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The purpose of this study is to address the problematic yet under-researched issue of the disconnectedness of the temporary and permanent levels of organisation in project-based firms in terms of learning and innovation diffusion.

The paper is based on a longitudinal case study of a pioneering French construction firm introducing the partnering method in France. Based on an abductive approach, the analytical framework combines insights of the literature on community and networks of practice to investigate the processes and mechanisms of diffusion of innovation in project-based firms.

The function of semi-permanent organisational levels in connecting the temporary and permanent levels of the firm – the communities of practice (CoPs) and network of practice (NoP) exists besides the formal organization of the firm. As a social learning process, innovation diffusion involves both formal (i.e. vertical) and informal (i.e. horizontal) forms of organising and learning. Intermediary and informal ways of organising enables the embedding of innovation both in terms of content and connections. Foremost, CoPs/NoPs contribute to relational embeddedness. Boundary actors and objects are essential in crossing the different levels of embeddedness to overcome the learning boundaries between temporary projects and the permanent firm.

The investigation is built on a single case study and further empirical research is needed, preferably longitudinal case studies, as this allows greater capture of the diffusion process. The authors suggest further studies using practice-based perspectives to capture the formal and informal ways of organising innovation diffusion.

Managerial interventions should favour the development of the informal dynamics of community and networks to foster both innovation and its diffusion. The managerial challenge lies in creating the right prerequisites for the existence of both the informal community logics of organising and the formal top management decision-making, and to orchestrate their timing in the diffusion process.

The study reveals the importance of both formal and informal networks in driving innovation. As such, project-based firms should be aware of these dynamics when striving for change.

The study contributes to the literatures on diffusion of innovation, project marketing and construction management. It includes new insights related to the function of intermediary and informal organisational levels of project-based organisations, the dynamics and connection between the temporary and permanent levels of the project-based firm related to communities and networks of practice, and the boundary spanning activities that are involved between the formal and informal levels of the firm.

New and radically different forms of temporary organisations often have to attract audiences in organisational fields that are dominated by temporary organisations that conform to ‘taken-for-granted’ organising template. The authors argue that adopters of new temporary organisations must contend with the tensions that arise when audiences compare the new temporary organisational form to the temporary organisations that conform to the institutionalised organising template. The authors therefore argue that as new temporary organisations are introduced into new contexts, organisers often use legitimacy claims based on novelty in the context where the new temporary organisation emerged to counter the threat of illegitimacy. However, because the strength of legitimacy claims based on novelty declines in contexts that are further removed, organisers will modify the template of a new temporary organisation in these contexts. The authors examine this using the case of the so called ‘unconferences’: an alternative conference form that emerged within the software development community at the start of the millennium in conjunction with the Web 2.0 movement. The authors’ data comprise 228 distinct unconferences between 2004 – when the unconference was first launched, and 2015. The authors examine the influence of sector distance of unconferences from the original sector where it was first held, on the extent to which the pure unconference format is retained. The authors show that as adopters of the new form move away from the original sector, they are more likely to modify the unconference template. The authors conclude by identifying promising areas of research in new forms of temporary organising.

Wonders whether companies actually have employees best interests at heart across physical, mental and spiritual spheres. Posits that most organizations ignore their workforce – not even, in many cases, describing workers as assets! Describes many studies to back up this claim in theis work based on the 2002 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference, in Cardiff, Wales.

I. INTRODUCTION This study attempts to extend and expand previous research conducted by the Department of Marketing at Strathclyde on the adoption and diffusion of industrial products.

The purpose of this paper is to offer a new analysis and understanding of the notion of deinstitutionalization. Deinstitutionalization of taken-for-granted practices as a natural consequence of ever-increasing entropy seems to directly contradict the major institutional thesis, namely, that over time isomorphic forces increase and, as a result, possibilities for deinstitutionalization decrease culminating in the impossibility of abandoning in highly institutionalized fields.

This paper is conceptual in nature. Oliver’s 1992 paper on deinstitutionalization is taken as a key text on the subject and as a starting point for building an alternative theory of deinstitutionalization. More broadly, institutional theory and organizational literature on diffusion/adoption are reviewed and synthesized.

The authors argue that possibilities for deinstitutionalization have been overestimated in institutional literature and offer a revisited account of deinstitutionalization vs institutional isomorphism and institutionalized vs highly diffusing-but-not-institutionalized practices. A freedom for choice between alternative practices exists during the pre-institutional stage but not when the field is already institutionalized. In contrast, institutionalized, taken-for-granted practices are immutable to any sort of functional and political pressures and they use to persist even when no technical value remains, thus deinstitutionalization on the basis of a functional dissatisfaction seems to be a paradox.

By revisiting the nature and patterns of deinstitutionalization, the paper offers a better conceptual classification and understanding of how organizations adopt, maintain and abandon organizational ideas and practices. An important task of this paper is to reduce the scope of application of deinstitutionalization theory to make it more focused and self-consistent. There is, however, still not enough volume of studies on institutional factors of practices’ abandonment in institutional literature. The authors, therefore, acknowledge that more studies are needed to further improve both the former deinstitutionalization theory and the framework.

The authors offer a solution to this theoretical inconsistency by distinguishing between truly institutionalized practices and currently popular practices (highly diffused but non-institutionalized). It is only the latter that are subject to the norms of progress that allow abandoning and replacing existing organizational activities. Deinstitutionalization theory is, thus can be applied to popular practices that are subject to reevaluation, abandonment and replacement with new optimal practices while institutions are immutable to these norms of progress. Institutions are immutable to deinstitutionalization and the deinstitutionalization of optimal practices is subject to the logic of isomorphic convergence in organizational fields. Finally, the authors revisit a traditional two-stage institutional diffusion model to explain the possibility and likelihood of abandonment during different stages of institutionalization.

The purpose of this paper is to apply the organizational learning framework to the management accounting literature to better understand why management accounting innovations succeed or fail in organizations.

A theoretical framework integrating diffusion and organization learning theories is developed. Diffusion theory is used to describe the process whereby the innovation is implemented. Argyris' and Argyris and Schon's theory of organizational learning is used to describe the type of learning – single loop or double loop – required by the innovation. Finally, the works of Attewell, and of Schulz relating to organizational learning, and of Rogers and of Sandberg relating to adoption and diffusion theories, were utilized to identify and understand the potential pitfalls faced by managements implementing an accounting innovation.

The paper advances the notion that an organization's approach to learning and innovation should be of interest to management accounting researchers. The single‐loop (incremental/organizational development (OD)) and the double‐loop (radical/organizational transformation (OT)) learning influences the adoption (stage one) and diffusion (stage two) strategies that are appropriate for the design and implementation of management accounting innovations.

The paper makes an important contribution to the behavioral accounting literature by integrating sociological diffusion and organizational learning behavior literatures and relating them to management accounting research.

The last several years have witnessed a growing scholarly interest in project-based organizations. This interest mirrors the diffusion of this organizational form across a wide range of industries, well beyond those where organizations traditionally have been organized by projects. To date, however, research on project-based organizations has not yet offered a systematic investigation of the interactions between project-based organizing and strategic management research. An examination of the existing literature indicates that some of the answers to key strategy questions remain incomplete, at times contradictory, and at best ambiguous. This volume moves the discussion to the next level by offering a comprehensive yet integrated view of cutting-edge research on project-based organizing to shed light on some of these ambiguities and clarify the relationship between project-based organizing and strategic management. To accomplish this, the volume includes the contributions of several leading scholars who have been active researchers on this subject. The chapters develop and extend key strategic aspects of project-based organizing, raise many new important questions, and identify fruitful areas for future research.

Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

Following Philip Selznick’s lead in using pragmatist social science to understand issues of public concern we conducted a study of failed innovation in the commercial construction industry (CCI). We find that social heuristics – collectively constructed and maintained interpretive decision-making frames – significantly shape economic and non-economic decision-making practices. Social heuristics are the outcome of industry-based “institutionalization processes” and are widely held and commonly relied on in CCI to reduce uncertainty endemic to decision-making; they provide actors with both a priori and ex post facto justifications for economic decisions that appear socially rational to industry co-participants. In the CCI – a project-centered production network – social heuristics as shared institutions sustain network-based social order but in so doing discourage novel technologies and impede innovation. Social heuristics are actor-level constructs that reflect macro-level institutional arrangements and networked production relations. The concept of social heuristics offers the promise of developing a genuinely social theory of individual economic choice and action that is historically informed, contextually situated, and neither psychologically nor structurally reductionist.