Word.ws English Dictionary

zombie organization

zombie organization noun: a poorly-run, moribund, or outdated organization, especially one that cannot accomplish any meaningful goals.

Noun

zombie organization (plural zombie organizations)

  1. A poorly-run, moribund, or outdated organization, especially one that cannot accomplish any meaningful goals.
    • 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
    • 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
  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

Examples of zombie organization in a sentence

  • 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:
  • 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:
  • 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:

Forms of zombie organization

pluralzombie organizations

Questions about zombie organization

What does zombie organization mean?
Zombie organization means a poorly-run, moribund, or outdated organization, especially one that cannot accomplish any meaningful goals.
How do you use zombie organization in a sentence?
Instead, the university is a husk, an empty vessel, a zombie organization.
What part of speech is zombie organization?
Zombie organization is a noun.
What is the plural of zombie organization?
The plural of zombie organization is zombie organizations.

Words near zombie organization in the dictionary

  1. zombie masters
  2. zombie mortgage
  3. zombie mortgages
  4. zombie network
  5. zombie networks
  6. zombie organization
  7. zombie organizations
  8. zombie out
  9. zombie path
  10. zombie paths
  11. zombie process

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: zombie organization (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “zombie organization.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/zombie_organization. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.