Sustaining and Developing Disciplinary Expertise in Project-Based Organizations: Balanced and Integrated Solutions

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INTRODUCTION

Interdisciplinary project teams are extensively used in many firms’ R&D activities. One chief reason, looking back at the now quite extensive body of literature on project organization and management, is that projects allow firms to combine and integrate different disciplinary domains of knowledge in an efficient way (e.g., Sydow, Lindkvist, & DeFillippi, 2004). Firms that strive to be innovative are dependent on deep and up-to-date knowledge within various disciplinary domains, and project-based organizing in the form of interdisciplinary and co-located project teams has grown in importance as a way to achieve collaboration and integration across disciplinary boundaries. By some, this way of organizing work is even heralded as the solution to the challenges that face contemporary organizations (e.g., Leonard-Barton, Bowen, Clark, Holloway, & Wheelwright, 1994). While such organizational solutions are often successful in meeting the projects’ short-term need for interdisciplinarity, they do not come without disadvantages. In particular, the tensions that accrue from the different characteristics and needs of the product-oriented temporary projects on the one hand and the permanent organization on the other have been highlighted (e.g., Midler, 1995; Hobday, 2000; Clark & Wheelwright, 1992; Bredin & Söderlund, 2011). One disadvantage, which has been identified in both research and practice, is the difficulty to further develop and thereby sustain disciplinary expertise within a firm's core knowledge domains over time. This difficulty is prominent in projects which are not only interdisciplinary but in which the project members are also co-located over an extended period of time. The question guiding the research reported in this book therefore concerns how specialists within the same discipline, who work in interdisciplinary and co-located teams on a daily basis and over extended periods of time, can be organized in order to achieve sustained specialist knowledge in the long run while at the same time meeting the more short-term needs of interdisciplinarity in the projects.

This was an issue which both authors of this book had come across in our previous research on knowledge integration in projects and the organization of human resource management (HRM) in project-based firms, respectively. The problem of organizing for sustained specialist knowledge in project-based firms had been brought up for discussion many times by project members, project managers, line managers, and other organizational members; several of them mentioned new ideas and solutions for attempting to deal with the problem. The issue of securing access to specialist knowledge has traditionally been the responsibility of line managers and, as it seemed, had not been much of a problem as long as the needs of the functional departments, the line organization, had been prevalent and as long as senior specialists had taken on the responsibility of teaching junior employees in a kind of master-apprentice relationship, as a quite natural thing to do. However, at a time when the more short-term needs of the projects are prioritized and specialists are scattered around the organization, there are few opportunities for specialists of the same discipline to meet and share their experiences and establish a shared knowledge base. Thus, a relevant question to pose would be: What kinds of alternatives to traditional line units have emerged in project-based organizations to maintain deep disciplinary competence over time? Specifically, what different types of solutions for organizing specialist knowledge (if any) have developed in project-based companies that rely heavily on interdisciplinary and co-located project teams? In what ways do these types of organizational solutions address the inherent challenges of retaining specialist knowledge in the long run, when people over time work mostly in co-located and interdisciplinary project teams? How do these different solutions balance the project's short-term need for interdisciplinarity with its equally important need for deep specialist knowledge in the long run? The research reported in this book thus aims at exploring one dimension of a paradox that has been identified in a wide range of studies of project-based organizing, namely, the conflicting requirements of the project's need for interdisciplinarity in the short run and its equally important need for sustained disciplinary expertise in the long run.

In Search of Solutions to a Well-Known Challenge

Drawing on previous research on project-based organizing and interdisciplinary team settings, in this book, we will argue that project-based organizations are successful at fostering knowledge breadth and that the interdisciplinary and co-located teams constitute an arena where project members quite naturally learn a bit of what their colleagues know as part of their disciplinary expertise and of the interfaces between the different disciplinary domains (Lindkvist, 2004). However, it is less likely that learning, which fosters deep disciplinary expertise, occurs in a setting where members of a knowledge domain are dispersed in different interdisciplinary project teams and there is a risk that the development of disciplinary expertise is neglected (Bredin & Söderlund, 2011; Grabher, 2004). This argument will be further developed in the following chapter. Hence, the fundamental problem addressed in this study lies in the paradox that is inherent in the organization of work in interdisciplinary and co-located project teams, which is outlined below and illustrated in Figure 1.1.

-     Organizing in interdisciplinary and co-located project teams is a means to achieve an efficient combination and integration of knowledge across disciplinary boundaries.

-     To achieve this, the individual project team members must have deep enough disciplinary expertise within the knowledge domain they represent and be able to integrate it with other knowledge domains.

-     Interdisciplinary teamwork tends to foster a broadening of skills and knowledge across disciplinary boundaries, which often implies a decrease in depth within each individual's own knowledge domain.

-     The co-location of interdisciplinary teams inherently enhances the interdisciplinary teamwork but inherently results in a dispersal of disciplinary expertise, which in the long run weakens the ties among members of the same knowledge domain.

-     In the long run, this might lead to a dilution of disciplinary expertise and thereby also to impaired project performance.

At this stage, it is important to clarify that our intention with this study is by no means to argue against the use of project-based structures and interdisciplinary and co-located teams. On the contrary, in accordance with the general discourse in both research and practice on project organization and management, we see these organizational forms as potentially very successful in their aim. However, we do claim that there are still many unresolved issues, and that project-based organizing could be more viable in the long run if we learned more about how to address some of the already well known downsides and challenges with them. In this book we address one such challenge.

The difficulties of sustaining and developing disciplinary expertise in project-based organizations have been identified and discussed in a number of studies before ours—thus, the problem is well known. However, more research needs to be done in relation to how this problem can be addressed, and what implications different solutions might have. There are a few studies which have identified attempts at solving the problem, for example, by the application of secondary intra-organizational structures which constitute horizontal knowledge overlays (Nesheim, Olsen, & Tobiassen, 2011, p. 837) such as competence networks and knowledge communities among project members within the same knowledge domain and with similar disciplinary identities (Lindkvist, 2004; Nesheim et al., 2011) or informal measures such as members of the same knowledge domain moving their desks together (Sapsed, 2005). However, in the studies mentioned, these alternative ways of organizing for the development of disciplinary expertise have not been the main focus of analysis, nor have they been thoroughly discussed as to how they balance the short-term need for interdisciplinarity with the long-term need for deep disciplinary expertise.

Not surprisingly, firms are full of innovative people—employees and managers who daily operate in this type of organizational setting and who are constantly trying to find solutions to improve their daily business. Our own experiences from previous empirical fieldwork, as well as from reading the empirical work of other researchers (e.g., Lindkvist, 2004; Nesheim et al., 2011; Sapsed, 2005), has made us aware that a lot is going on with respect to facing the particular challenge addressed in this study. New ideas and solutions are tried out, kept, developed, or thrown out, and we argue that there is a need for more empirical work to investigate these new solutions and analyze how they address the paradox of co-located interdisciplinary project work versus depth in disciplinary expertise within critical knowledge domains. This would make an important contribution to research on project-based organization and management and particularly where that stream of research bridges into research on human resource management, since the results will give insights into how different types of organizational solutions might support disciplinary knowledge and competence development. Such research is also needed to provide a more developed knowledge base for practitioners in project-based organizations to draw from when analyzing how to deal with this challenge. With this study, we take a first step in this direction.

Purpose and Research Questions

The purpose of this study is accordingly to explore organizational solutions with the aim of sustaining and developing disciplinary expertise in the long run in firms that rely on co-located interdisciplinary project teams. By disciplinary expertise, we here refer to scientific and/or technical knowledge within a certain domain that enables particular project members to conduct particular tasks—those that give them abilities and skills that distinguish them from their colleagues in the interdisciplinary and co-located teams (cf. Collinson, 2001).

More specifically, the research aims at finding answers to the following questions:

What different types of solutions for organizing disciplinary expertise have developed in project-based companies that rely heavily on interdisciplinary and co-located project teams?

In what ways do these different types of organizational solutions address the inherent challenges of sustaining and developing disciplinary expertise in the long run, when people over time work mostly in co-located interdisciplinary projects?

The research reported here is based on three case studies of organizations that carry out most of their operations in co-located and interdisciplinary project teams. The organizations are parts of firms operating within the areas of software development, sensor systems, and medical technology, and they are all focused on product development and R&D. The data was collected in 2012 and 2013. This book provides a review on previous research related to the questions in focus and rich case descriptions that give insight into innovative organizational solutions and how managers as well as project members deal with the issue of sustaining and developing disciplinary expertise. Moreover, a tentative analytical framework is suggested, which enhances the possibilities to analyze different organizational solutions for sustaining disciplinary expertise in project-based organizations, and to evaluate how various solutions might influence the type of knowledge developed.

A Reader's Guide

The text is structured as follows. In the next chapter, we give an overview of research into knowledge-based work with a focus on the kind of knowledge types needed for disciplinary experts to be competent performers within a particular disciplinary domain and context, that is, what type of knowledge is it that disciplinary experts need to share and develop in order to maintain and further develop their disciplinary expertise? From this literature review, we develop a simple model that we use in analyzing how the organizational solutions that we have identified address the inherent challenges in retaining disciplinary expertise. In Chapter 3, we describe the methodology used for collecting the empirical data and thereafter follow the case descriptions. Each case is described in detail in Chapters 4, 5, and 6. Chapter 7 provides a first-level analysis of the cases, identifying key empirical patterns concerning which types of solutions for organizing disciplinary expertise have emerged, an analysis primarily related to research question number one. In Chapter 8, we take the analysis one step further, focusing on the second research question and analyzing the ways in which these solutions address the challenges of retaining and developing disciplinary expertise in the long run. Finally, the last chapter provides a final discussion and conclusions.

ON DISCIPLINARY EXPERTISE IN PROJECT-BASED ORGANIZATIONS

While projects have long been used in industries where activities are of a one-off nature, for example, in the development and delivery of complex products and systems (Hobday, 2000), for the last decades, they have proliferated into industries where projects have not previously been part of the canonical repertoire of organizational routines and practices (Grabher, 2002, p. 206). It has been suggested that a projectification of the society, and of the firm, has taken place (Ekstedt, Lundin, Söderholm, & Wirdenius, 1999; Midler, 1995). This projectification of the firm, with its corresponding reliance on interdisciplinary and co-located teams, is perhaps not surprising if we consider that such project teams have been heralded as the solution to the challenges that meet contemporary organizations (Leonard-Barton et al., 1994). Projects, at least in the mainstream project management literature according to Cicmil and Hodgson (2006), are promoted as universally applicable templates for integrating, by design, diverse functions of an organization that enable concentration of flexible, autonomous and knowledgeable individuals in temporary project teams, for the focused accomplishment of goals, timely and effectively, for customer satisfaction and company benefits (p. 5).

Project-Based Organizations for Knowledge Integration

Project-based organizing of innovation and new product development offers several benefits as compared to organizational solutions where such activities are undertaken within the realm of functional line units (Clark & Wheelwright, 1992). It has been suggested that project-based organizations are more innovative and better suited to dealing with uncertainties, risks, and changing client requirements (Hobday, 2000). Further, project-based organizations are better at complex problem solving, at integrating knowledge across different areas of expertise, and at making efficient use of human resources (Bredin & Söderlund, 2011). However, project-based organizations do not come without disadvantages and tend to be weak where functional and matrix structures are strong. Hobday (2000) suggests that project-based organizations are weak at cross-project learning, at facilitating technical development, and at coordinating cross-project resources. Likewise, Gann and Salter (2000) and Lindkvist (2004) have argued that the ability of project-based organizations to link diverse and autonomous projects to firm-level processes, such as company-wide technical development, is comparably weak. In summary, it appears that project-based organizations, while being good at integrating disciplinary expertise and at living up to the comparably short-term needs of the project, are worse at dealing with cross-project learning, knowledge, and experience sharing between specialists within the same disciplinary domain, and thus, at long-term development of disciplinary expertise. This disadvantage of project-based organizations to sustain disciplinary expertise is the focus of our interest in this book and we will return to it again below. First, however, we find it advisable to clarify what we mean by project-based organizations.

A project-based organization of pure type, according to Hobday (2000), is one in which the project is the primary unit for production, organization, innovation and competition (p. 874) and in which the project carries out all of the operations normally undertaken within the departments of functional or matrix structures. For example, this is the case when projects are employed for the development and delivery of complex products and systems (Hobday, 2000) or in the making of a new film (DeFillippi & Arthur, 1998). The project-based organization that Hobday (2000) and DeFillippi and Arthur (1998) envision is one with no permanent structure that can deal with, for example, the issues of long-term development of disciplinary expertise. In