Experimental Networks: A Missing Link in Facilitating Systemic Transitions Through Projects?

Abstract

This article analyzes how firms can enable their innovation strategies through projects under various conditions. Previous research has identified an array of project-related means, such as explorative projects, project lineages, and ambidextrous programs, by which firms aim to realize their long-term innovation goals. These approaches, although powerful, are primarily focal firm-centered; address product-, platform-, and business-model levels; and tend to draw heavily on the firm’s resources and coordination efforts. However, systemic transitions are characterized by complex and unforeseen redefinitions of organizational and industrial boundaries, which require mobilization of resources by multiple actors, prompting firms to engage in time-limited experimental networks. This article introduces this concept to project studies and juxtaposes it with the key extant project-based concepts for enabling innovation by scrutinizing their definitions, intended scope of innovation, locus of attention, and coordination principles. Consequently, it draws attention to the importance of interorganizational aspects when facing a systemic transition and contributes to an emerging debate on the linkages among project studies, innovation management, and sociotechnical transitions.