This article takes an empirical point of departure in an in-depth study of an R&D organization that was transformed into a strongly project-based organization. As demonstrated in the analysis, its mode of governance differed radically from traditional bureaucratic and cultural conceptions of...

Societies achieve their purposes through organizations. But organizations may develop into instrumental entities bereft of ethical debate. Roberts (Account. Org. Soc. 16(4) (1991) 355) claims that their hierarchical accountability systems powerfully reinforce instrumentality and individualize...

A basic message of the transaction cost approach (TCA) is that the firm is not a market. In this spirit the coalitional, holistic and social nature of the firm and the importance of recognizing certain behavioural assumptions are discussed and illustrated empirically in the first part of the...

The notion of a 'community-of-practice' (CmP) has become a highly influential way of conceptualizing how decentralized sub-units or groups within firms or organizations operate. CmPs refer to 'tightly knit' groups that have been practising together long enough to develop into a cohesive...