A new managerial perspective on self-organization in product development

Licentiate thesis, 2021

Technological changes and faster information flows motivate managers and management scholars to explore new forms of product development organizing, departing from the managerial hierarchy and building increasingly on self-organization. With few exceptions such explorations and experimental efforts have proven challenging to sustain over time. From the contrasting point of view from inside product developers' practice, scholars studying communities of practice, temporary organizations, and self-managing groups have found selforganization prevalent, not least in contexts such as product development, even in organizations characterized by a managerial hierarchy. From the managers' point of view self-organization of product development work seems promising in effect but challenging to attain and sustain, but from the point of view of product developers' practice it is to be considered modus operandi. How can this ambiguity of self-organization in product development be explained? In the present thesis the author explores this question conceptually and proposes that a better understanding of self-organization in product development is a matter of perspective rather than new concepts or elaborate organizational forms. Theoretical as well as practical managerial implications of this are outlined and discussed drawing on empirical fieldwork in large organizations engaged in complex product development.