Coping With Institutional Complexity and Voids: An Organization Design Perspective for Transnational Interorganizational Projects

This study investigates how transnational interorganizational projects (IOPs) cope with institutional complexity and voids. A case study of a cross-border gas pipeline suggests the coexistence of institutional complexity and voids that amplify collaboration hazards in developing transnational IOPs. Institutional complexity harms the feasibility of a unified form of organizing, whereas institutional voids sabotage the ability of involved organizations to collaborate in a market-based approach. A hybrid organization featured by modular structure, complementary advantages, and system integrator, was designed to navigate complex institutional environments. This study contributes to the project–organization–institution linkage by depicting the impacts of institutions on project organizing.

Learning from interorganizational projects

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to consolidate the existing research on interorganizational projects and to explore how organizations learn by closely examining multilevel learning, that is, organizational and interorganizational learning.Design/methodology/approachThis article adopts a single case study approach, examining the Islamabad–Rawalpindi Metro project in Pakistan, with data consisting of interview results and archival data. An inductive approach is used for data analysis.FindingsAn empirically grounded learning model was developed based on an interorganizational project following eight lessons: capacity building, personality traits of leadership, working procedures, impeccable planning and implementation, involvement of stakeholders, design compatibility, investigation of underground services, conditions and maintenance of databases, and conceive rational timelines. These lessons learned were classified into three categories: (1) organizational capacity, (2) organizational embeddedness and (3) collective awareness.Originality/valueThis paper develops a novel learning model that can deepen our understanding of the practices and processes involved in multilevel learning. This study contributes to and extends the literature on organizational and interorganizational learning by studying an interorganizational setting.

Mechanisms and Dynamics in the Interplay of Trust and Distrust: Insights from Project-based Collaboration

Trust and distrust are two distinct organizing principles that play a critical role in interorganizational projects where highly interdependent organizations collaborate to build tailor-made and technologically-complex solutions. Whereas an emerging body of research has debated the conceptual distinction between trust and distrust, this paper emphasizes the processual nature of trusting and distrusting and the interplay between them. Drawing upon insights from project-based collaboration in a complex products and systems (CoPS) industry, we explore the distinct cognitive and behavioral mechanisms through which trust and distrust work, and orient firms towards optimism and watchfulness in the interaction. Our findings show that trust and distrust can act both as substitutes and complements through three interconnected dynamics—undermining, enabling and compensating. These dynamics develop and recursively interrelate through interfirm interactions within single projects and in the broader network. We conclude by presenting our contributions to interorganizational trust literature and by proposing that the interplay of trust and distrust can have both positive and negative effects on the pursuit of project-based relationships.

Reframing Systems Integration: A Process Perspective on Projects

The delivery of large-scale technical systems is achieved through project organizing. The concept of systems integration, with its distinct focus on the systems that projects deliver, is theoretically important as projects become more complex and face significant uncertainty. We reframe systems integration in interorganizational projects as a flexible and adaptive process of making constituent parts of systems work together. This process involves boundary-spanning structures and activities to address emergent complexity and uncertainty (that are both technological and organizational in nature). We discuss implications and highlight areas for further research on projects.

Symbiotic Partnerships

This chapter addresses sophisticated organization interactions via symbiotic partnerships. These arrangements are dynamic and high performing, yet organizations maintain their independence and identities as they commit to shared goals and productivity. Both organizations co-brand efforts and take joint ownership, accolades, and responsibility. These arrangements are typically multi-year and have potential for multiple interorganizational projects and initiatives. While philanthropic and transactional partnerships serve as a “courtship” based on attraction, compatibility, and initial interaction, symbiotic partnerships for academy-business relations progress to another plane.

Selecting Organizational Partners for Interorganizational Projects: The Dual but Limited Role of Digital Capabilities in the Construction Industry

The selection of partners is critical for the success of interorganizational projects. Based on conceptual reasoning in light of prior research, as well as illustrative empirical insights into an ongoing interorganizational project in the construction industry, we argue that partner selection practices not only target the organizational capabilities of potential partners but they themselves require an organizational capability to search for, evaluate, and select. This article delineates the facets of this capability, reveals the role of digital capabilities therein, and shows that the respective capabilities are crucial for inclusion and exclusion in interorganizational projects. The results also point to capabilities that emerge at the interorganizational nexus.

Digging for Change

Delivering organizational change through interorganizational projects is a complex process, as several organizations must collaborate. The aim of this article is to understand how change and resistance are shaped in interorganizational projects. This article discusses a longitudinal case study (2012–2016) of an interorganizational project in the utility sector. The findings of the study describe four practices that both enabled and constrained change. The contribution of the article is an extension of our understanding of change and resistance in projects with the introduction of the notion of productive resistance and the notion that employees can be change agents and middle managers can be resisters.