The Institutional Character of the International Space Station: Modularity and Iridescence

Paola Castano, University of Exeter

The International Space station (ISS) is a multi-jurisdictional institution that covers diverse areas of action like international cooperation, scientific research, technological development, educational inspiration, and commercial profit. Through the organizational lens, the ISS could be conceptualized as a hybrid organization (Billis 2010), a megaproject with managerial challenges (Flyvbjerg 2003), and as a set of institutional logics in contradiction and tension (Lounsbury et al. 2012). From these perspectives, modularity in organizational structure would appear as a tactical solution. In this paper, I want to challenge the organizational approach to show that, instead of a managerial strategy, modularity is an ongoing process without a predetermined plan or outcome. It is a continuous state of potentiality where heterogeneous elements (material infrastructures, frameworks of justification, meanings, and practices) come together and become contingently compatible via certain docking points. There is both a fragility and a resilience to this dynamic. Fragility in the sense that it can break from any point given the varying strength of linkages, but also resilience because it can survive by adding or removing pieces. Building on this processual characterization of modularity, in this paper I introduce a more general conceptual framework for what I call iridescent institutions testing it in contexts of fragility and resilience.

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 Presented in Session 29. Conceptualizing Institutional Stabilization