Dictionary

zombie organization en · NOUN

Meanings

1. A poorly-run, moribund, or outdated organization, especially one that cannot accomplish any meaningful goals.
   • The WTO will not dissolve in a series of spectacular events, dramatic conflicts and withdrawals. Instead, it will slowly die out, or turn into a "zombie” organization. 2019, Michal Parizek, Negotiations in the World Trade Organization:
   • Actually, only sixteen of them were visibly operating, and if that fact got out, susceptible Generous Givers might think the DDD was a zombie organization, and quit giving. 1943, Sinclair Lewis, Gideon Planish, page 361:
   • Instead, the university is a husk, an empty vessel, a zombie organization. 2020, Tara Brabazon, Tiffany Lyndall-Knight, Natalie Hills, The Creative PhD: Challenges, Opportunities, Reflection:
   • But now these zombie organizations — and you likely work in one — operate in an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world. 2017, Gordon Vala-Webb, Building Smarter Organizations:
   • Within a few short years, RCAP had become a shell of itself, a zombie organization feasting on small federal and private funds to hold off death. 2023, Marvin T. Chiles, The Struggle for Change:
   • Scholars argue that if an "institution's secretariat does not attract talented staff, it is more likely to die" or become a "zombie organization." 2021, Maria Ivanova, The Untold Story of the World's Leading Environmental Institution, page 128:
   • Even if there are low fundraising and administrative costs in a philanthropic venture, imagine what happens if the project never gets off the ground, closes down quickly, or exists in a zombie state (a zombie organization is one that is still registered and maintains its NGO status but does not function in any meaningful way) and never results in the long-term surfing lessons to underprivileged children. 2021, Kirk Bowman, Jon Wilcox, Reimagining Global Philanthropy:
2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see zombie, organization.; an organization of or about zombies.
   • The question as to what drives zombie organization has been fiercely debated. 2009, Alison Pullen, Carl Rhodes, Bits of Organization, page 186:
   • Zombie organizations are notorious for launching and dying at lightning pace. But unlike zombies, dead zombie organizations don't rise again. 2011, Matt Mogk, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Zombies, page 270:

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