Coordination of inter-organizational projects within creative industries: A contextual perspective

Sammanfattning: Inter-organizational projects have become common forms of organizing in various industries such as construction, advertising, music, film making etc. The unique structural nature of Inter-organizational projects coupled with the fact that they carried out through the participation of multiple organizations, raises issues of coordination. Particularly when it comes to creative industries, coordination is challenged by demand and transactional uncertainties. In order to understand how inter-organizational projects achieve coordination in such situations, it is important to study their interior processes putting in consideration their environmental context.  The aim of this research is to study how network embeddedness enhances coordination in inter-organizational projects within creative industries. Inter-organizational projects: are projects that are carried out through the collaboration of multiple legally independent organizations Inter-organizational networks: refer to sets of long-term ties among independent organizations that are engaged in continuous exchange relations. Embeddedness: refers to the continuous interaction of individuals, organizations, projects etc. with their environmental context. Macrocultures: refer to the shared beliefs, norms values rules and practices with in inter- organizational networks that guide members on their actions. A qualitative approach using a multiple comparative case study was conducted. Accordingly four projects chosen from creative industries were studied using both primary and secondary data. Macrocultures that are embedded inter-organizational networks facilitate coordination within inter-organizational projects. Further projects that differ in their constituents task nature, time duration and team composition relied on different types of embeddedness for coordination.