Chapter 2 - Managing the unknown: exploration project management and its impact for organizational studies

Unitas multiplex: l’unité de, dans la diversité.
La Méthode: La Nature de la nature, Edgar Morin

In the previous chapter we have exposed models of ambidexterity. We have insisted on the role of ambidexterity and how it would rely of adaptive and interactive processes. Both of these play with an agent-based and socio-organizational views of the firm to sustain organizational learning. They contribute to the balancing of exploration/exploitation by offering room for generative processes.

Generativity, an engine of innovation, will shift the performance frontier of exploration and exploitation. The adaptation relies more on the constructs of exploration/exploitation and a linear perspective of innovation. Whereas, the interactionism brings a networking perspective whilst stressing the emergent nature of generative processes through creation of meaning and sensemaking. Both place a different emphasis on decision-making organizing collective action in the firm. However, as we stressed the invasive role of the unknown through innovation management, the assumption of separating and balancing exploration vs. exploitation may be shattered.

In this chapter, we propose to tackle another action mode where the unknown occupies a key place. It is less linear or distributed that the previous models of ambidexterity. Seen from the firm level and system level, it is encapsulated. We will consider the literature on project management through the lens of researchers who rethink project management as practice reveals new challenges (Svejvig and Andersen 2015) which also lead to critical management studies (Cicmil and Hodgson 2006).

Projects are seen as appropriate devices to cope with turbulent environments (Ekstedt et al. 1999), they can also stimulate learning and creativity to support complex products development (Hobday 2000), and the project-based organization is regarded as efficient for information sharing and knowledge management (Silver 2000; DeFillippi 2001). It is even more important to deal with the notion of projects as they have been institutionalized extensively in firms through the Project Management Institute and the Project Management Book along with certification for practitioners. Overall, it makes of project management a stimulating candidate to perform ambidexterity.

Our concern is what happens when these projects and its management try to shape the unknown, specially because it has this encapsulated mode of dealing with exploitation and exploration. We are then more inclined at looking at the adaptive mode of project management rather than optimizing models for projects (Davies, Manning, and Söderlund 2018). However, we still see how the fields of innovation and project management could be cross fertilized at little further at the light of generative processes and managing the unknown.

Exploration project management, radical innovation and corporate entrepreneurship

It is largely established that institutionalized project management comes with a certain faith in instrumental rationality, objectivity, reductionism and expectations of universal validity (Ika and Hodgson 2014; Cicmil and Hodgson 2006, 1182). Traditional projects are framed, needs and requirements are captured into objectives allowing to breakdown the project into work packages and tasks. Usually, these are mirrored by an organization (work breakdown organization). Gates track the progress against criteria agreed upon from the beginning or by mimicry in-between them. The strongest assumption is that the course of action is driven by risk management (risk registers) and uncertainty reduction towards the objective. Change control boards are used to deal with several uncertainties or additional demands.

However, most of choices and states of nature are known and usually uncertain. It is largely the case of (new) product development process. Several fallacies are known already (Thomke and Reinertsen 2012) revealing some of the dangerous rational myths behind project management (Boxenbaum and Jonsson 2017). Of course, several add-ons were made to the traditional project management methodology (waterfall model): scrum and agility (Takeuchi and Nonaka 1986) or diamond approach to deal with contingency, novelty and complexity (Shenhar and Dvir 2007). As several schools of thoughts (Söderlund 2011) can be found in project management, we propose to focus our discussion on the tension with innovation management. We will tend to fit with this line of thought as it considers the association of strategic management with the launch of exploration project by firms. In other words, it contributes to firm’s survival and performance.

Finding articles and books that openly discuss the place of the unknown in management is a complicated task. There are very few publications on the topic, usually the word has a secondary position leaving on the front seat other keywords such as innovation, radical innovation, entrepreneurship or simply high uncertainty or at best unforeseeable uncertainty. We will leave aside the notion such as unexpected or surprise as we are concerned by the deliberate action of heading into the unknown for a desirable future. In (Svejvig and Andersen 2015), we would fit in the category of Complexity and Uncertainty and Broader Conceptualization, which necessarily echoes the contingency, behavioural and decision schools of thought as we have been developing an interest for neighbouring research discipline: innovation management. As explained in a recent and critical literature review (Davies, Manning, and Söderlund 2018), these two disciplines have evolved over decades and they explain why/how these two have failed to learn from each other. We propose to follow this path and bring additional light to these teachings with the question of managing the unknown through project management.

Exploration project: organizational oddity

As stated previously, we are interested in discussing at the edge of project management and innovation research: exploration project (Lenfle 2008). They differ and destabilize the optimizing model of traditional plan and execute that one could see in development processes. It cannot also be reduced to an adaptive model as presented in the previous chapter. It embeds features that call for proactivity. Several principles are defined to support his new project category:

1. The need to set up a specific entity to manage the exploration

2. The emphasis on the central role of tests (prototypes, testing, customer trials, etc.) in the management process

3. The emphasis on the need for concurrent exploration which must concern both concepts and knowledge

4. The management process must take into account these two different dimensions of performance: the value of the products and accumulated knowledge

5. The management tools used must allow a reformulation of the objectives along the way

As we can see, some features are derived from adaptive models inspired by contingency theory (Shenhar and Dvir 2007) but it brings insight from innovation management that call for a mode of action continuously shifting (Brown and Eisenhardt 1997). It also relies on innovative design practices (Hatchuel et al. 2010; Le Masson, Weil, and Hatchuel 2017, 2010). By developing this experiential approach (Eisenhardt and Tabrizi 1995) and based on the works of (Loch, Meyer, and Pich 2006), the exploration strategy consists in multiplying probe and learn steps, the projects outcomes are hard to grasp as the action mode challenges heavily optimization and adaptive model. Trial and error can be complemented by selectionism. Careful balance of these two strategies may contribute to overall performance depending on complexity and unforeseeable uncertainty (Sommer and Loch 2004).

The distancing of the projects can be seen as an organization oddity (Lenfle 2016). The author proposed that with the support of design theories and design management, the concurrent exploration of knowledge and concepts could help support the project variables: objectives, risks, capabilities to be developed. Projects are indeed very stimulating loci where technology and system meet knowledge management (Silver 2000) thus bearing critical capabilities for the firm. As these are used as experiments in its broadest sense (Thomke 2003), they can also absorb shocks and risks that a traditional new product development process wouldn’t (Brown and Eisenhardt 1997). Yet, the strangeness of the project requires careful management of the unknown dimensions of the project: e.g. potential organizational ties through communities contingent to the expansion made into the unknown.
In the field of innovation management, we could not avoid the works of Gina O’Connor (O’Connor 2016)¹. First of all, in this literature, projects are seen as devices for innovation, and they usually are synonymous with product development. Using them as unit of analysis, project timelines are made to articulate the link with breakthrough innovation.

Exploration is the centre of attention, and emphasis is put on the actual creation process (path creation, regenerative dynamic capabilities (Ambrosini, Bowman, and Collier 2009)). As for the previously quoted works and others (Maniak, Midler, and Lenfle 2007; Beaume, Maniak, and Midler 2009), the organizational ties are not discussed in much depth despite the strategic dimension of these projects heavily challenging functions of existing products (concepts and knowledge). For example, the rich longitudinal studies (O’Connor 2016) show how the projects are hosted by several business units or departments, and sometimes, end up establishing a proper entity on its own. To counter ad-hoc behaviours, she calls then, beyond the necessary support of top management during the exploration process, for a proper institutionalisation thus avoiding only relying on innovation champions.

Difficulty of transitioning

The contingency stressed in the work of Sylvain Lenfle and Christoph Loch can be confirmed through several other works presented in a special issue (Midler, Killen, and Kock 2016). It reinforces the perspective that traditional optimizing models are insufficient for innovation (Davies, Manning, and Söderlund 2018). Contextuality is necessary to understand the complexities, the successes and the failures of projects. For instance in (Akkermans and Oorschot 2016), they explain how small feedback loops between project phases and concurrency (Maniak et al. 2008) can reduce risks and delays. The importance of coordination is also stressed in the alleged decision gate in product development (Christiansen and Varnes 2007) where stakeholders are rather networking instead of making decisions.
However, numerous practices and myopic behaviours can be found like in the case of mega projects. Their fragility (Ansar et al. 2017) show the absence of learning on the methods and tools used to conduct such large projects. Stage-gate mode also tend to fail quite too often when following the iron triangle of Quality Cost and Delay of standard project management (Sethi and Iqbal 2008). This encourages to rethink constantly what makes the performance of the project, the evaluation criteria used along the trajectory as it was stressed in (Lenfle 2008, 2016). The same authors also through a tremendous historical effort on project management insisted that originally the root of project management (Lenfle and Loch 2010, 2017) where closer to innovation management as also stressed by (Davies, Manning, and Söderlund 2018). So the notion of failure against an optimizing framework, which is also the exploitative regime discussed in the previous chapter, encourage the re-articulation of the performance for exploration projects (Elmquist and Le Masson 2009).
As the innovation management research has (mainly) developed the adaptive model with respect to project management, the over-emphasis on these models had a tendency of not considering enough optimizing “constraints” such as planning, execution and exploitation.² It is then key to understand how the contingency is managed but also how this distance is engineered within projects and by stakeholders or the projects’ governance.
Several hints can be found in the literature such as: sensemaking of risky and loss of control (Iacovou and Dexter 2004), terminating projects (Green, Welsh, and Dehler 2003), modelling with real options theory (Lint and Pennings 2001), also mapping risk-tolerance (Kwak and LaPlace 2005) and escalating commitment relative to the project (Ross and Staw 1993). The encapsulated model of managing the unknown and dealing with risks and uncertainty, as a vehicle for innovation, continuously defy the working reference for the host firm. As the practice shows, shifts are made and references are made against the original concepts as shown in (Seidel 2007) across multiple contexts.

Generative processes in project management?

Since we are focused on innovation management and project management as they contribute to separation of exploration and exploitation, we propose to discuss the underlying mechanisms driving the exploration effort: mainly generative processes.

Design theories and design management have been solicited by researchers already (Lenfle 2016) for instance, and (O’Connor 2016) refers to the management concept of “regenerative” dynamic capabilities developed by (Ambrosini, Bowman, and Collier 2009). In the behavioural school (Söderlund 2011), the place of creativity is discussed in several contributions, but still remains secondary compared to other aspects of project management. Our focus is not specially on notions such as creative climate, even though it may contribute positively to the project conduct, specially compared to tools and frameworks induced by management theories aiming at reducing variation (Ekvall 1993, 2000). We are rather interested on the actual creative process and methods that we tasked to label in its weaker form: generativity.

In (Harrison and Rouse 2015), feedback sessions in creative projects (industrial design and modern dance) reveal several moves used by designers and feedback providers. The feedback provided two kind of signals: excavations and adjustments. It thus fed an adaptive mode for designers to bring back previous concepts and refinements to the prototypes. Such approach calls for a deeper value management in the spirit of what was discussed in the previous chapter on how to formalize design practices. For instance, (Gillier, Hooge, and Piat 2015) manage the value exploration and measure the “distance” of the concept shift and novel knowledge (Seidel 2007). In the same vein, cases of exploration project management show how to build legitimacy around novelty with stakeholders (Hooge and Dalmasso 2015) and management value creation and value realization (R. Maniak et al. 2014). Design Thinking was proposed to be blended with project management to enhance value and change management (Ben Mahmoud-Jouini, Midler, and Silberzahn 2016). All of these approaches bring additional depth to the interactive model and extending the project’s requirement for greater quality. Within the project team (Holmquist 2007), an evaluator can play the role to channel continuously the project evaluation criteria and bring a systematic reflection which acts as catalyst for transformation.

Similarly to ambidexterity literature, the role creative leadership in project management is identified as a way to manage generative processes and its challenges for exploration. (Bech 2001) stresses the proximity of project management and project leadership, which can facilitate employee creativity, support the emergence of the leader’s vision and organize collective creativity (Mainemelis, Kark, and Epitropaki 2015). Recent works also have put the emphasis on the different leadership figures (Ezzat, Le Masson, and Weil 2017) including traditional ones such as the visionary and the animator, but brings a novel perspective with the defixator role. The leader brings the practice of defixation (Ezzat et al. 2017) to creative team management with minimal executive feedback so that team members can generate concepts avoiding fixation effects.

Generative processes in project management as shown here tend to constantly orchestrate value of novelty by circulating concepts and meaning, or by comparison with some reference point. High constraints and pressure in the iron triangle can also be a trigger for creativity to reach such objectives or stretch goals (Maier and Branzei 2014). But others have also put forward the violation of project management rules (Mangematin et al. 2011) as a means to support learning. Hacking can be then encouraged to mitigate more efficiently risks associated with delay and uncertainties as common project rules tend to increase risks (Olin and Wickenberg 2001). Rule bending and redefinition can be adjusted not only to generate better course of action sustaining project’s (dynamic) performance and also exploration guided by systematic rule breaking such as skunkworks (Bommer, DeLaPorte, and Higgins 2002).

Such generative processes are referred as non-routine work in the framework of organizational routines (Obstfeld 2012). An echo of the silent designers introduced by Angela Dumas and Henry Mintzberg. A creative project is defined in such context as:

An emergent trajectory of interdependent action initiated and orchestrated by multiple actors to introduce change into a social context If organizational routines are viewed as trajectories of interdependent action through which organizations generally get things done, then creative projects are the means by which they get new things started

Placing the generation of routines into creative projects allows D.Obstfeld to reconsider the interaction with adaptive model introduced by James March through the garbage can model. He shows the extension of the adaptive model where informal choices brought by creative projects differing from the search of organizational routine. Whilst keeping the idea to economize cognitive effort, one can rethink the theorization of interdependent action including organizational routines and generative processes. One can do so by stressing the emergence of novel choices (not found by search) but through creative effort:

This expanded consideration of combinatorial elements underscores the importance of knowledge articulation as a means for linking problems to solutions, people to ideas (i.e., either problems or solutions), and enlisting people to participate in unfolding action trajectories

In the figure below (1), the impact of the interdependent action is represented and insists on the nature of the direction of such non-routine work (stable, incremental, radical and architectural):

Research on the middle-ground present cases of how such routines emerge and creative projects contribute to it. It reveals the different roles endorsed by the project manager: sense-maker, game master, web-weaver, and flow-balancer (Simon 2006). Later research conducted in the game industry also demonstrated how a creative project, in corporate entrepreneurship perspective, is managed to recombine routines and rethink the new product development process across the firm in addition to deliver a novel product radically changing the traditional identity of the games developed (Cohendet and Simon 2016).

The role of the leader is also emphasized in (Adler and Obstfeld 2007) with a channelling effort on the project team by bringing additional insight on the direction of creative search supporting exploration. By revising Dewey’s philosophy, the importance of impulse (affect) in addition to intelligence and habit drivers, allows placing their respective impact on project, deliberation and routine levels (see Fig.2)

The proposed analytical lens allows thinking what is to be managed and the nature of the articulation of the generative processes in project management and the interdependence with organizational routines for instance. Despite having a different background, we cannot avoid discussing the works of Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka, with the use of ambiguity and metaphors (Dumas 1994) to build and drive project teams (also referred as knowledge teams); e.g. “Tall Boy” for the Honda Civic and “Rugby Player in a Dinner suit” for the Honda Accord (Nonaka 1991; Clark and Fujimoto 1990). Whilst developing the knowledge management and learning, later works of I.Nonaka have introduced the management concept “ba” (literally meaning “place”, not necessarily physical):

What differentiates ba from ordinary human interaction is the concept of knowledge creation. Ba provides a platform for advancing individual and/or collective knowledge. It is from such a platform that a transcendental perspective integrates all information needed (Nonaka and Konno 1998)

By developing an interactive approach to learning, socialization, externalization, combination and internalization of processes (SECI model), it helps describing what contributes to the dynamics of knowledge management enact the common place of ba. In (Krogh, Ichijo, and Nonaka 2000), numerous qualitative studies support this view enabling knowledge through creation of rich context, building communities and supporting knowledge exchange. They insist on numerous pitfalls such as a too strong focus on generating knowledge, thus accentuating the articulation, interdependence and circulation of knowledge rather than on quantity. It opposes to the view on the generation of alternatives in J.March’s model discussed in the previous chapter (March 2006).

Such perspective is further developed in the managing flow and introducing also an ancient Greek concept of wisdom phronesis insisting on the virtue of thinking of the context and judging value. These processes sustain in their view creative dynamic capabilities by opposition to adaptive ones at a meso-level (Nonaka, Hirose, and Takeda 2016). Their demonstration and conceptualization goes further in order to propose the image of a fractal organization as a reflection of these knowledge dynamics supporting creative dynamic capabilities (Nonaka et al. 2014), as multiple “edges” are managed on multiple direction. Relying on the fractal idea, raises the question of the pattern to be repeated to support. What is the actual action logics driving this dynamic capability?

Project-based organization supporting ambidexterity

In the previous section, we extensively discussed the nature of exploration project management and its engines such as creativity, generative processes, non-routine work, rule bending, but also their limitations and difficulties to loop back to an exploitation regime. The key feature of the exploitation of exploration project requires a continuous management of performance and valuation as the project battles through the unknown.

In innovation management literature, along with the strong contingency theoretical background that could be traced back to (Burns and Stalker 1961), the notion of organic structure supporting innovation in new product development led to the conceptualization of the matrix organization where projects and product developments can pool resources sustained by departments and units (Galbraith 1971, 2010). It is the preferred mode to integrate cross-functional resources and knowledge to cope with high uncertainty, complexity and change (Davies, Manning, and Söderlund 2018). These notions blended to the point where projects became fully associated with the concept of organic and flexible ways of organizing. Originally, in the detail of the Tom Burns and Georges Stalker, the organic structure was defined based on one case study and by contrast with the mechanistic cases (Hannan and Freeman 1989):

It is instructive to note that Burns and Stalker found only one instance of an organic structure in a situation in which this should have been the appropriate form of organization. Their book is essentially an analysis of why organization that ought (sic) to change to organic systems fail to do so, even when there is high agreement among their managers that they should move in that direction

The advice given by T.Burns and G.Stalker should be treated carefully. On the other side, the matrix organization has more cases to support the interaction between the functional structure and projects. In (Galbraith 1971), the transition from a functional form to the other is detailed also with the transitioning with a task force to cope with delays, and contingent factors are highlighted encouraging a form or the other. The level of complexity and reconfigurability can be increased to such height calling for careful management of careers, opportunities and reconfigurable decision forums in addition to satisfying changing client demands across the globe or just in identity and customization (Galbraith 2010). We also point out the fact that the change is conducted in a dissociate way to the actual organizational life, i.e. as for organization design for ambidexterity.

It is then crucial for exploration project and generative processes to understand how efficient matrix organizations are to support these projects but also sustain innovation and regenerative dynamic capabilities of such organization. As we have shown, the leadership figure was rather present, putting a lot of weight of its shoulders and probably requiring training and management tools that still require to be elucidated as revealed in the first chapter on paradox management.
Here, we would like to discuss the organization design and studies domains required to support the project management we are interested in. The research community organized around journals such as the Project Management Journal or International Journal of Project Management have released numerous articles around the project-based management with Rodney Turner’s lifework (Turner 2009), but also with a special issue (Söderlund and Müller 2014) in PMJ, another in IJPM (Söderlund, Hobbs, and Ahola 2014) and also two in Organizational Studies (Sydow, Lindkvist, and Defillippi 2004; Bakker et al. 2016). They raise several challenges around theoretical model, methodologies including a lack of practice-based research to enhance theoretical models.

Mirroring hypothesis and renewal of resources and competencies

In a matrix organization where projects are kicked off and requiring resources in functional departments, exploration projects will request competencies that may be off the charts. As a reference point, one can imagine that the firm has settled its engineering for product development and that it may even have developed modular engineering for improved efficiency (MacCormack, Baldwin, and Rusnak 2012). The mirroring hypothesis tested in (Colfer and Baldwin 2016) shows the congruence between product architecture and organization. It also reveals the interest in having a partial mirroring or the capacity of breaking the mirror for strategic competitive advantage. In a normative perspective (Colfer and Baldwin 2016, 716) they advise that:

The designers of technical systems are boundedly rational—they cannot know or do everything. Thus, organizations are needed to carry out complex design and production processes. For system architects and organization designers, the design challenge is to create a technical architecture and corresponding organization that together are capable of carrying out complex tasks and solving problems that may come up along the way

The static view is of course enlightening, but mirroring dynamics are not explicit. In the weakest form, they present the mirroring trap, i.e. the failure of supporting ambidexterity, which can be countered by partial mirroring where knowledge boundaries are broader than operational task ones. It brings some slack to the alternatives and interdependencies in product architecture, yet there is a risk of ‘early’ modularization causing failures because of lack of system understanding. Due to the complexity and high rate of change, the system knowledge will be necessarily incomplete, so they recommend (Colfer and Baldwin 2016, 724):

In such cases, organizational processes that deviate from strict mirroring are likely to be beneficial in terms of technical performance, competitive advantage, and the accumulation of valuable knowledge and capabilities. A “partial mirroring” strategy can be an effective way to explore and understand latent interdependencies that are not apparent under the current technical architecture. Furthermore, if the stakes are sufficiently high, firms may go further, overturning the current architecture for their own strategic advantage. Strategic mirror-breaking, if successful, can bring about wholesale changes to industry structure.

Exploration projects will tend to play in partial mirroring organization where latent interdependencies may be challenged. It would imply technical and engineering issues, at a modular or even call for architectural innovation (Henderson and Clark 1990). The temporary organization supporting the project may be then in conflict with the established mirroring organizing.

In a very recent detailed literature review, Maxim Miterev, Rodney Turner and colleagues bring the link with the organization design and project-based organization. For instance, in (Miterev, Engwall, and Jerbrant 2017) they warn us (through practice-based research) on threats of isomorphism mechanisms (mimicry, coercion and normative) against temporary-organization supporting one-off projects dealing with high uncertainty (see below Fig.4).

The goal rationality of such organization is then questioned specially in a context of inter-relatedness of temporal organization with a host/established functional organization in addition to institutional fields. They advocate that isomorphic pressures may vary depending on industrial sectors but that skunkworks projects may be required to escape such pressures of project-based organization. Institutional entrepreneurship is seen as an another perspective to further understand how novel practices countering pressures can be institutionalized in firms.

Following the idea of extreme forces of reconfigurability (Galbraith 2010), the project-based organization identified as a proper organization form calls for a renewal of organization design as discussed in (Miterev, Turner, and Mancini 2017). It resurfaces the contingency of numerous managerial phenomena and the links with wider unit of analysis in organization studies and design. In a rationally bounded perspective, (Simon 1967) gave his definition of organization design with the adaptive model associated to decision-making and information processing:

[Organizational design] is to investigate the information flows that are essential for accomplishing the organization’s objectives, then examine what these information patterns imply for organization structure

Therefore, the issue is that introducing adaptive, interactive, and generative processes that may be encapsulated or not, should be translated into design rules given a rational goal (Burton and Obel 2018). The matrix form compared to the unitary one was a way to deal with adaptation. It could lead, depending on places and flow, to support exploration-related interactions. Can organizational rules be generative? Are there design rules unlocking interdependencies? Can the temporary organization support organizational generativity?
In (Van de Ven, Ganco, and Hinings 2013, 396), the authors trace the evolution of organization design evolving from “contingency to configuration, to complementarity, and to complexity and creative theories of organizing". The question of organizational fit is then treated with whole new perspective: generative fit (Avital and Te’eni 2009). The suggested rules for generative designs should be evocative, open-ended and adaptive. It is worth mentioning that their notion of adaptation embeds the concept of re-invention which goes beyond the notion we have chosen stemming from J.March’s view³. Quoting (Barry 2011, 9), Andrew Van de Ven, in the spirit of managing as design (Boland and Collopy 2004) and thinking of organizations as design (Romme 2003), proposes to follow up the emergent role of professional designers, or architects as they blend several disciplines:

perhaps a more unified organization design school will emerge, where “delight, deliver, and deepen” all come together using bits and pieces from both orientations. To be successful thought, this new OD [organization design] will require a lot more than asking executives to brainstorm, prototype, and otherwise “get creative”. Coming up with effective organization designs that deliver, delight, and deepen will require training along the lines that designers get years of learning how to reframe organizational problems into evocative questions, finding inspirational networks alongside solutional ones, creative and aesthetically sophisticated experimentation, and working with multiple mediums and representational forms. It will also require systematic testing over time, to see where and how these innovative designs work, and don’t work. Clearly OD is heading towards a new chapter, perhaps its most interesting and inventive one yet.

Despite being an open invitation for future research, the hints given to support such generative design rules for the organization remains quite unclear and again bring back contingency theories to front seat with numerous interactions (Van de Ven, Ganco, and Hinings 2013). Such contextuality is confirmed in (Turner, Maylor, and Swart 2015) bringing an analysis of project management with organization ambidexterity literature stressing the dynamics between human, social and organizational capital. Or even with (Winch 2014) proposing three domains of project organizing: project-based firms, projects/programs, and owners/operators. Their interactions stress the interfaces of governance, resources and commercial domains.

When considering exploration project management, or at least, management contributions integrating complexity and contingency theory (Shenhar and Dvir 2007), it is worth pointing out the managerial implications are very short on what should be done regarding the structural and social dimension of project-based management. At best, (Asquin, Garel, and Picq 2007) identifies the risk of loosing knowledge and competencies in project-based organization because of lack of expertise and human resources to cope with reconfigurability. And in (Aggeri and Segrestin 2007), project management methods were studied for their negative effects on collective learning, and the critical implication for innovation department.

Finally, in one of the chapters of the Cambridge Handbook of Organizational Project Management, (Pollack 2017) proposes to reconsider change management and project management given a recent volume of the Project Management Institute entitled ‘Managing Change in Organizations: A Practice Guide’. He underlines the risks of not fully integrating change in management of portfolio, programs and projects, may lead to change being a simple option. However the challenge, is on the different perception of action in both fields.

Risk of ad-hoc: epicormic shoot and no generative learning

The previous paragraphs show the tendency of project management to require a temporary organization. Thus, it pushes further the notion of matrix organization and potential decentralization as it requires more flexibility, reconfigurability, scalability. It is a means to deal with higher levels of uncertainty and potentially integrating the unknown.

In that perspective (Hornstein 2015) makes a call to merge organizational change and project management, as project should be seen as proper organizational change initiative in order to integrate also technical, social and behavioural issues. Otherwise, he recognizes that an increasing number of project management enquiries are integrating change elements focusing mainly on the process rather than on the contingent dimensions. It has, then, a very different assumption on organization design compared to organizational ambidexterity.
(O’Reilly and Tushman 2007) proposed to resolve the spin-off strategy of the innovator’s dilemma by adopting an organizational design supporting structural ambidexterity given high strategic importance and operational leverage (see Fig.5). Such design allows then balancing exploration and exploitation, transferring, organizing learning given the crucial role of top management’s leadership overseeing such global picture.

By comparison with (Christensen 1997), where the focus is on organization’s value and organization’s processes, considering the operational leverage allows thinking of the host organization supporting the team targeting the radical or disruptive innovation. It creates the tension to find a generative fit between the project’s exploration and exploitation needs and constraints (e.g. high entry barrier, technical complexity and certification). Of course, it is not an end per se: (Engwall and Svensson 2004) calls for cheetah teams as an extreme version of agile and reconfigurable projects that could be launched to cope with urgent and unanticipated issues. This offshoot of a project creates anyway some sort of paradox regarding the embedded nature of projects (Sydow, Lindkvist, and Defillippi 2004).

The question could become then how centralized should the encapsulation of exploration and adaptation be. As studied in (Siggelkow and Levinthal 2003) (de/)centralization is nor right or wrong but rather they advocate a temporary decentralization to support exploration and adaptation. They propose to play around interdependencies of firm activities addressed by such temporary structures to increase the performance of exploration and exploitation. When considering the acquisitions of technologies as an exploration enabler, (Puranam, Singh, and Zollo 2006) points out the criticality of synchronization of the organizational shift with the technological maturity. The notion of interdependence becomes key again as an exploration project may disrupt epistemic interdependencies (Puranam, Raveendran, and Knudsen 2012).

However, the literature tends to stress mainly the importance of governance and resources to steer these projects (Winch 2014; Turner and Müller 2017). Even when managers don’t fully understand projects (Loch, Mähring, and Sommer 2017), they are critical to discuss underlying models and overcome crises to generate new alternatives. Contingency perspectives will also stress the determinism of project trajectories given history and context (Engwall 2003). So, to avoid thinking that projects are simple tools, the unit of analysis should be elevated to the thinking of temporary-organization as discussed in the previous paragraphs (Packendorff 1995). It could avoid the shortcomings of the ‘one-off’ project.

Another perspective, inspired by design, will tend to blend design reasoning and theories to re-thinking organizations (Romme 2003). Embedding generative processes across the organization as general mindset and practice could enact design-oriented organization (Hatchuel, Weil, and Le Masson 2006). The design-oriented organization would aim at systematically creating positively deviant projects and programs that rely on (generative) dynamic capabilities of the firm. It gives a fresh look on intrapreneurship and corporate entrepreneurship, as generative design rules across the firm would support such projects. It echoes the works of Phanish Puranam quoted earlier, and still require further case studies and detail to fully embody such models.

Thinking of generative processes across the firm, (Adler 1995) reveals the dynamics of coordination tasks and mechanisms during a product development’s life cycle (project framing, design & development and manufacturing). The interdependencies revealed by differences in the degree of novelty and degree of fit will call for different coordination mechanisms (standards, schedules, mutual adjustment and teams):

Considering project for exploration and exploitation underscores its strategic dimension for the firm as discussed in (Adler and Obstfeld 2007), and pictured below:

Consequently, the risk of ad-hoc (temporary) organization supporting an exploration project could easily become real as interdependencies slip away. Poor stakeholder management where legitimacy building is key (Hooge and Dalmasso 2015; Eskerod 2017) could accentuate the phenomenon. Governance, for inter-organizational and multi-level perspectives, is necessary (Sydow and Braun 2018) to address the traditionally implicit technical/social/organizational interdependent facets in temporary organization.

Projects calling for inter-organizational/departmental support show the crucial role of concurrent platform innovation process supporting the temporary-organization of radical exploration project: e.g. electric car developed in a traditional combustion car company (Von Pechmann et al. 2015). However, as the industrial context may be subject to a high rate of change, a full projectification of the firm (Beaume, Maniak, and Midler 2009), the (feedback) learning with functional department is rarely, if not never, addressed with the respect to legacy engineering or other mirrored features of the organizational structure.

Portfolio and program management for exploration

Whilst taking the assumption we are in a project-based economy and project-based organization, where the matrix form is further developed with high levels of reconfigurability (Galbraith 2010), the notion of portfolio and program management allows revisiting the risk of the ad-hoc, the spin-off, and the epicormic shoot with respect to the host organizational form. For instance, by extending (Hobday 2000), (Gemünden, Lehner, and Kock 2018) defines a project-based organization insisting on the different levels of management that should be aligned and integrated so that it can be declined around structure, value and people management (see Fig.8):

1. management of single projects

2. management of the project landscapes

3. leadership of the project-oriented organization

This ecology of projects makes then a lot of sense and may sustain innovation as described in (Von Pechmann et al. 2015). It considers a projectified firm (Renault), where radical projects will be systematically launched through the interactions of strategy, programs and projects organized in a temporary manner and fully serviced by functional departments. The network of projects can also be seen as fishing net for value management (Laursen 2018) which can be organized with a multi-lineage approach of product development (R. Maniak and Midler 2014).

The strategic management will tend to balance the control and open/emergent approach of this multi-project management (Kopmann, Kock, and Killen 2017), and tend to encourage the establishment of a dedicated function, potentially requiring an institutionalization of innovation (O’Connor 2016). Robert Burgelman in (Burgelman 1983) had questioned whether “structure follows strategy” or “strategy follows structure”. He proposed new analytical lens insisting on the interactions between strategic behaviour, corporate context and concept of strategy to blur the lines between a purely induced strategy by top management and the emergence of autonomous strategic activities. This projectified view of the firm with exploration and exploitation taking place on multiple levels and directions is quite in line with R.Burgelman’s perspective. And it departs from the models of ambidexterity, except for the contextual which blunt the edges of the non-mutual conditioning between exploration and exploitation.

In this ecology of projects, introducing the concept of trajectory (Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay 2018) - which can also be found in the works of Rémi Maniak and Christophe Midler on Renault - allows studying the interaction between projects and (project-based) organization design over time. With an interactionist approach, sensemaking and reflexivity was accounted before decisions associated with organization design. Monique Aubry suggests that further understanding should be developed around the sensemaking supporting learning between projects and project managers as it will feed the governance and leadership embodying the strategic management.

The notion of program becomes quite stimulating to support this kind of system thinking. It is defined by the International Project Management Association and the Project Management Institute as follows:

a set of related projects and required organizational changes to reach a strategic goal and to achieve the defined business benefits (IPMA) program as a group of related projects, subprograms, and program activities that must be managed in a coordinated way in order to achieve benefits that may not be obtained if they are managed individually (PMI)

Compared to the portfolio and multi-project management, programs emphasize the link between the projects whilst giving also more weight to strategy, stakeholder management and complexity (Patanakul and Pinto 2017). The strategy/execution of the program involves then political work, flexibility and managing interdependencies targeted and revealed by the criticality of uncertain technologies developed along the way and to be integrated. The program also develops a certain bureaucracy to administrate the portfolio with a Program Management Office.

Risk management and change control are among their main tasks. Learning mechanisms can also be centralized through lessons learnt through project delivery. When discussing, for instance, corporate venture capital investments (Keil, Zahra, and Maula 2016), they put forward factors influencing learning benefits for exploration and exploitation. Entrepreneurial opportunities of the incumbents should be articulated with skills and ideas showcased by start-ups, at it gives way to previous generated opportunities or even generate further opportunities for entrepreneurship. The portfolio level gives more context and contrast to pool opportunities. It constitutes most of the program governance contributing to exploration and exploitation organizational learning as transactions are made with start-ups.

The governance of portfolio of projects, seen as a program, and with project-based organization gives more weight to a change project (Gareis 2010). The change management could then be fully embedded in the project, instead of seeing it as a different management. However, the tendency is to operate a dichotomy making change a project and a technical project (e.g. product development), instead of embedding change within the project. In a literature review on program management (Martinsuo and Hoverfält 2018), Miia Martinsuo develops propositions for future research on change program management towards organizational capability as it has been moving from the traditional plan & control approach as it integrates value management, synergies across programs, stakeholder management in addition to a means to succeed in the organization’s environment.

Change project and the environment

In the previous section, we have discussed the organizational dimension of project management and its implications for exploration projects supporting generative processes as a means for innovation management. We have shown that the literature in the field has come to a point where project-based organization, seen as temporary organization, and an extension of matrix organization, are state-of-art to support innovation management. However, the literature reveals numerous limitations and has made repeated calls to further merge the teachings of organization studies and design to better understand the value management, human resources management as well as interdependencies in between departments and (temporary) organizations. We have also pointed that detailed work from engineering and design management were able to address these epistemic interdependencies and introduce notions such as generative fit to support congruence in innovation management. These elements could play a role in organization metabolism for ambidexterity.

The encapsulated nature of the projects allows more flexibility and potential reconfigurability that can be sustained through appropriate governance, in a more efficient way than traditional centralized and functional organizations. Of course, such concern is rather contingent to the maturity of technology, the market rate of change, task complexity and environment turbulence.

The notion of environment is perhaps easier to look at, seen from the project perspective, as it concentrates collective action in a project team. The adaptive model takes into account the environment by defining what is external to the adaptive system. And the notion of environment becomes more blurry with interactionism as the notions of boundaries in a network may be hard to delimitate unless one is able to cluster. Where does the firm’s environment start? How is it observed and managed?

This section will consider how the project-based management regards the environment, with also a concern for the way in which the environment is discussed in the adaptive and interactionist models. We have made the assumption of the projectification of firms. And so far, we have seen it can relate to ambidexterity models discussed in the previous chapter depending on the level of analysis and viewpoint (structure, process, social and system). To discuss these topics, we propose to draw from system theory and developments by Maturana and Varela (see for instance the analysis of images of organization in (Morgan 2006)). They introduce the concept of autopoiesis which interprets differently the frontier between system and environment applied to biology. They introduce the idea that a system interacts with the environment by thinking of it as a reflection and part of its own organization⁴. The principles of autopoiesis (self-generation) are based on autonomy, circularity and self-reference. The cognition of the “environment” is constituted of patterns of variations and reference points reflecting its own organization mode, so that the environment is organized as an extension of itself.

Responding, exploring, and exploiting to the environment

The teachings from previous experiences can encourage some kind of responses to prepare in some way to the environment dynamics. Among the variety of pre-emptive strategies (Macmillan 1983), timing to offer to the market a new concept (product, service, feature, architecture etc.) through careful project management is crucial, as it comes with its set of advantages and disadvantages (Lieberman and Montgomery 1988, 1998). As described by Lieberman, several firm’s resources will be of different nature depending on the strategy (pioneer or follower) and the decision to enter at a certain rank the new market. The created value space will be dependent on luck and dynamic capabilities (Teece, Pisano, and Shuen 1997).

It is dependent on numerous control variables, so given the tone of our literature review, we propose the case where the market or operational ecosystem’s dynamics are pretty stable with long development lead times. There are no visible threats of new entrants due to high entry barriers and strong dominant design (Abernathy and Utterback 1978). In those markets, the long term strategy is to be able to be ready when the new dominant design comes out (Macmillan 1983; Christensen 1997). It becomes then complex to support the necessity to invest into resources and dynamic capabilities for a risky and uncertain course of action.

Having slack resources appear crucial to innovate, yet the relationship between these two would be curvilinear (Herold, Jayaraman, and Narayanaswamy 2006; Nohria and Gulati 1996). The inverted U-shape relationship between slack and innovation pushes the optimization game on extremely complex grounds as it is also dependent on multiple control variables (Nohria and Gulati 1997). It is also stressed that the nature of slack resources (absorption and rarity) will have a different effect on product exploration/exploitation given the (non-)existence of ecosystem’s threats (Voss, Sirdeshmukh, and Voss 2008).

By referring to prospect theory (Kahneman and Tversky 1979), they build upon the concept of framing and anchoring to explain the moderating effects of the environment perception on the nature of available resources⁵. Their research was further developed to show different patterns of exploration/exploitation relative to the environment (Voss and Voss 2013). They propose that the balancing of the two modes could be conducted along the dimensions of the product and the market. They emphasize the known paradoxical myopic behaviour of large established firms having the resources but not implementing ambidexterity for product development, and they also confirm the need for sustained market ambidexterity for long-term growth. The latter can also be directly linked to the failure of stage-gate models in project management as described in (Sethi and Iqbal 2008) which tend to make beforehand strong and stable hypothesis on the environment. It questions again the actual practice of product ambidexterity, and ways of sustaining exploration/exploitation through project management, since the ambidextrous organization design may not be observed in the same way.

The necessity to change the organization comes from the cognition of a change in circumstances. One could also develop the need to adapt further by exploring yet to be known alternatives and generating new knowledge. Relying on real options theory for instance, (Fredberg 2007) encourages to think of the importance of the generation of options along the product development process. Bringing design theory closer to real options allows then coping with high uncertainty and turbulence of the environment, but also stresses how the new choices and their value should be positioned in the real options tree. This pattern recalls the notion of pre-emptive strategies (Macmillan 1983, 17) with the idea that one should shape one’s luck:

“Good generals make their luck by shaping the odds in their favor and by being able to spot and rapidly capitalize on every emergent opportunity created by the mistakes of their opponents, or by the good fortune they have helped to shape”

Before jumping to tricking the new environment’s odds, the adaptive model can still bring some valuable subtleties. By developing the canonical bandit (Posen and Levinthal 2012) - extending James March’s model - Hart Posen and Daniel Levinthal develop the idea that environment change decreases the rewards of exploratory efforts at accumulating knowledge (inverted U-shape between the optimal degree of adaptiveness of the search strategy and turbulence frequency).

So organizing change may induce a renewed focus on exploiting old knowledge, beliefs and opportunities. For instance in (Jansen, Van Den Bosch, and Volberda 2006), ambidexterity is studied in relationship with organizational antecedents such as centralization, formalization and connectedness. Such search strategies supporting organizational adaptation will reflect the conception of environment’s dynamism and competitiveness, i.e. a set of actions conditioned by knowledge mapping of the (believed-)world (Posen and Levinthal 2012, 598). However, the results of Justin Jansen and colleagues, may be considered insufficient as the organizational choices such as decentralization and environment dynamism will encourage exploration. Nevertheless, the example of the General Motor’s car in (Posen and Levinthal 2012) shows the greater exploration was not beneficial as they ended up with a poor new-environmental fit because the turbulence devalued existing knowledge and also devalued the chances of returns associated to generating new knowledge. They consequently insist on the finesse of such nuances of exploration/exploitation and the unknown (Posen and Levinthal 2012, 599):

The challenge for organizations is the ex-ante assessment of the magnitudes of these two competing forces.

The modes of exploration and exploitation do reveal that the non-mutual conditioning of both could be revisited. At least, exploration project management does bring a new flavour to adaptation and engagement with environment. Consequently, the role of strategic leadership for exploration and exploitation can then naturally be linked to the influence of environmental dynamism (Jansen, Vera, and Crossan 2009). Still in the line of thought of ambidextrous models, it places the emphasis on leadership and top-management role to cope with such organizational challenges. But isn’t there an approach in between to cope with organizational metabolism?

These takeaways again encourage to promote the simultaneous thinking and implementation of managements of project and organizational change as discussed in previous paragraphs (Pollack 2017; Hornstein 2015).

Relying on the product development literature and project management, we find how different adaptive arrangements can be made at the product design level. (Sanchez and Mahoney 1996) develop the knowledge management supported by modular product architecture reflected in organization design. It reduces the cost and difficulties of adaptive coordination. The environment dynamism and turbulence can then easily be coped with as long as the architecture remains stable: the firm will remain flexible with the modules’ boundaries. Leaving a loose structure (Nogueira and Raz 2006) will then prove beneficial against turbulent environment specially if teams can (re-)organize the product design. Such perspective is even further developed with the idea of fractal organizations (Nonaka et al. 2014) by considering multiple interfaces at the project level (Nonaka, Hirose, and Takeda 2016). These meso-foundations allow reconnecting with the locus where knowledge is generated and managed, and the creative side of dynamic capabilities taking place at the team-level and organized my middle management.

In a similar vein, whilst insisting on interdependencies and drawing from practices of product design and engineering, system engineering can considerably provide an enhanced perspective on the governance of project-based organization in complex environments. (Locatelli, Mancini, and Romano 2014) proposed to shift to a system-based, and thus a system governance, with for instance naturally embedding the system thinking and supporting the re-use of system elements. The role of project management offices in governing performance appears then crucial to prepare environment responses. For instance, a temporary entity (“transition support office”) can be designed to conduct change with permanent entities by addressing paradoxes and challenges in order to support a learning process in the project-based organization (Aubry, Richer, and Lavoie-Tremblay 2014). Adapting to the change of circumstances can then be addressed by directly managing the adaptation of project rules (project management office) and product/system design.

Freeing, exploring and exploiting innovation

Coming back to (Kline and Rosenberg 1986) showcasing a linear model of innovation, it becomes challenging to withstand it against open innovation. Indeed, its complex nature will bring several changes to the market, the social context and product system. Reinforcing the interdependencies of the technology and economic realms, the authors naturally call to open the innovation black box (economist view) and the process of technologist. They have a tendency to forget the market environment and its dynamics. The open innovation then encourages to find the origin of such dynamics and place the product development effort over such domain.

The role of lead-users (Hippel 1986, 2005) can be rallied support ideation and valuation of new concepts. Bringing user input, supplier relationship but also manufacturers (Franke 2014; Hippel 2007) can then support innovation management for the firm up to an extreme point where innovation is fully taken care of by users (Hippel 2016). Freeing innovation tends to fully open economists’ black box, it severely challenges transaction costs and incomplete contracts perspective such as (Aghion and Tirole 1994) where innovation is simply described through patents and funding. See figure below:

Maintaining the interactions between the two paradigms can also be organized as a means to manage the environment by collaboratively making sense along the design with users themselves. It can create new requirements and eventually new products (Magnusson, Matthing, and Kristensson 2003; Kristensson, Magnusson, and Matthing 2002; Hewing and Hölzle 2014). In a similar way, the design-driven perspective of innovation management, (Verganti and Dell’Era 2014) calls to identify and work with interpreters that could be better identified through a wider system thinking, better understanding of the whole value chain and environment awareness. We could then think of exploiting such potential innovation sources for the organization.

The new loci of innovation (Lakhani, Lifshitz-Assaf, and Tushman 2013) create tensions to contour the organizational boundaries, and they propose instead to approach this difficulty of opening/closing boundaries by addressing the decomposition of tasks and the knowledge distribution supporting problem-solving. It stresses again the role of leadership to perform the associated strategic decomposition, as a means to decide of organization designs. The (strategic) decision-making comes back to the front seat or at least shifting the attention to collaborative problem framing (and decomposition) with some added uncertainty. Even with common generative practices, the structure and formulation of complex problems are crucial (Kavadias and Sommer 2009), implying the importance of mediators creative leadership or adequate design management tools to regulate group dynamics (Ezzat, Le Masson, and Weil 2017; Ezzat et al. 2017). The collaboration means imply careful co-design practices (Berger et al. 2005) and partnering.

Indeed, it has also been clarified how the role of co-creation enhances exploration/exploitation learning in project-based organization (Eriksson, Leiringer, and Szentes 2017). Moving to a “private-collective” model of innovation as in the case of open-source software domain (Hippel and Krogh 2003) allows shifting the paradigm from the traditionally private and closed producer (Baldwin and Hippel 2011). Consequently, this new regime of exploitation/exploration of the environment deeply challenges the conditioning of both constructs. The blur is stronger if one considers that the entry-level of open-innovation practices in firms consists in managing a pool of established and potential suppliers to be more vigilant to changes coming from the downstream value-chain.

Competence building: nesting innovation and organizational metabolism?

The nature of dynamic capabilities could be split into two adaptive and creative ones according to (Nonaka, Hirose, and Takeda 2016). They also need to be tailored and designed to address such turbulence and complexity. These routines (Zollo and Winter 2002) embedded in the firm may be subject to path-dependency, requiring to regenerate the dynamic capabilities themselves; as the latter represent the ability to renew competencies in order to sustain the environmental fit (Teece, Pisano, and Shuen 1997). This recombination or regeneration of a higher level deeply questions the means to achieve this extraction from potential lock-ins (Bessant, Stamm, and Moeslein 2011).

What appears critical for such capability enabling the “renewal of the renewal” of competencies supporting organizational adaptation, could be seen in the management of the unknown. The open innovation context showcases numerous proxies channelling the innovation effort (Howells 2006), so the participation to intermediation allows addressing collectively the risks and opportunities of generating new knowledge and accreting it (Agogué et al. 2017). For instance, by connecting, ad-hoc networks are created to collectively commit to innovation, creation of legitimate place for collective innovation (not a shared vision), sharing an agenda of open issues and questions before sharing knowledge and potential answers.

The case of the semi-conductor industry, joining forces to address the unknown, reveals how they constitute a new path through clever road-mapping activities supporting the generation of knowledge (Le Masson et al. 2012). These phenomena also require a specific analysis to understand the structuration process taking place in such networks (Sydow et al. 2012) where hierarchy is replaced by heterarchy reconsidering the leadership role around collective roadmap activities: e.g. creation and gap filling (Müller-Seitz and Sydow 2012; Lange et al. 2013).

Partnering with other firms are effectively a means to explore novel fields, but the underlying cooperation relies on necessary coordination mechanisms as well as cohesion. This mix was identified as crucial to support collective action (Segrestin 2005). It also reveals critical questions on the legal framework supporting such open-ended processes thus avoiding rigidities and formalism of traditional business contracts. The lack of identification and tooling for path-dependence and path-creation, be it collective or not, can lead to a standstill as it is the case for orphan innovation (Agogué, Le Masson, and Robinson 2012) and under-performing technologies biased by government-led incentives (Nemet 2009).

Consequently, understanding through a relational and interactionist lens, the management of genuine uncertainties, and the unknown in such partnerships, alliances and networks becomes critical. It requires also to distance from pure governance or contractual perspectives despite being crucial, not only to reduce the costs and uncertainty associated with incomplete knowledge (Sydow, Müller-Seitz, and Provan 2013). For instance, the existence of collectives such as the famous Lunar Society of Birmingham (1765-1813) exhibits the capacity to organize beyond the firm’s boundaries into the gaps of the ecosystem left by the unknown (Le Masson and Weil 2014). Such groups materialize the links between science and industry, in order to collectively define new problems, address what is invisible, in contrast with the existing. Interfering in such way “into” the firm’s environment allows guiding the action logics towards what is potentially manageable with potential innovators (Neyer, Bullinger, and Moeslein 2009). Sociotechnical imaginaries can thus be managed to stimulate the ecosystem at stake (Hooge and Le Du 2016) echoing at higher level the use of metaphors to drive radical product development. This approach is relieved from the flexibility and dynamic responses expected from the firm as they generate a new space in its networks (Grant 1996).

Now, the idea of the higher level capabilities called regenerative dynamic capabilities (Ambrosini, Bowman, and Collier 2009, S15) could perhaps be embodied as it frames how firms “might modify and extend their current dynamic capabilities". But this third-loop of learning (Leifer and Steinert 2011; McClory, Read, and Labib 2017) shows the issue of iterating the looping process as path-dependency looms again at different loop levels. The pattern can reach for the hyper-environment by promoting a change of leadership and external change agents. The trick comes from the environment cognition seen at different management levels or for different activities. Hence, it is critical to master the ability to identify the fixation effects associated with the product design, the environment, institutions but also organization design.

By reconsidering the importance of action for human cognition (Barsalou 2016), we have another argument in favour of the role of design or generative processes in general. Action allows a better understanding of the environment’s perception and its dynamics. The notion of cognitive fit (Martignoni, Menon, and Siggelkow 2016) between mental-model of the decision-maker and the strategic environment, can then be studied to see if it contributes positively/negatively to exploration.

They show that cognitive style (simplifier vs. complexifier) will be better suited for different hierarchical levels (respectively lower and upper). The decision-making for strategic leadership should rely on a complexifier cognitive style in an inter-organizational context and high uncertainty levels (and inversely):

The performance perception combined with the interdependence representation, will then contribute to more or less exploration which in return should encourage a more or less efficient choice in the real performance landscape. However, this association should be carefully handled, as we have also stressed that too much exploration does not guarantee stationary payoffs (Posen and Levinthal 2012). So the direction of generative processes could be guided to inquire and interfere with the environment. Evaluating objects at the frontier of a knowledge domain also reveals several biases consistent with prospect theory and bounded rationality (Boudreau et al. 2016): lower scores for closer domains, and the more novel prospects are associated with lower evaluations. It marks again the edges of optimization and search models, and leaves room for generative processes supported by design reasoning to articulate performance ands its renewal.

Coming back to the decision of exploring and exploiting, several parameters are to be considered: guiding exploration project and engaging with the environment, loci of innovation, but also the project-based organization change. Structure and processes are off-balanced by project trajectories. Since, we relied on several biological analogies. The concept of metabolism could be another way of formulating these management parameters.

The word extends and stresses the meaning of metabole which means change from the Greek $\mu \epsilon \tau \alpha \beta o \lambda \eta$, itself derived from the prefix meta- (with, communal, in between, after) and the noun bole (throw, cast and also wiggle or dance⁶). So coming back to other introduced borrowed words (ecology of generativity, epicormic offshoot and mutation), the metabolism is a process that is rather in between organs and physiology.

For instance, the immune system, among other metabolic “devices”, generate numerous leucocytes (white blood cells) thanks to DNA variations in order to create cells that are potentially able to fight against threats detected in the body. It shows the capacity of creating deviant cells (different DNA) which should be eliminated per se, but that needed to potentially generating the adequate defence (Hallé 2004 XX). This small example gives an idea of the different nature of metabolism by opposition to other processes operating in a organic system.

Chapter conclusion: projects as generative vehicles unsettling organization learning and design

References