Maria Carmela Annosi

Social Conduct, Learning and Innovation: An Abductive Study of the Dark Side of Agile Software Development

Agile methodologies have been adopted by an increasing number of organizations to improve their responsiveness. However, few studies have empirically analysed the effect of Agile on long-term organizational goals such as learning and innovation. Using an abductive approach, this study examines the relationships between self-regulated teams social conduct and their resulting learning and innovation. Results indicate that the time pressure induced by the implementation of Agile impedes team engagement in learning and innovation activities. Time pressure is affected by a set of different control strategies, more specifically concertive, belief, diagnostic and boundary controls, and these need to be adequately addressed in order to minimize the potential dark side of Agile.

The Interaction of Control Systems and Stakeholder Networks in Shaping the Identities of Self-Managed Teams:

Team identity has received little research attention even though an increasing number of firms are moving to team-based organizations and there is evidence that teams form identities. We explore the extent to which team identity can be institutionalized as a central organizing principle of team-based firms. We argue that managerial and stakeholder interventions shape the self-construction of team identity as well as the team’s commitment to specific work objectives. We also suggest that team identity becomes isomorphic to organizational identity because of pressures related to: (1) the presence of a dense network of managers and stakeholders, which orients teams towards a focus on certain aspects of the higher-order identity; (2) the use of team routines and regular feedback loops, which force alignment with the organizational identity; and (3) the use of coordinating roles aimed at promoting, ratifying and reinforcing the convergence of identity within the team. We analyse multiple cases from a major multinational corporation in the telecommunications industry, which we examine through the lens of a multi-level model of controls involving the micro, meso and macro organizational levels. We expand and refine the model in the process.

Learning and Innovation in Hybrid Organizations: Strategic and Organizational Insights

Reflecting the emergence of new organizational forms and hybrid organizations, this edited collection explores the processes of exchange, collaboration and technological management that have changed organizational structures. By investigating the impact that inter-organizational collaboration can have on the production and implementation of ideas within new firms, this study contributes to the growing field of innovation and responds to the need for a greater understanding of renewed processes. The authors argue that collaborations need to go beyond existing practices to create emerging paths such as bricolage, experimentation, effectuation and learning. Drawing together a diverse body of literature on the internal dynamics that drive organizational change, Learning and Innovation in Hybrid Organizations presents multiple perspectives on combining organizational flexibility with learning and innovation, and provides implications for future practice.

Lesson Learned, Implications, and Summary of the Main Findings

In the closing chapter, editors synthesize elements theorized across the volume and suggest further avenues for research both for theory and empirics based on the proposal arising from the contributors and form their own reading of each chapter.

Strategic and organizational Insights into learning and innovation in hybrids and "new" organizations

The aim of this chapter is to introduce the reader to the concepts of hybrid and new organizations. Its intent is also to make clear the type of contribution the book is intended to bring to the literature on hybrid organizations. The structure of the book and how to navigate it, together with a short summary of contributions, are presented.

Investigating the impact of agile methods on learning and innovation

In a turbulent environment, increased flexibility and efficiency are essential for most firms to survive. Many organizations have responded to the need for greater efficiency and productivity by building more Agile structures and shifting to the implementation of Agile software (SW) methodologies. Although the adoption of Agile methodologies is becoming widespread, robust empirical evidence on their effectiveness is lacking as is evidence of the improvements brought by Agile compared to other methods. This chapter provides empirical evidence on the impact of Agile on organizational product and process innovation and learning. Authors investigate the following research question: How does use of Agile methods impact on product and process related innovation and learning in teams? While the relationship between the investment in knowledge and innovation output has been studied extensively, little work focuses on the role of Agile in growing the organization’s knowledge base through team learning. The data collected include traditional R&D innovation indicators and also in-depth measures of organizational performance and overall team outcomes, which allow us to study not only the extent to which Agile impacts on the firm’s innovation and learning performance but also the dynamic team learning process.

Issues of Control in Hybrids and “New” Organizations

Substantial further research is yet needed on how to design and manage organizations that can respond to the uncertainties and demands of new business. Organizational control—broadly defined as any process by which organizational members direct attention, motivate, and encourage others to act in ways desirable for achieving organizational objectives is commonly recognized as fundamental to the functioning and performance of organizations and their. Nevertheless, there is no theoretical explanation for how controls, in the new organizational context, operate in combination. This chapter provides a theoretical contribution to the arena of organizational controls by reviewing the current understanding on the organizational control underlying the self-regulative learning processes. Indeed, a widespread sense of a gap between the rapid development of the new organizational forms in practice and the capacity of existing perspectives to account for them in theory exists.

The emergence of new organization designs. Evidences from self-managed team-based organizations

New organization designs emerge continuously in highly dynamic innovation context to improve readiness to change. The adoption of self-managing teams operating cross-functionally on a bulk of products, together with the reduction of vertical layers in the organization, seems to be a common strategy for many organizations aiming to achieve higher level of efficacy and shorter lead times. Authors explore the extent to which new micro-and meso-level organizational forms contribute to the achievement of organizational efficiency, and produce secondary effects on long-term innovation goals.

Investigating the impact of agile control mechanisms on learning in scrum teams

This chapter aims to explore Management Control Systems (MCS) resulting from the implementation of agile development methods, relying on an established MCS taxonomy. An abductive approach was adopted, considering the shortage of research evaluating the post-adoption effects of agile methods. Four organizations from an international telecommunication firm that implemented agile methods were involved, and 44 individual semi-structured interviews were performed. In addition, 121 free comments from a global survey to the same organizations were used as secondary data. The paper indicates how Scrum, a widespread agile method, implicitly brings multiple enforcing levers of control to a team’s self-regulatory learning processes.

Linking Organizational Controls and Organizational Learning: Research Approach and Methodology

This chapter provides an overview of the research studies used as a basis for the empirical analysis that will be presented in Chapter 8. We start by clarifying the epistemological and ontological positions. We then provide information on the nature and the quality of data collected, and provide a description of the data analysis performed along with a description of the reliability and validity checks executed in each research study.