Temporary Organizations Research Articles

Use of leader–member exchange theory to promote the project governance of construction project contractors

PurposeIn temporary construction project organizations, general contractors need to strengthen control over subcontractors through such measures as supervision and coordination, and resource sharing. In the management process, the good implementation of relational contracts among the general contractor and subcontractors is affected by the quality of relationship between managers and followers. From the perspective of leader–member exchange (LMX) theory, this study explores the influence of LMX, which reflects the quality of relationship between superiors and subordinates, on relational contracts.Design/methodology/approachBy combining the longitudinal influence mechanism and organizational background of relational contracts in project organizations, this study constructed a multi-level structural equation model. The hypothesis is tested based on data collected from 213 respondents.FindingsThe findings of this study show that LMX has a positive influence on relational contracts and organizational identification in construction project organizations. Organizational identification has a positive effect on relational contracts and plays a mediating role between LMX and relational contracts. Power distance plays a moderating role on the influence of LMX on organizational identification.Originality/valueThis study explores the influence of LMX on relational contracts from a new perspective, which can help establish a high-quality relation of the general contractor and subcontractors in project organizations and enriches the longitudinal study of relational contracts in project organizations.

Effective Organizing on the Fly: Social Capital in Temporary Organizations

ABSTRACT When mass collaborations face situations that are not readily resolvable, just like traditional organizations, they need to form task forces to address these complicated problems. Referred to as temporary organizations, small, task-focused, time-bound, agile groups, these task forces exist in organizations and corporations to address situations outside of existing procedures. Temporary organizations can be created in online platforms, like mass collaborations, to serve a similar purpose, as existing policies and procedures cannot address all situations that arise during collaboration. Given that mass collaborations are people-driven, informal, and voluntary, this study explores the impact of the dimensions of social capital on the success of online temporary organizations, exploring its structural, relational, and cognitive aspects. We suggest that participants’ access to social capital and their willingness to exercise it lead to a greater likelihood of success.

Social labs as temporary intermediary learning organizations to help implement complex normative policies. The case of Responsible Research and Innovation in European science governance

PurposeThis study aims to discuss science governance in Europe and the network of associated nonprofit institutions. The authors posit that this network, which comprises both (partial) learning organizations and non-learning organizations, has been observed to postpone taking up “responsibility” as an issue in science governance and funding decisions.Design/methodology/approachThis paper discusses the challenge of learning and policy implementation within the European science governance system. By exploring how learning on responsible innovation (RI) in this governance system can be provoked, it addresses the question how Senge’s insights in organizational learning can clarify discourses on and practices of RI and responsibility in research. This study explores the potential of a new organizational form, that of Social Labs, to support learning on Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) in standing governance organizations.FindingsThis study concludes that Social Labs are a suitable format for enacting the five disciplines as identified by Senge, and a Social Lab may turn into a learning organization, be it a temporary one. Responsibility in research and innovation is conducive for learning in the setting of a Social Lab, and Social Labs act as intermediary organizations, which not merely pass on information among actors but also actively give substantive shape to what they convey from a practice-informed, normative orientation.Research limitations/implicationsThis empirical work on RRI-oriented Social Labs therefore suggests that Social Lab–oriented temporary, intermediary learning organizations present a promising form for implementing complex normative policies in a networked, nonhierarchical governance setting.Practical implicationsBased on this research funding and governance organizations in research, policy-makers in other domains may take up and create such intermediary organizations to aid learning in (science) governance.Social implicationsThis research suggests that RRI-oriented Social Labs present a promising form for implementing complex normative policies, thus integrate learning on and by responsible practices in various governance settings.Originality/valueEuropean science governance is characterized by a network of partial Learning Organization (LOs) and Non-Learning Organization (nLOs) who postpone decision-making on topics around “responsibility” and “solving societal challenges” or delegate authority to reviewers and individual actors, filtering possibilities for collaborative transformation toward RRI. social lab (SLs) are spaces that can address social problems or social challenges in an open, action-oriented and creative manner. As such, they may function as temporary, intermediary LOs bringing together diverse actors from a specific context to work on and learn about issues of science and society where standing organizations avoid doing so. Taken together, SLs may offer temporary organizational structures and spaces to move beyond top-down exercise of power or lack of real change to more open, deliberative and creative forms of sociopolitical coordination between multiple actors cutting across realms of state, practitioners of research and innovation and civil society. By taking the role of temporary LOs, they may support existing research and innovation organizations and research governance to become more flexible and adaptive.

Investigating staff capabilities to make projects resilient: A systematic literature review and future directions

Projects are increasingly confronted with uncertainties and unexpected events, which necessitate having capabilities to build resilience to cope with such events. Yet, the understanding of staff capabilities to make projects resilient remains limited. The study employed Templier and Paré's (2015) six-step instructions for conducting an SLR to close the gap. A data sample of 283 articles was systematically analyzed to filter 97 relevant articles for content analysis, yielding three-fold findings. First, much work has been done on the project manager's competences and skills, followed by projects and project team management. But literature is largely silent on how those competencies can make projects resilient. Second, there is a conceptual overlap among various types of competencies (e.g., behavioral and cognitive), which transcends in understanding of capabilities for project resilience as well. Third, to systemize knowledge development, capabilities literature should be categorized along four dimensions, i.e., project manager, team, staff, and projects (projects are regarded as temporary organizations as per definition in Appendix 1). Then, the capabilities along these dimensions can be classified from behavioral, cognitive, and functional/technical/managerial aspects to overcome the conceptual overlaps and develop strategies to make projects resilient. Academically, the study has: 1) developed a classification scheme to examine staff capabilities for project resilience, and 2) identified six areas of future research agenda, e.g., inter-disciplinary effects of project staff capabilities on resilience.

Towards Effective Temporary Organizing in Crises: A Tale of a Control Command in Responding to COVID-19 in China

Control commands established by Chinese local governments to tackle COVID-19 proved effective in containing its spread nationwide. The primary interest in this contribution is to uncover the mechanism underlying the effectiveness of a control command established by Qingdao municipality in managing COVID-19. We conclude that the combination of five conditions, namely, task immersion, qualified team members, flexible organizing, high swift trust, and high operational representation, is sufficient to result in effective temporary organizing. Our study contributes to the policy and governance literature through adding building blocks to the explanation regarding the effectiveness of temporary organizations in managing crises.

Исследование причин нежелания работать в организациях проектного типа и их влияния на успех проекта

The goal of this article is to raise interest to the problem of identifying the reasons for unwillingness to work in project-type organizations. The article addresses the following issues: whether there are employees in projects, program and portfolio who do not want to work in such type of the organizations initially (before being involved in the project), or perhaps unwillingness to participate/work in some projects has appeared during execution of some project processes. Reasons, or the vital necessity due to which such kind of category of personnel is in the temporary project organization are considered, for example: availability, or lack of project management standards, financial needs, there is no other work for this period, etc. Also, in this article we make an attempt to determine what is the percentage of employees in projects who has the necessity to work in projects for any reasons; does this part of employees negatively impact the success of projects and, as a consequence, on the programs and portfolios. So, the main focus of this work is directed to those category of employees who do not want to participate in project sphere and the impact of the personnel group on processes, elements and results of any project.

What (specifically) differentiates the successful and unsuccessful systems delivery projects (SDPs)

PurposeAgainst the backdrop of management, planning, temporary organizations, Shannon–Weaver theory of communication and evaluation theories, the purpose of this research paper is to examine the relative importance of specific project management tasks in the various phases of system delivery projects in distinguishing successful and unsuccessful projects.Design/methodology/approachA survey method was used (N = 3,129) to collect data from the customers of a major systems delivery project management company operating in the facilities management industry. Logistic regression was used to analyze the capability and relative importance of the tasks in discriminating successful and unsuccessful projects.FindingsThe results of the paper indicate that three out four installation tasks were among the top three in their ability to differentiate the successful and unsuccessful systems delivery project. Especially critical tasks were “Meeting milestones” and “Allocation of appropriate resources” so that the project could be completed on-time. Relatively less important tasks were “Advice and suggestions regarding the development of specifications for the project” and “Proposal to meet the intent of the company’s specifications” in the proposal phase of the project, and “Resolving warranty issues as defined by the warranty process” in the commissioning phase.Originality/valuePrevious research has assessed the importance of the various project management phases. This research examines the capability of the more minutiae tasks to distinguish the successful and unsuccessful projects in the various phases of systems delivery projects, i.e. proposal, installation and commissioning.

Network Governance for Interorganizational Temporary Organizations: A Systematic Literature Review and Research Agenda

Governance of interorganizational networks for joint project execution has become a popular research theme in recent years. However, little is known about how the knowledge in this field is structured and how to further develop it based on the given structure. This systematic literature review identifies three main categories of literature in this field: design of network governance, network performance, and theory in network governance. Each of these categories is further divided into subcategories, which are assessed for the timely development and current state of knowledge. This provides the foundation for the development of a research agenda, which includes configurational understanding of network governance design, governing for temporary organizing particularities, and level-crossing theoretical development.

How temporary organisations manage flexibility in times of crises? Experiences of a Chinese control command in response to COVID‐19

AbstractCoordination of the response to the COVID‐19 crisis may be understood as the multimonth management of a temporary organisation instead of classical crisis management. A key question is how to maintain operational flexibility, that is, an organisation's ability to adapt its day‐to‐day functions to accommodate a changing environment. This contribution describes how a control command established by a Chinese municipality in response to COVID‐19 tried to cope with the problems at hand. Based partially upon participatory observation the following aspects are considered: shifting political attention, adapting interaction frequency, changing organisational structures, improvising routines, and altering priorities.

Investigating the business intelligence capabilities’ and network learning effect on the data mining for start-up's function

In recent years, Startups are new concepts in the tech world and are meant to be temporary organizations designed to find a repeatable, scalable business model, while offering a new solution to the problem. What matters most about the success of startups is the right and reasonable targeting. This is something that is usually overlooked by a large percentage of such businesses, causing them to fail within a short period of time. Production of new product or service delivery is not possible without planning. The purpose of this study is to look deeper into how startups should identify and prioritize issues and problems when launching a new product or service. First, startups and subject-related businesses reviewed and then novel and emerging issues, including the status of data mining on startups' performance, the topics of Business Intelligence (BI), innovation and networked learning, and also their role in startups business discussed. Results showed that BI can provide a competitive advantage to startups. With this in mind, these businesses may adapt to the diverse needs of customers in the market and continue to survive, as well as gain greater market share over their competitors. Further, employing technology tools helps companies make their data available seamlessly or securely and by analyzing it, giving managers a better way of making decisions. According to the hypotheses, it was found that BI as a powerful tool in the field of information technology, creates a competitive advantage and it is necessary for start-up managers to accept this tool.

Public administration and politics meet turbulence: The search for robust governance responses

Public administration and politics meet turbulence: The search for robust governance responses

Trade union project-based revitalization strategies in Central and Eastern Europe: The Case of Slovenia and Estonia

This article studies trade union revitalization within broader trends of projectification that marks a shift towards project work and its temporary organization. It accordingly compares instances of project-based organizational restructuring in post-crisis Estonia and Slovenia in order to identify their drivers, power resources employed and their outcomes and wider impact. In both countries, project-based organizational restructuring was driven by proactive activists capable of innovatively utilizing available power resources and new opportunity structures that had opened up with EU integration. While Slovenian unions utilized a more diverse set of power resources and revitalization strategies, activists in both countries stimulated trade union project-based organizational restructuring in order to initiate and sustain their main, context specific, revitalization strategies. Findings also show that project-based organizational restructuring can be an interim phase for unions to increase their resources and use them to turn their revitalization strategies into more permanent ones.

Understanding Reintegration Phenomenon in Temporary Organizations: A Grounded Theory Study

The demand for success in the use of temporary organizations (TOs) within the functional hierarchies of permanent organizations (POs) requires serious attention in addressing tensions that emerge at the interface of the two organizations. Reintegration of the project workers back into their functional role in the PO after temporary project completion is one of these tensions. Although recently the experience of individual employees has received escalating interest in management research, studies dealing with reintegration phenomenon are scarce. This Grounded Theory study explores how the project workers of TOs experience their reintegration into the PO and resumption of their ordinary positions upon project completion and why they can have (un)successful reintegration experiences. The main result of this study is the empirically grounded identification of behavioral and contextual factors that affect reintegration. The theory is strengthened by providing a conceptual model that delineates how the project workers enact their reintegration by utilizing their behavioral resources and reflexivity and adaptability in interaction with the contextual factors. The model provides a theoretical basis for future empirical research on TOs as well as practical implications for practitioners and companies.

From Legitimation to Failure: The Downfall of a Temporary Hybrid Organizing in Smart City Project

Organizational hybridity refers to operating in a context of institutional plurality due to a combination of multiple, often conflicting elements of institutional logic. To be successful, organizations must develop strategies to combine logic and sustain their hybrid forms. Success, however, is not inevitable. The simultaneous pursuit of dissimilar and oftentimes conflicting logics causes hybrid arrangements to experience divergent pressures from various stakeholders and, in many cases, fail. This study illustrates that hybridity failure is not always the reverse of succeeding. Instead, failure may occur through a complex trajectory of de-settlement. Utilizing archival data, we empirically examine Toronto's new Quayside smart city projects as the case of temporary organizing in which a public-private partnership between Waterfront Toronto (public) and Google's affiliate Sidewalk Labs organization (private) has been failed. Drawing on an in-depth field study, we develop a framework to track distinct hybridity trajectories, including complementary, separation and contestation trajectories that all together led to the hybridity failure. We reveal mechanisms associated with each trajectory and show how the pathway led to the hybridity failure.

Negotiating and Sustaining Temporary Organizing Through Affective Practices

Negotiating and Sustaining Temporary Organizing Through Affective Practices

Ряд причин нежелания работать в организациях проектного типа

Reviewing a body of work presents unique opportunities for making a theoretical contribution. Review articles can make readers think theoretically differently about a given problematic field. The purpose of this editorial is to propose to continue further study of the described problem. The topic of the theoretical article is whether employees are in projects, program and portfolio who do not want to work in such type of the organizations initially (before being involved in the project), or perhaps unwillingness to participate/work in some projects has appeared during execution of any project processes. Causes/reasons, or the vital necessity due to which the such kind of category of personnel is in the temporary organization, for example: availability, or lack of project management standards, financial needs, there is no other work for this period, etc. What is the percentage of employees in projects has the necessity to work in projects for any reasons. Does this percentage of employees negatively impact the success of projects and like the consequence on the programs and portfolios? It is important to note that the strict focus of this work is directed significantly to those category of employees who do not want to be / work in project sphere and the impact of the personnel group on processes, elements and results as an any projects as more larger organizations.

The Robben Island Diversity Experience: It's about the Journey, Not the RIDE.

The Robben Island diversity experience (RIDE), a conference using a group relations training model, was held annually from 2000 to 2013, (with RIDE not taking place in 2004). During RIDE, underlying, unconscious, and covert South African diversity dynamics are studied as they manifest among managers and officials in the fields of change, diversity management, transformation, and human resources management. The participants (staff and membership) of the conference collectively form a temporary organisation in which they explore unconscious dynamics and processes as they relate to dealing with diversity challenges. A qualitative, analytic auto-ethnographic research approach was used to elicit data. The data consisted of different sets of process notes compiled during my involvement in RIDE (2000 to 2014). Thematic analysis was used to analyse and interpret the data to allow insights into diversity dynamics. The findings suggest that in the early events RIDE citizens displayed a preoccupation with race which was expressed through attempts to re-organise the race hierarchy in the unconscious, and the need to form good-enough relationships with old enemies through searching for the absent white-man. In more recent years it became evident that groups are reluctant to explore differences of organisational position and socio-economic status in racial sameness. The experimentation with leadership within and across race groups and gender was a preoccupation of members in a more recent RIDE. Further, the marginalisation of women, through the intersection between diversity characteristics, also became apparent. It seems that through RIDE as a container, the consultants as containers, and the willingness of the participants to engage with their diversity challenges, more diversity dynamics have become accessible to the RIDE citizens. This understanding of diversity dynamics can be used in South African and international organisations by researchers, consultants, and managers to enhance their understanding of diversity dynamics in organisations and inform the nature of the different diversity management initiatives implemented in these organisations.

Toward a non‐organizational theory of human resource management? A complex adaptive systems perspective on the human resource management ecosystem in (con)temporary organizing

AbstractThe emergence of the temporary organization has ushered in a new logic of organizing accompanied by paradigm‐shifting challenges with respect to how the evolving nature of work, workers, and collective effort are to be understood. To capture the complexity inherent in this new order, and to broaden our focus from the organization to the enfolding ecosystem within which temporary organizing must be situated and understood, we engage in problematization to develop a multi‐level framework for theorizing the contemporary human resource management ecosystem. Curating insights from complexity science, we conceptualize this ecosystem as a complex adaptive one and we propose a framework that integrates key structural (open boundaries and relational constitution), emergent (contextual and complex causality), and temporal (dynamic and adaptive) properties. To deepen lines of inquiry around these defining elements, we advance a series of propositions for testing, and we outline a range of theoretical, methodological, and practical implications that arise from our work.

Construction System Failures: Frame Notation of Project Pathogens and their Propagation Across Time and System Hierarchy

AbstractA construction system is an organizational and technological system that produces buildings or civil engineering structures for human use by fabricating and installing materials into an integrated structure according to design specifications. Failures of such construction systems materialize in various forms, including defective design, rework, and dysfunctional building systems. Frequent accidents and building defects in the construction sector clearly indicate that our society still needs to improve the safety of construction systems. Research studies on how major accidents and minor defects occur are often conducted in isolation by different researchers, and existing system safety concepts and frameworks are not necessarily suited to handling the dynamic nature of temporary multiple organizations (TMOs)—a feature that characterizes the uniqueness of construction projects. We need a framework that can better describe failures specific to construction, and capture the wide spectrum of these failures. Here, we build on concepts from system safety research to develop a graphical notation with “frames” and system hierarchy as the main components to illustrate how pathogens are generated and propagated by defective processes and end up embedded in the physical structure.

The Megaproject-based Firm: Building programme management capability to deliver megaprojects

The rapid growth in demand for large-scale infrastructure around the world calls for a new type of organisation, which we label the Megaproject-based Firm (MBF). We conceptualise the MBF as a core permanent entity that delivers multiple megaprojects with partners in project networks, in several large temporary organisations crossing the boundaries of the firm. We use 78 interviews to identify how the learning within and between these megaprojects has enabled the firm to build programme management capabilities over time. Our results show that adaptability, flexibility, and the design of the roles and responsibilities between clients and delivery partners are critical ingredients of programme management. Megaprojects should be delivered through a collaborative relationship with clients, not for clients. The involvement in a series of megaprojects in parallel and sequentially offers a new type of project capability building challenge for firms, adding to the literature on project-based firms and project capabilities.