Linking project-based production and project management temporary systems in multiple contexts: An introduction to the special edition

As organisations in more and more industries look for flexible ways of production in the wake of rapidly changing market environments, project-based organising is becoming an increasingly important mode of organisation (Eisenhardt & Tabrizi, 1995). Whereas project-based organisation was traditionally mainly the domain of industries such as film making (Sorenson & Waguespack, 2006), theatre (Goodman & Goodman, 1976), and construction (Gann & Salter, 2000), a project-based mode of operation has recently pervaded many other sectors in the economy, including software development, advertising, biotechnology, consulting, emergency response, fashion, television and complex products and systems (Grabher, 2004; Hobday, 2000). This increasing prevalence is reflected in an exponentially growing body of research (Bakker, 2010), which has made marked progress in areas such as project-based learning (Prencipe & Tell, 2001), project-based innovation (Eisenhardt & Tabrizi, 1995) and project-based careers (Jones, 1996). As a consequence, research on project organisation has moved from being a narrow specialty domain toward being a broad research paradigm, attending to a broad audience in organisation science and beyond (Sydow et al., 2004). In a fairly recent review paper, Bakker (2010) shows that in the period 1988–2008 scholarly attention, as indicated by publications in books and ISI-indexed journals, grew exponentially (see Figure 1). Comparing the number of publications in the period 1988-1998 with the period 1998–2008, he observed an increase of almost 340%.