Openness as an organizing principle—emphasizing transparency, inclusion, and distributed decision rights—has been reshaping governance structures and challenging traditional hierarchies. While open organizational forms are valued in stable environments, their effectiveness in unstable or crisis contexts remains uncertain. Drawing on a qualitative case study of a Dutch mortgage advisory firm, we examine how its holacracy-inspired approach to open organizing aligns with the demands of the firm’s liquidity crisis. Our findings suggest that while decentralized decision-making and radical transparency provide a strong foundation for collectively addressing the crisis, financial distress requires a temporary shift to centralized authority. We propose a model of enablers and mechanisms that align transparency and decentralization with the demands of such critical contexts, highlighting the adaptation of radical transparency through shared interpretation mechanisms and demonstrating temporary centralization as another desirable mechanism rather than a failure of holacratic structures. By this, our research advocates for a nuanced conceptualization of transparency that includes individuals’ interpretation of information and positions decentralization as a dynamic, role-based process. Ultimately, our study contributes to the open organizing literature by advancing the understanding of how openness can effectively navigate financial distress.
