Self-organization of the product and organization relationship – A processual perspective on the mirroring hypothesis

Paper i proceeding, 2018

This paper builds on several studies of the mirroring hypothesis and specifically develops the idea of an emergent mirroring hypothesis, being the processual mirroring leading towards a one-to-one relationship between the product system and the organization. By assuming that operative product development organizations have an inherent self-organizing capability, we develop a hypothesis of an emergent mirroring process. A process where uncertainty arising from misalignment between the product system and the organization sparks the self-organizing creation of both organizational order and product definition leading to new alignment between the two. Through a participative case study, we provide an illustrative example of how this process is enacted to solve a hardware integration issue spanning across intra-organizational borders and suggest conditions that need to be provided for developers to self-organize the development of product and organizational order.