. Our analysis reveals how heterosociality co-creates and maintains homosocial cultures through an 'individuality paradox': men are simultaneously viewed as independent agents and collective norm-setters, while women face contradictory expectations of avoiding gender-based collectivity yet are categorised as a homogeneous, deviant group. This dynamic perpetuates male dominance in academic institutions while devaluing feminine-associated practices.

In homosocial male-dominated organisational cultures, it is usual that women act on heterosocial expectations, i.e., orient themselves towards men in order to be included (Lipman-Blumen, 1976: Holgersson, 2013). As noted by, e.g. Bird (1996), heterosociality is still a concept in need for theoretical development. In this paper, we explore lived experiences of heterosociality in Swedish academic organisational cultures to (1) identify various ways in which heterosociality manifests in organisational cultures, and (2) to conceptualise the consequences of heterosociality for the creation and maintenance of homosocial cultures.Heterosociality affects the establishment and reproduction of homosocial culture, as these two phenomena are fundamentally co-created. Our research reveals several key consequences. Men are consistently positioned as superior and self-evident, embodying the normative ideal in academic professions, while women are constructed as deviants of lesser value. This manifests in men's broader scope of culturally sanctioned actions and expressions, including the ability to advocate for equality without negative repercussions (Armato, 2013). We identify a 'individuality paradox' wherein men are simultaneously viewed as independent agents and collective norm-setters, while women face the contradictory expectation to avoid gender-based collectivity yet are invariably categorised as a homogeneous, deviant group. Furthermore, men's relational patterns –competitive behaviours (Berdahl et al, 2018), 'manhood acts' (Schrock & Schwalbe, 2009), or homosocial brotherhood (Fisher & Kinsey, 2014) – are valorised within the culture. Paradoxically, while heterosocial practices enable this system's maintenance, they are simultaneously devalued due to their feminine associations.

In this article, we explore the multiple facets of academic projectified selves, i.e. how academics relate to the culture of projectification in neoliberal society, crafting themselves and their careers. We focus our inquiry on the highly gendered character of projectified selves and uncover differences in how the subject position of the projectified self is invoked in academic work, as well as the tensions inherent in such identity work. Through a qualitative interview study involving senior lecturers, both women and men, in a social science discipline across five Swedish universities, we identify three variations of the academic projectified self. We find that they navigate tensions between individual liberties and organisational limitations; that they experience recognition as transitory and unreliable; and that attachment to work is often located in ‘micro-spaces’ rather than in work as a whole. The analysis emphasises the vulnerability of the academic projectified self – in constant need of achievements, projects, and reputation-building initiatives – and how projectification perpetuates gendered inequalities. The article concludes with a discussion on how the notion of the projectified self can be employed in future emancipatory project studies.

In this article, we study how meritocratic systems and gender equality concerns are negotiated across different organisational spaces in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Based on a case study of the organising of a tenure track system in a Swedish university, we suggest that the intersection of meritocratic processes and gender equality work can be analysed as a set of negotiated orders in these spaces. This fragmentation may imply problems for advancing gender equality agendas in relation to established notions of meritocracy but may also imply opportunities for change as existing organisational spaces can be reconstructed or new ones created. Our notions of fragmentation and negotiated orders thereby suggest that the current situation is both stable and legitimate and that re-negotiations need to involve reconstructions of the various spaces and not only interventions into them.

Almost 30 years ago, the renowned and well-cited Special Issue (SI) on Temporary Organizations was published in 1995 in the Scandinavian Journal of Management (SJM), which was born in the very first IRNOP, exactly 30 years ago. At the time of publication, the guest editor described the SI as a soul-searching activity in an emergent, but not yet well-established, research field (Lundin, 1995). What united the scholars’ contributions to the SI was their alternative gaze on projects as temporary organizations. This new perspective to studying projects awakened the theoretical and empirical curiosity of scholars mostly with organizational theory and sociological backgrounds, to understand why and how projects, as temporary organizations, differ from classic forms of organizations and organizing, that exist with an intention to survive and prosper over time.

The 30-year milestone opens an opportunity to re-open the questions raised at the time, take stock and reflect again about the soul of temporary organizations in today’s society. After all, in the past 30 years, projects have become mainstream. In practice, projects mushroomed and have become a dominant mode of organizing, both within and between organizations. Project studies, i.e. the study of organizing through projects, has grown and is now a large and legitimate research field, attracting acclaimed scholars. The field has also specialized and developed an ecology of concepts to discern myriad forms of organizing through temporary organizations, such as projectbased organizations, project ecologies, project lineages, etc. The dominance of projects in society accompanied with dramatic changes in society, from advances in information technologies to a growing recognition of eminent threat of planetary collapse. Amidst such fundamental shifts.

With this spirit in mind, this panel discussion aims to awaken Lundin’s early idea about soulsearching reflections on temporary organizations. We thus invite the panel and audience to engage in discussions and reflections in search of the soul of temporary organizations, the past, present and future.