As a consequence of the success of this service in the Netherlands, Boer and Croon signed, in February 1987, a Joint Venture with the Executive Search firm Egon Zehnder International and with the Private Equity fund Euroventures, to start a new business initiative "EIM - Executive Interim Management" which its scope was to spread the Interim Management service around the world thanks to the network international of Egon Zehnder offices.
Since the 1980s, the concept and use of interim managers as a resourcing tool for organisations has received attention from academic researchers and policy makers as well as practitioners.
In 1984, Atkinson postulated the emergence of an organisation design comprising both a core and a peripheral workforce, using differing forms of contractual relationship (flexibility) on an international basis.
[3] Examples of further study include Kalleberg (2000),[4] looking at temporary, contract and part-time work; and Bosch (2004)[5] looking at Western European "employment" relationships.
A good example of interim management benefitting from a geo-political change was its use by the German privatization agency after reunification of East and West, post 1989.
The interim management concept has taken root in the UK, Germany, and Belgium, and is spreading elsewhere, most notably in Australia, the US, France, and Ireland.
INIMA aims to be an International Network of Interim Manager Associations as a nonprofit organization whose partners share common principles, values and a code of conduct.