Project-Based Organizations, Embeddedness and Repositories of Knowledge: Editorial

Abstract

Project-based organizations refer to a variety of organizational forms that involve the creation of temporary systems for the performance of project tasks (Lundin and Söderholm 1995; DeFillippi 2002). Project-based organizations have received increasing attention in recent years as an emerging organizational form to integrate diverse and specialized intellectual resources and expertise (DeFillippi and Arthur 1998; Hobday 2000; Gann and Salter 2000; Keegan and Turner 2002; Lindkvist 2004). Recent interest in the emerging knowledge economy has reinforced the view that project organizations in their many varieties are a fast and flexible mode of organizing knowledge resources. Project-based organizations can circumvent traditional barriers to organizational change and innovation, since each project is presented as a temporary, relatively short-lived, phenomenon. As such, it does not pose the same threat to vested interests as would the creation of a permanent new department or division. Moreover, project-based organizations allow for low-cost experiments. Because of their limited duration, project-based organizations do not constitute irreversible resource commitments of fixed costs. Hence, companies and other types of organization may launch a variety of ventures through project-based organizations and may terminate unsuccessful ventures at low cost and little disturbance to the organizational sponsor (DeFillippi 2002). Project-based organizations are found in a wide range of industries. These include consulting and professional services (e.g. accounting, advertising, architectural design, law, management consulting, public relations), cultural industries (e.g. fashion, film-making, video games, publishing), high technology (e.g. software, computer hardware, multimedia), and complex products and systems (e.g. construction, transportation, telecommunications, infrastructure). For many of these industries, project-based organizations are employed to meet the highly differentiated and customized nature of demand, where clients frequently negotiate and interact with project organizers over the ofteninnovative design of products and services (Hobday 1998). However, firms in all types of industries are undertaking projects as a growing part of their operations even while their primary 'productive' activity might be volume-based or operations-oriented (e.g. Midler 1995; Keegan and Turner 2002). Hobday (2000) refers to these as project-led organizations and

Inside service-intensive projects: Analyzing inbuilt tensions

“…This tendency relates to the classic question on the precedence of structure or agency in shaping human behavior (Battilan et al, 2009;DiMaggio, 1983;Weik, 2011). Indeed, Sydow et al, (2004Sydow et al, ( : 1476 argued that one recurring dilemma or tension within project-based organizations is "between the autonomy requirements of project participants and their embeddedness within organizational and interorganizational settings". The authors explain that actors in a temporary system tend to draw or 'borrow' rules and practices from other, more permanent systems.…”

“…Given the temporary nature of projects (Defillippi and Arthur 1998;Lundin and Söderholm, 1995;Packendorff, 1995;Turner and Müller, 2003) and their high turnover for specialized, organizationally distributed professions and occupations (Bresnen and Marshall, 2011;Hobday, 2000), establishing resilient social structures within a project is challenging (e.g., Sydow et al, 2004). Indeed, project-based organizations tend to suffer from 'organizational amnesia' (Grabher, 2004) or minor 'organizational memory' (DeFillippi and Arthur, 1998), which refers to the one-off, non-recurring nature of project activities.…”

“…Project management and other occupations seek to learn from previous solutions and apply that knowledge to the forthcoming problems in a 'bottom-up' fashion (e.g., Hodgson andMuzio, 2011, Suchman, 1995). In other words, their role is to overcome typical problems in a project business so that wheel -in the organization, in the network or in the field -would not be reinvented over and over again (Sydow et al, 2004(Sydow et al, : 1481. These managers (project managers, sales managers, or account managers) are largely required for the commercial aspects of the projects (Hodgson and Muzio, 2011;DeFillippi and Arthur, 1998).…”

Explicating the dynamics of project capabilities

“…Learning and capability building is possible in standalone inter-organisational projects if participants form a network of enduring relationships established by working together on previous projects. When collaboration is repeated across projects, the trust established among the parties involved can form a repository of project capabilities that can be retrieved when participants work together on subsequent projects (Sydow et al, 2004;Manning and Sydow, 2011).…”

An Intelligent Hot-Desking Model Based on Occupancy Sensor Data and Its Potential for Social Impact

“…Nature of work [18], which in the case of a very large staff group, could be derived from a system, where keywords for the type and project of work could be requested from individuals for a given day or calendar period. This element will enable workgroups of individuals with similar subjects and possibly similar goals to be formed which is proven to lead in greater productivity.…”