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13:01
Temporary organizations and strategy – an Exploration
Steinthorsson, Runolfur Smari
University of Iceland, School of Business, Reykjavik, Iceland
The theoretical field of project management and temporary
organization has developed considerably in the last decade
or two. The literature has expanded and the field is now
more comprehensible and accessible than before. Temporary
organizing has indeed become a well known and frequently
used approach in the structuring organisations, although
it has not made redundant the more conventional forms.
The aim of this paper is still not to go into details with the
strengths or weaknesses of temporary organizing as a structural
phenomenon, but to explore what needs to be considered and
understood about temporary organizing and projects when
considered in terms of strategy and strategizing. What is known
about strategies of projects and temporary organizations and to
what extent can projects and temporary organization be seen
as strategic instruments. The connection between strategy and
organization is well accepted and each one as been explained
in metaphorical terms as either the left food or the right food
in a journey to a destination, one comes after the other and it is
difficult to say in what order. The research question is therefore
what is known about this relationship between temporary
organization and strategy. Strategy generally outlines what is
to be achieved and how, where, with what, for whom, when
and why. Organization is generally understood as the way
strategy is implemented or realized. As strategizing somewhat
combines strategy and organizing, the main curiosity in this
paper is to explore and discuss this phenomenon of strategizing
in temporary settings. Is there anything that could be seen as
temporary strategizing and what value could such a conception
bring to the study of temporary organizations.
13:02
Strategies within public organization projects
Sara, Brorström
Gothenburg University, School of Public Administration,
Gothenburg, Sweden
Big projects in local governments are often criticised for being
risky and uncertain when it comes to expected incomes, costs
and future use. They are also criticized since they often take
longer to establish than expected (Flyvbjerg et. al 2002). Even
so, the projects are carried through based on vague motives
e.g. that the projects will create ’identity’ that will attract
visitors, investments and new citizens. Thus, what makes a
local government stand out in contrast to others is difficult to
determine in advance. The paper discusses explanations to why
the projects get established after long planning processes due
to the vague motives and how actors use different strategies
to carry them through within the project organization. The
paper is based on a case study of three local government
projects that took place in the western part of Sweden; a
shopping mall, a tourist establishment and a yearly culture
event. A starting point is that part of the explanation to why
the projects get established lies within the organization of
the projects, i.e. temporary organizations that occur around
the specific task (e.g. Lundin and Söderholm 1995). The
theoretical contribution is to consolidate theory of temporary
organizations with public sector projects and critically take
power, politics and strategies into consider as part of the
everyday experience within projects in public organizations.
The paper concludes that local government managers use
different strategies to establish the projects and to rationalize
decisions they already made. This is done in hindsight
through creation of new plans, visions and strategies within
the organizations where the projects have got an important
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future role. This is also a way for the managers to argue that
the projects are successful and effects, found retrospectively,
are used as motives for the projects and to initiate new ones.
Therefore projects within public organizations lead to more
projects. But even thought this indicates a ‘justification of
power’ (Flyvbjerg 1998) the study showed that it gets practical
meaning within the organisations, since the local government
managers had to react to the changes they initiated. The study
also showed that the projects organizational form, after some
time, changed as a way to rationalize the projects and to make
them easier to manage.
13:03
The establishment of legitimacy under conditions of
complexity: the case of the international project
Aaltonen, Kirsi 1 ; Saarnikko, Juuso 2
1 Aalto University School of Science and Engineering, Industrial
Engineering and Management, Espoo, Finland; 2 Aalto
University School of Science, Industrial Engineering and
Management, Espoo, Finland
Literature on large projects asserts that legitimacy is a central
resource on which projects are dependent for survival and
that legitimacy should be strategically managed throughout
the project lifecycle. The issue of legitimacy management,
however, is particularly complex in the context of international
projects that cross national boundaries and involve a
host of stakeholders and institutional environments, each
with their own operating procedures, rules and norms. In
such fragmented project environments, the multiplicity of
legitimacy dynamics requires skillful employment of legitimacy
management strategies.
Legitimacy management refers to techniques that ensure that
the project is perceived as desirable, proper and appropriate
within its cultural context, i.e. is socially accepted. Despite the
central role that legitimacy plays in large project success, only
scant attention has been devoted to empirically identifying
and describing managerial techniques that are used for gaining
project legitimacy. By drawing from stakeholder and legitimacy
theory, this study addresses the process of building legitimacy
in the context of an international project. Through an empirical
case study of a unique and contested natural gas pipeline
project Nord Stream (from Russia to Germany), we identify
and describe different strategies that were employed to build
the project’s legitimacy during the preparation phase of the
project. The rich empirical data for the case study is drawn
from public sources.
The results of the study increase our knowledge of the
use of legitimation strategies in projects with fragmented
institutional environments. Based on the empirical analysis,
various legitimation techniques, ranging from more passive
conformance to more active selection and manipulation
strategies, are identified. The involvement of former high-level
politicians from affected countries, systematic engagement of
salient external stakeholders and the change of the originally
planned route of the pipeline serve as examples of the project’s
legitimacy enhancing efforts. The results of the case study also
reveal how the employed legitimation strategies were skillfully
tailored to fit the institutional logic of each affected country.
13:04
The Constitutional Council in Iceland as a temporary
organization
Ólafsson, Snjólfur
University of Icelands, School of Business, Reykjavik, Iceland
In November 2010 an election for a special Constitutional
Assembly was held in Iceland when 25 persons were elected.
The purpose of the Constitutional Assembly was to review