The Cultural Ecosystem of Megaprojects: The ......International Journal of Architecture, Engineering...

International Journal of Architecture, Engineering and ConstructionVol 3, No 2, June 2014, 82-97

The Cultural Ecosystem of Megaprojects: The

Interconnectedness of Organizational Elements and their

Wider Institutional Contexts

Illona Kusuma∗

The Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management, University College London

London, United Kingdom

Abstract: In the multi-layered structure of megaprojects, organizational cultures emerge within differenttemporary multi-organizational teams (TMOs) responsible for execution. The cultural ecosystem in megaprojectis conceptually articulated at the levels of their institutional settings to increase sustainable delivery. TMOsas meso-level coalitions are complex systems comprised of diverse public-private organizations responsible fordelivering individual projects within the programme. Understanding these social and structural milieus providesa new groundwork for conceptual development and theorization of megaproject culture formation. Mirroredthrough its dynamics, ecology and development, this paper unravels how cultural features are affected byenvironment, effected in development, and transformed during the megaproject life. Contributions are madeby shifting discourse towards a dynamic understanding of causal diversity that shape culture within TMOs toimprove transferable practice. This investigative strategy challenges extant normative viewpoints. Indicating theneed to reconsider existing perceptions and to embed norms of reflexivity beyond the mainstream megaprojectmanagement thinking.

Keywords: Organizational culture, TMO, ecosystem, institutional context, megaprojects

DOI: 10.7492/IJAEC.2014.007

1 INTRODUCTION

The study of megaprojects has received growing atten-tion since the late 1980s (e.g. Morris and Hough 1987).Within the construction industry, knowing-doing gap-s within megaprojects studies have been dominatedby cause-effect analysis focusing on high-cost/high-riskanalysis of economic efficiency and management per-formance (cf. Stinchcombe and Heimer 1985; Flyvberget al. 2003; Flyvberg 2005; Miller and Lessard 2000;Olds 2001). A similar take in the setting of industrialmegaprojects has been undertaken by Merrow (2011).Using the lens of business objectives and the shapingprocess (cf. Miller and Lessard 2000), Merrow suggest-ed a shift in focus towards a more front-end planningand management. This brings about the perspectivein viewing a megaproject as the end product of itsown fragility. Thus, underpinning the mechanism ofcausal diversity and contextual factors that shape the

megaproject environment is crucial to getting it deliv-ered safely through its lifecycle.Given the fragility of megaprojects and the number

of interfaces, this paper focuses upon the problems ofculture and coordination (e.g. Berggren et al. 2001) inmegaproject planning and management. Organisation-al fragmentation occurs that requires systematic man-agement for integration. However, over-determined in-tegration induces conflated thinking and confused ac-tion in practice. This provides a theoretical contri-bution to the question “is there a new way forward tounderpinning culture in the dynamic ecosystem of con-struction Megaprojects beyond the static perceptionsthat dominate theories and practices?” The aim is tointroduce a 4-class system in the attempt to increasethe ability to measure cultural dynamics in a megapro-ject temporary multi-organisational team (TMO). Inthis sense, culture can materialise for a more trans-ferable, optimized and effective coordination of the T-

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Kusuma/International Journal of Architecture, Engineering and Construction 3 (2014) 82-97

MO’s performance throughout the project lifecycle.This paper will begin with a brief review of extant

culture and coordination-related research focusing onmegaprojects in particular. Here, nagging questions onwhy extant literatures dealing with this issue have dif-fering results and conclusions will be discussed. Then,we will move on to identifying three areas of com-plexity shrouding the notion of culture and culturalecosystem that undermine efforts to address the is-sue. Discourse will focus on the issues surrounding: (i)top-down and bottom-up interplay and (ii) corporate-project dimension and the TMO in megaproject envi-ronments. Arguments will be developed and anchoredupon literature reviews on the notion of culture in or-ganisational theories. Seeing culture in terms of its dy-namic ecology and development helps unravel how en-vironments affect cultural features, effected in develop-ment, and transformed during a megaproject. Startingwith the social and structural milieu of megaprojects,the threads of cultural ecosystem surrounding the con-text will be articulated. Finally, concluding commentsabout the dynamism of causal diversity and contextualfactors that shape organisational culture will be usedto suggest the way forward to expand the existing bodyof knowledge.

2 CULTURE, COORDINATION ANDMEGAPROJECTS

First, it is important to reiterate that a megapro-ject is seen as a single project firm where coalition isformed in a temporary basis managing a programmeof projects. This is further comprised with a numberof TMOs managing different projects within the pro-gramme. Megaproject TMOs are complex due to itsstructure consisting of a variety of interrelated parts.Its operation is characterized in terms of differentiationand interdependency through the engagement of sev-eral separate different organizations (Baccarini 1996).Thus it is important to understand the role of culture incomplementing this dynamic coordination mechanism.Historically, construction project management re-

searches have focused heavily on improving project ef-ficiency rather than effectiveness (cf. Shenhar et al.1997). Yet, Morris et al. (2011) suggested that thereis the danger of stereotyping the approach to manag-ing projects as an “execution-only oriented discipline”.That is, relying only on the Weberian view of a pre-cise application of skills, knowledge, tools, and tech-niques whilst undermining the socio-cultural systemembedded within the organization and project itself.Gellert and Lynch (2003) support this stating, “the ide-ologies and cultural biases of epistemic communitiesshape project processes in ways that foster displace-ment”. The traditional cause-effect efficiency analy-sis therefore needs to be supplemented through un-derstanding of the discourse on institutional context

for the management of projects. Further, Miller andLessard (2000) also revealed that efficiency and effec-tiveness should not be equated and that megaprojectTMOs struggle more in achieving effectiveness due toambiguous perceptions toward the project and inabilityto comprehend - and hence, manage project externali-ties.This section begins with a brief introduction on the

past culture-related research in the context of megapro-jects, then moves on to evaluate the dynamic charac-teristics of culture and ends with a theoretical stanceon how measurements and dimensions of culture shouldbe approached in megaprojects.

2.1 The Relationship between Culture andCoordination in Megaprojects

Researchers in project management have linked cultur-al differences at the national level as one of the factorsthat affect - to some extent - those at the organization-al level and further to the organizational effectiveness(e.g., Pant et al. 1996; Chen and Partington 2004;Phua and Rowinson 2003; Bredillet et al. 2010). Inother words, the concept of culture has become a socialparadigm that cannot be separated from any manage-ment and organizational analysis.Of course, one may argue that the implications of

cultural differences in projects as well as megaprojectsmay not be as blatant and easily identified in whichconsequences are plain and direct as other issues. Oth-ers argue that standardized processes are the ultimatekey to project success (cf. Milosevic and Patanakul2005). However, reducing project management to set-s of tools, procedures and higher levels of standard-ization of project management process provides insuf-ficient conditions to “automatically lead to increasedproject success” (Milosevic and Patanakul 2005; Levit-t 2011).Moving on, the context of megaprojects is unique and

novel, comprising of members from different organiza-tional and institutional settings with different interestsand priorities that are not unitary. It is a “complexsystem of interest groups, some congruent, some com-peting” (Cherns and Bryant 1984) where the “logic ofaction” (Bresnen et al. 2004) is autonomous. Thus,a megaproject coalition embody uncertainty and am-biguity, novelty, and complex systems suggesting rig-orous integration across diverse public and private or-ganisations responsible for planning, design and con-struction of individual projects within the programme.This accentuates the coordination complexity of theconstruction project teams managing the operationsi.e. the megaproject TMOs.In a megaproject context specifically, arguably only

a handful of extant literatures have explicitly lookedat the impact of culture to coordination. Among ear-liest works in this area, in the late 90s, Winch et al.(1997) published an article based on the Transmanche

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Link. In this study, the authors used Hofstede’s fivedimensions of national culture and tried to apply itas a theoretical framework to assess cross-border man-agement at the organisational level. The authors foundthat Hofstede’s measurements did not reflect what hap-pened on the ground at both the strategic programmelevel and operational project level. In fact, the reali-ty reflected the opposite of the original five dimensionsscores. Thus, a generic conclusion was drawn statingthat the relationship between culture and coordinationin megaproject exists, posing a negative impact andthat it needs a more in-depth understanding of the re-lationships between the industry, organisation and na-tional cultural interactions. Thus, it can be said thatnational cultural difference is only an overarching indi-cator to achieve collaborative success.In the early 2000s, Clegg et al. (2002) found that

culture in a mega infrastructure project is regarded asa governance tool. Project wide culture is thereforenurtured vigorously from the top-down emphasisingmuch on awareness and solidarity across the coalition.However, the focus of the study would seem to sug-gest that culture is something that can be scientificallymanaged. Thus, brushing over the contextual and dy-namic element of the concept. In this sense, relationaland organisational interfaces in which value-based ex-changes occur are reduced to a single layer interaction.Van Marrewijk and his colleagues have also done simi-

lar studies of culture in megaproject environment (e.g.van Marrewijk 2005; van Marrewijk 2007; van Mar-rewijk et al. 2008; Smits and van Marrewijk 2012).The authors took a dynamic process approach basedon Martin (2002) anthropological research frameworkto studying the impact of culture towards coordinationand project success. These studies are based on a singlecase study analysing different points of events. Howev-er, simplifications are present regarding the intercon-nectedness of diverse organisational elements and theimplications coming from the wider institutional con-text. Further, the authors have not yet provided a con-clusive theoretical framework for a way forward to cap-turing, operationalizing and measuring key constructsof culture in the dynamic megaproject context. Thus,the levels of analysis seem overshadowed by the rich-ness of the data itself where distinctions between impli-cations coming from the national or organisational lev-els of culture are jumbled. A summary overview of theextant research findings on the culture-coordination re-lationship in construction megaprojects is presented inTable 1.To conclude, with current thinking in managing and

understanding the implications of culture in megapro-jects, it is not far-fetched to say that it is challengingto predict the upfront nature and magnitude of effectcoming form the dynamics of cultural diversity. Thisbrings us to the next sub-section.

Table 1. Major cyclones that hit Bangladesh coast

Article Details Key Findings CulturalFramework

Generalization of Frameworks andFindings

Winch et al. (1997) National cultural scores do not re-flect what happened at the organi-zational and project level.

Hofstede’s 5 di-mensions.

Static interpretation. Findingspoints to a way forward to thebody of knowledge.

Clegg et al. (2002) Organizational culture impactsproject processes and designs.Culture is socially constructedand cultural fit should be vigor-ously nurtured top-down for it tofacilitate bottom-up interactions.

Casey’s De-signer Culture.

Internal observation. Findings arecontextual to the single megapro-ject studied. No generalizable tan-gible artifacts to underpin cross-cultural development in dynamicmegaproject environment.

van Marrewijk(2005, 2007) Organizational culture is a set oftwo different episodes (Gideon’sGang and Diplomat) depending onthe stage of the lifecycle. Conflictand power is the focus.

Martin’s (An-thropological)Three Per-spectives ofCulture.


van Marrewijk et al. (2008) A joint paper presenting the find-ings from the previous two paper-s above. Organizational culture isseen as ambiguous at start, devel-oped through conflict and negoti-ations and is directly proportion-al to cooperation between projectpartners.

Martin’s (An-thropological)Three Perspec-tives of Cultureand Casey’sDesigner Cul-ture.

Internal observation. Findings arecontextual to the single megapro-ject studied. Culture-coordinationdistances are measured throughsituational power, ambiguity andparadoxes of the project partners.

Smits and van Marrewijk(2012)

Examining contract-based collab-oration. Basing mainly on pow-er and conflict, more dominantproject partner is seen to “chap-erone” the less dominate partner.Dominance is seen from nationalsuperiority perspective.

Ethnographicand Interpre-tative Studylargely basedon Martin’s(Anthropo-logical) ThreePerspectives ofCulture.


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2.2 Culture as Dynamic

Culture has been regarded as both broad and complex,yet a critical organizational concept in construction (cf.Tijhuis and Fellows 2011). The concept is a ubiqui-tous part of organizational studies and encompassesshared values and beliefs as well as aligned behaviourand common action. Since the introduction of Hofst-ede (1980) seminal study surrounding the five dimen-sions of national cultural differences, culture at the or-ganisational level has been highlighted further and hasbeen developed drawing upon anthropological and so-ciological views to something (e.g. Douglas 1999) thatcan help improve organizational and individual perfor-mance. Hence culture serves as a fundamental factorand milestone to achieve effectiveness and coherencebetween the different business units inter and intra or-ganizations.Further, authors have acknowledged that culture is

dynamic and multiversal, evolving incrementally incontext. However, culture has largely been distin-guished according to understanding largely based up-on eastern and western conceptions in project man-agement literatures (cf. Pant et al. 1996; Chen andPartington 2004; Phua and Rowinson 2003; Bredilletet al. 2010). From the brief review in Table 1, it canbe seen that universal, reductive and static conceptionsof and attempts to manage culture fail. French (2007)suggested 5 major cultural layers:

i Global - a primary influence upon behaviour,ii National - a primary influence upon attitudes,iii Regional - a primary influence upon beliefs (within

an ethnic group),iv Community - a primary influence upon values

(within an organization, group, or team),v Personal - a primary influence upon taken for grant-

ed assumptions.

Each of these layers affects one another. It is ar-gued that culture, at any one layer or level, is complexand multifaceted relative to a “range of institutional orsociety-wide factors” (French 2007). This multifaceteddimension of culture generates dynamic interplay fromtop-down and bottom-up value-based exchanges. Ina megaproject these dynamic value-based exchangesmainly stem from:

i Diversity of stakeholder influence as well as con-straints (different stakeholder influence at differenttimes within the project lifecycle),

ii Variation of socio-cultural contexts affecting oper-ation,

iii International stages with geopolitical interests. Es-pecially within high visibility projects where manysubjective functions and political critics are in-volved,

iv Differentiation of units and specialization,v Temporary - Has a beginning and ending. Howev-

er, members of the coalition have homes to go tobefore and after the lifecycle period,

vi Decentralized command systems with dominantcoalition,

vii Reciprocal interdependency between the contract-ing organizations.

Therefore, an effective megaproject culture shouldbe redefined as to establish knowledge of consistentrecipes within the project coalition for the other folk-s to come through with their part without watchingthem all the time, thus establishing a precept for ac-tions, a scheme of expression, and a scheme of inter-pretation. This view and approach to the concept con-cerns and addresses how different institutional levelsof culture are assimilated, becoming the accepted or-ganizational culture and further involved and influencedecision-making processes, mechanisms and its struc-turation both at the organizational and project levels.These institutional levels and structuration processesconstitute what the paper terms as Cultural Ecosys-tem and are unpacked in the next section.

3 CULTURAL ECOSYSTEM:DYNAMICS, ECOLOGICAL ANDDEVELOPMENTAL COMPLEXITYIN MEGAPROJECT TMOS

This section will deal with analysing the reasons thatundermines previous research findings in culture andmegaprojects. It is essential to recall the central argu-ment of this paper is that the measurement of cultureand coordination in megaprojects suffers from theoret-ical and practical simplification that leads to brushingover the foundation of megaproject development dy-namics. Implicit assumptions (Table 1) shroud the im-portance of top-down and bottom-up vs. coordinationinterplay in megaproject organisations.Cultural ecosystem is defined in a megaproject con-

text as a temporary symbiotic compendium of interact-ing organisations and their institutional environmentthat strives to achieve coherence and consistency in ex-ecuting diverse organisational processes. Thus, condi-tions necessary to render organizational culture a pos-itive feature in a megaproject context manifest in twodifferent types of interface challenges (cf. Winch 2014):

i The corporate-project relationships - managing re-lational interfaces to align the programme-projectgoals,

ii Changing project environment - managing relation-al interfaces between project functions and the ex-tent of alignment in exchanges of values/beliefs inpursuit of project goals. Thus, diversity in termsof cultural ecosystem poses coordination challengein four different elements:

iii Identity and core purpose - who we are and whatdo we stand for,

iv Values - espoused beliefs, perceptions and judg-ments made,

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v Behaviours - relational attitudes and actions in ev-idence through observed norms and informal rou-tines,

vi Formal Mechanisms - organisational structure androutines.

These four elements can be categorised into threedifferent complexity themes namely, Dynamics, Ecolo-gy and Development of organisational culture within amegaproject context.

3.1 Dynamics

With reference to Davies and Frederiksen (2010), amegaproject is seen as single project firm where coali-tion is formed in a temporary basis managing a pro-gramme of projects. This is further comprised witha number of TMOs managing different projects with-in the programme. It is proposed by Baccarini (1996)that megaproject TMOs are complex due to its struc-ture consisting of a variety of interrelated parts andits operation is characterized in terms of differentia-tion and interdependency through the engagement ofseveral separate different organizations. This complex-ity spans over several dimensions of project manage-ment process in terms of culture and climate manifest-ed within different organizations, environments, sys-tems, and decision-making processes and mechanisms.Where culture is the top-down enduring values, climateis the relative enduring qualities perceived bottom-up.Furthermore, according to Lehrer and Laidley (2008)

“The diversity of forms and uses employed in thesemegaprojects inhibits the growth of oppositional and

contested practices, fragmenting opposition throughthe wide range of choices and options offered”. In otherwords, in addressing cross-cultural management issues,institutional dynamics must be taken into account op-erating on several levels (cf. Söderlund and Tell 2011):

i The national level (the permanent sys-tem/institutional/network/societal),

ii The organizational level (the permanent sys-tem/corporation),

iii The project level (the temporary system/team-individual).

Institutional dynamics comprised of the regulative,normative and cultural-cognitive elements (cf. Scott2012) that constraint the development of a megaprojectorganisation and its operations. In other words, a sym-biotic relationship underlined by dynamic exchanges inculture-influenced interactions exists. Hence, as op-posed to the mechanistic and rigid approach of thefunctionalist view, this presents a dynamic and inte-grated view of a megaproject Cultural Ecosystem, il-lustrating the dynamics of both the project and thefirm through the lens of the interaction of culture andclimate at these different levels. The dynamics of thistop-down and bottom-up vs. coordination interplay isillustrated in Figure 1.Translating Figure 1 to practical terms, the prima-

ry dynamics of the cultural ecosystem in megaprojectsspan over different organisational levels. These are:

i Programme level - where culture is nurtured top-down,

Figure 1. The cultural ecosystem of megaprojects - interconnectedness between cultural levels

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ii TMO level - where climate is interpreted and trans-lated as culture that is built bottom-up,

iii Individuals involved,iv At the relational interfaces between these levels.

TMOs are not therefore unitary or static. Resourcesare therefore configured accordingly both in explicitand implicit terms. Culture is interpreted different-ly over different points in time in the project lifecy-cle. This manifests in the way decision mechanismsare structured and relating back to accentuating thecoordination complexity of the TMOs and their insti-tutional environments. To illustrate, decisions imposedfrom above in the form of introducing new performanceframeworks and how these are interpreted at the mi-cro individual level generates a dynamic interplay onhow a TMO culture is affected. In relation to the ex-tant megaproject management view, literatures sug-gest that standardization of culture and hence rigidlyimposed structure and processes, are nearly impossi-ble due to environment volatility and change betweeneach project in practice. Hence, every project mustbe treated as separate with its own individual settings,each having different boundaries in ‘time’ and ‘space’(Ive and Gruneberg 2000; Dvir et al. 1998); man-agerial effectiveness being strongly influenced by thisunique characteristic between each project (cf. Bac-carini 1996) and the interplay between the corporate-project interface and institutional externalities.From the above, at the meso-level, the TMO must be

regarded as an organization capable of developing it-s own culture and structure proclaiming independenceand cognitive cultural distance from its parent organi-zations to some extent in order to be able to find a co-herent balance between cultures imposed from the par-ent headquarters and megaproject headquarter manag-ing the programme. Therefore, the structures of boththe parent and megaproject organizations (cf. Engwall2003) should facilitate the flexibility that is needed bythe organizational functions that are involved withinthe TMO. Analogously to a Russian Matryoshka doll,each of the organization’s elements is carved accordingto the culture in which they reside and vice versa. Itenables each to flexibly use the espoused values andcredo of the parent organization and absorb other cul-tural values derived from the institutional megaprojectenvironment. On the one hand, this flexibility helpsreduce investment by reducing the rigidities of the au-thority and the need for accountability. In this sense,the problem of overlapping identities and core values(Brown and Lewis 2001) can be minimised, enablingthe TMO to be more proactive in responding to exter-nal changes. On the other hand, this distance helps theTMO to absorb cultural values imposed from the pro-gramme level; hence, enhancing awareness, inclusionand solidity.The arguments made in this sub-section emphasise

that culture is strongly embedded in the formal mecha-nisms in the form of structure and routines established.

Structure implies a notion of “social whole which canbe conceptualized as consisting of interdependent part-s” (Baber 1991). According to Giddens (1981), struc-ture is both “the medium and outcome of the practiceswhich constitute social systems”. The author continuedto state that structure has two main elements, whichare rules and resources including norms that governbehavioural interactions. Rules being all the varietiesof “cultural schemas ... that make up a given society’sfundamental tools of thought ... the various conven-tions, recipes, scenarios, principles of action” (Sewell1992) and resources being both human and non-humanbeing the “manifestations and consequences of the en-actment of cultural schemas” (Sewell 1992). Both theserules and resources exist at various levels within struc-ture and will have different logics and dynamics (Sewell1992).The organizational structure therefore is distinct

from function (the term function will be articulated lat-er on in the paper). Traditional conceptualisations ofthe megaproject management thinking tend to conflatethe two. Not only that this is due to the diverse natureof the internal and external environments surroundingthese organizations but also due to the dynamic factorsinfluencing the processes of the megaproject lifecycle.The differentiation of needs between the strategic pro-gramme level and the operational project level leads toa significantly more complex organizational structure.In this sense, the structure in a megaproject is the co-ordination link between these two levels. Since - in theremit of cultural ecosystem - structuring is dynamic,involving the top-down and bottom-up interplay be-tween levels, structuration arises from this.In sum, it is argued that the effectuation of TMO cul-

ture development starts with the structuring of formalmechanisms (the 4-th coordination element), which ex-tends towards identities, core purpose and values. Inorder to understand these wholly, one needs to go fromthis internal relational factor to evaluate the externalrelational factors, discussed in the following section.

3.2 Ecology

The concept of ecology in organisational studies wasfirst introduced in the work of Hannan and Freeman(1989) and is considered a fundamental aspect to ex-plain the cultural dynamics of an organization by heav-ily incorporating an open systems point of view.The concept of ecology is very useful to acknowledge,

explain, and describe the dynamics of cultural interplayby systematically mapping and illustrating what hap-pens to different kinds of entities and how it happensovertime (cf. Baum and Singh 1994).In the project management context, the concept of

project ecology is considered new (cf. Morris et al.2011). Grabher and Ibert define the project ecologyas,

“A relational space, which affords the per-

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sonal, organizational, and institutional re-sources for performing projects. This re-lational space encompasses social layers onmultiple scales, from the micro level of in-terpersonal networks to the meso level ofintra- and inter-organizational collabora-tion to the macro level of wider institutionalsettings.” (Grabher and Ibert 2011).

To understand the relevance of project ecology to theestablished cultural ecosystem we need to further un-pack the issue of culture as a socially and dynamicallyconstructed concept.It has been emphasized that a megaproject TMO

should be regarded as a social construct with levelsand layers (Levitt 2011) and as such, it should be seenas a “system of inter [and intra] relationships whichconnects individuals together” (Giddens 2001). As apart of a symbiotic ecosystem, the megaproject’s suc-cess and even long-term survival and competitivenessare contingent on the actors’ understandings of it. Inthis sense, the critical success factors of a megaprojec-t move toward a more external-institutional aspect ofthe ecosystem, in which cultural differences have be-come more and more significant as one of the criticalfactors. To recall, these ranges of factors, includingthe implications of culture, are manifested through theinterplay (Figure 1).As such, the Ecological complexity can be illustrated

from the diverse ways extant research have defined cul-ture relative to acknowledging the megaproject’s cul-tural ecosystem as stated in the previous section. Al-though culture as an organizational theory has beenwidely recognized since Hofstede’s study in the 1980s.Previously, studies of sociology and anthropology ap-plied culture as an explanatory variable of human be-haviour. The study of Schuetz (1944), “The Stranger:An Essay in Social Psychology”, can be referred to asthe root from where other definitions of national cul-ture and organizational culture stem:

”The cultural pattern peculiar to a socialgroup ... determines the strata of relevancefor their ‘thinking as usual’ in standardizedsituations and the degree of knowledge re-quired for handling the tested ‘recipes’ in-volved ... [whereby] the knowledge ... is nothomogeneous; it is (1) incoherent, (2) onlypartially clear, and (3) not at all free fromcontradictions”. (Schuetz 1944)

Schuetz’s view on the concept suggests that cultureis absorbed and learned more than inherited or sim-ply passed on; it is the relational interplay between theknower and the stranger about how we came to under-stand how things come into being and “work”. Thusthe ecology of the TMO is “stratified in different layersof relevance, each of them requiring a different degreeof knowledge” (Schuetz 1944), some of which is priorknowledge from previous experience as the “strangers”

come together, some of which is learnt as shared un-derstanding and negotiation in situ.In the project management stream, researchers (cf.

Kendra and Taplin 2004; Du Plessis and Hoole 2006)tend to regard culture as “the way we do things aroundhere”. However, this definition is general and assumestoo much is pre-given i.e. simplifying the multilevelcharacteristics. Du Plessis and Hoole (2006) then e-laborated the definition as:

i The way = refers to the project process (how)ii We = refer to the people in the project, i.e. project

team and stakeholders (who and for whom)iii Do things = refer to the Project Management

methodology (what)iv Around here = refers to the project environment

(where)

There are two things that can be drawn from thiselaborated definition of culture in terms of relevanceto project ecology and relational spaces. Firstly, by re-ferring to the people, the definition acknowledges theproject as a social construct that has direct relationshipand interdependence with the external environment.Hence, a megaproject TMO is part of a wider ecosys-tem as opposed to existing in isolation. Secondly, theculture within the relational space of the megaproject’secosystem, although acknowledged, is not seen as some-thing with a history or only in the static sense of culturebeing pre-given. The dynamic development of culturein the TMO thus emerges and unfolds so as to estab-lish knowledge of consistent recipes within the projectcoalition for the other folks to come through with theirpart without watching them all the time, thus estab-lishing a precept for actions, a scheme of expression,and a scheme of interpretation. There are differen-t institutional levels of culture assimilated, becomingthe accepted organizational culture. The institution-s are formal and informal forms of organising in timebut not the project space. The TMO (re)-constructsthe external institutional influences through locational-ly embedded sense making (Weick 1969). The projectis located in space so there are institutional influencesin the locational context. The institutional culturessurrounding the TMO coalitions are thus involved inthe degree of transferability of the standardized man-agerial and organizational processes of the parent or-ganization from one project to another. In a more fa-miliar “organizational” explanation, as Hofstede (1980)noted everybody is culturally conditioned by the waywe have learnt to see the world. This limits our abilitystep out of the boundaries of our conditioning.This is further reflected in Lim and Mohammed

(1999) examination of the macro and micro viewpointsof a project success. The authors suggested that themacro viewpoint (culture) “takes care of the questiondoes the original concept tick?” and the micro (cli-mate) concerns “the construction parties” (Lim andMohammed 1999). In other words, this relational s-

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pace is where the vertical and horizontal coordinationinterplay takes place.Taking into account the arguments so far, it can be

concluded that the achievement of a successful coordi-nation in megaprojects can be argued from integratingthe relational spaces of the project ecology between themacro and micro organisational levels to overcome un-certainty and ambiguity between the different levels.What then, are the constraints stemming from the Dy-namics and Ecology complexities for the TMO’s cultur-al development exactly? For this, we need to considerthe cultural ecosystem and the interconnected organ-isational elements wholly. This brings us to the nextsub-section.

3.3 Development

In the previous sub-section, it has been signpostedthat the development of an effective TMO is influencedand dependent upon the interplay between the top-down and bottom-up within the relational space of theproject ecology. In this sub-section, it is argued thatcultural development becomes a problem when assess-ing its impact in relation to Dynamics and Ecologycomplexities.An effective working culture embodies the values, be-

liefs, formal and informal rules and procedures as wellas norms that steer individual behaviours and the dif-ferences of perceptions between the different levels ofstructure of the megaproject’s environment as men-tioned. Conversely, the extent to which values, beliefs,formal and informal rules as well as norms do not steertowards positive outcomes is a measure of ineffective-ness. It is argued earlier that a megaproject TMO isa complex society of its own, exhibiting 7 character-istics surrounding the notions of open systems, chaos,self-organization and interdependence.From these characteristics, projects are executed

within the boundaries of uncertainties and ambiguitiesthat arise from different individual (and of course, or-ganizational and institutional) perspectives toward theproject (Lim and Mohammed 1999). These boundariesprovide constraints as to which cultural and organisa-tional forms can materialise in megaproject TMOs. Forexample, the complexities of the Channel Tunnel weredue to the different perceptions arising from two differ-ent organisational histories (British and French) thathad not been quite amalgamated yet.Both organizational and project ecology encompass-

es some heavy elements of history that is embeddedwithin the process by which new organizational formsare created. They also introduce an element of pathdependency (cf. Eisenhardt and Martin 2000). Thus,history helps shape cultural development through thepath set. In this case, the new organizational formis the megaproject TMO. With this in mind, TMOsas opposed to having no history and no future due toits temporality and one-off ventures (cf. Lundin and

Söderholm 1995), borrow the histories - the repetitiveoperating routines, procedures, and rationalizations -of the parent organizations as means of providing thefirst stepping-stones of knowledge towards developingits own. Putting it another way, organizational histo-ries are deeply reflected in the organizational process-es. It both produces and is a product of culture andovertime it becomes part of the organizational custom,habit, and traditions.In the dynamic ecosystem of megaproject TMOs,

these fallback notions to known routines provide a“comforting - if false - sense of continuity and stabili-ty” (Schoenberger 1997). As suggested by Cherns andBryant (1984) that the progresses of a constructionproject “cannot be adequately explained without a ref-erence to the past” (see also, Engwall 2003). Thesepast (the histories) are brought upon mainly from thefirm level through the taken for granted cultural valuesthat are already understood (as well as imposed) by theindividuals and embedded in the formal routines andprocedures. In this sense, projects are not drawn in awhite blank canvas - where the canvas is the projectexternalities - as it is often approached and perceived.Rather, projects must be seen as operating in a canvasthat has been previously drawn where the TMO is seenas an object to be added and hence must fit into theoverall picture.Further, Berger and Luckmann (1966) and Engwall

(2003) put it that histories are produced through themanifestation of human activities. As such, as a so-cially constructed universe, these histories are continu-ously realigned throughout the project lifecycle. Thus,the apprehension of reality shifts from autonomous cre-ation of meaning by isolated firms to the project teamtaking over the world in which others already live Berg-er and Luckmann (1966); mediating a common reali-ty, but from considerably different perspectives Bergerand Luckmann (1966). Or, figuratively speaking, thisis analogous to the puzzle connect the dots - wherethe dots represent the established cultural values inthe ecology - but without the numbers to act as a top-down guidance to associate or make sense of the differ-ent cultures in creating the intended picture. In thissense, the bottom-up (climate) perceptions then takeover through the process of quantifying and associat-ing the different cultural values. Hence, interpretationswill be different between the parent organization andthe different elements involved within the TMO de-pending on the extent of interplay within the ecosys-tem as illustrated in Figure 1.These fragmented perspectives can be traced back

to something called cultural efficacy, whereby, to thedegree that culture is followed by success (success be-ing winning the tender for example), it is a “besettingfault ... that they become fossilized in their moment ofglory” (Keegan 1993), trapped in their own perfectlyisolated little world. It becomes a fallacy in interpreta-tion between the abstraction of functional rules and the

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reality of the current megaproject situation. Decisionscoming from the stereotyped culture of the corporate-level functionalist system can no longer grasp and vi-sualize the situation at the TMO’s operational-level in-terface - impeding effective development. For example,although the emphasis on project management haveshifted towards a more front-end relationship manage-ment approach (through the introduction of the shap-ing process as stated by Miller and Lessard (2000) tobetter leverage on value, traditional arm’s length meth-ods focusing on transactional aspects still dominatesleading to disjointed systems across functions and ser-vice incoherence.

To conclude, it has been cited that a megaprojec-t TMO operates in diverse environments. Hence, asthe environment shifts during the lifecycle, fallback s-trategies to the rigid and functionalist culture lead tostereotyped behaviours that resist change. However, ascultural patterns are context embedded in itself, thesestereotyped acts of reflection will not be able to ful-ly grasp the current reality. Therefore, knowledge ofcoordination is based mainly on interpretations of therelative enduring quality of the existing top-down andbottom-up interplay within the ecosystem. These rela-tive enduring qualities are those underlying the differ-ence between before (the plan) and after (the actuality)of the project where planned action more or less crash-es as soon as the action starts due to circumstances andcontext of the present. This development is illustratedin the figure below.

From Figure 2, it can be said that the impact of De-velopment in relation to Dynamics and Ecology com-plexities to coordination in a megaproject TMO’s cul-tural ecosystem stem from the following three cate-gories:

i The structure of populations, in other words, thestructure of the socio-cultural systems that exist-s between the project ecologies, hence, influenc-ing the norms and values and their interpretationswithin a particular relational space. It has been ar-gued that this is the basis for the process of struc-turation in which culture influence processes andvice versa. The greater the size and variability inthe structure, the more rapid and vigorous the se-lection becomes.

ii Adaptive and developmental constraints, at thecorporate-project interface, the constraints are ar-gued to come from the external institutional andinternal corporate levels culture that limit the ex-tent to which the TMO’s structure and functionsare able to flexibly develop. Therefore, also conse-quently what the TMO is able to achieve in deliv-ering the megaproject. In other words, these con-straints poses selection in that incremental develop-ment of the TMO’s culture can only advance alonga certain path.

iii Changes in the direction and intensity of variabili-ty at different ecosystems in different megaprojectsand along the megaproject lifecycle, as argued ear-lier, the historical and environmental contingenciesin a megaproject make it so that there will be morethan one top-down and bottom-up value-based in-terplay within the TMO for each project at theoperational level. That is to say, each changes a-long the project lifecycle informs (and re-informs)the TMO’s perceptions and therefore define (andre-define) the organizational interactions in the e-cological space and act as the stimuli for develop-mental adaptation.

From the three categories above that underline thecultural ecosystem of megaprojects, it can be said that

Figure 2. TMO cultural development - The interplay between corporate-project interface andchanging project environment

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the constitutive complexity (cf. Mitchell 2003) of themegaproject TMOs - as a temporary organization com-prised of numerous different parts - at the start ofthe megaproject lifecycle will become an evolved com-plexity (cf. Mitchell 2003) at the completion of themegaproject. That is to say, the organizational for-m at the end is the resultant divergence of adaptivechallenges that occurred along the lifecycle.As can be seen, these three categories carry in their

very essence the notion and the need to integrate be-tween Dynamics, Ecology and Development if we areto attempt any coordination measurements with re-gards to culture. Hence, they bring us to our theoreti-cal contribution; to introduce a conceptual theoreticalframework. The framework is introduced to carry anexplanatory power to signpost and predict the propen-sities and trajectories of said cultural development pathas part of the paper’s theoretical objectives. Keepingin mind that the ultimate aim is to - at the very end- really conceptually underpin the concept of culturein the megaproject management context and also toincrease the transferability of processes for better co-ordination and project outcomes.

4 MEASURING THE MECHANISMSOF CULTURE: INSTITUTIONALELEMENTS AND THE 4-CLASSSYSTEM

In the earlier sections, it is argued that cultural modelstend to provide static views or under-estimate the dy-namic interplay in culture. A dynamic ecological anddevelopmental perspective goes a considerable way toaddressing the shortcomings. Cultural interplay with-in the construction TMO has been broken down andillustrated in Figure 1. We call this, the logical con-struction of the TMO’s cultural ecosystem. Further,this paper has also argued, cultural implications is on-ly apparent or starts giving out problems in differentlevels of the TMO’s relational spaces. As we know it, itis the notion of relational space in construction projectmanagement context termed as the project ecology.Brooks and McLennan (1991) have developed a 4-

class system classification to integrate “the causal andreciprocal interrelations between Dynamics, Ecologyand Development at multiple scales and multiple lev-els of analysis” (Müller 2007). Further, Stone andHall (2006) stated, ecology and incremental develop-ment have been “flirting for a long time”. Therefore,integrating ecology would be beneficial because then,incremental development of relationships betweenstructures/systems as cultural schemas Sewell (1992)“could be considered more-completely as modificationover time that is wrought by environmental effects” ondevelopmental progress (Stone and Hall 2006). In oth-er words, the 4-class system aims at explaining as wellas mapping:

i How development [of culture within organisations]itself evolves, and,

ii How the control of developmental processes is mu-tually effected by the culture surrounding the in-ternal, external, and institutional systems embed-ded within the network of contracting organisation-s, imposed to and inherited within the megaprojectTMO.

As a systematic comparative method, in the field ofsocial sciences, Winterhalder and Smith (1992) statedthat the theory directs a researcher’s attention to “therole and characterization of the environment”. In thissense, Dynamics, Ecology and Developmental combi-nation focuses its attention to predict the diversity andflexibility of behaviours in complex systems that arecontingent upon localized and often changing environ-ments as argued within (Scott 2012) institutional ap-proach to the study of organisations.It is further argued that the institutional context of

the management of project concerns the relationshipsbetween the strategic top management level and theoperational project level within and across the net-working organizations - “one that is more engaged withthe outside looking in” (Morris et al. 2011). In thissense, there is increasing awareness of the importanceof linkages between corporates (firms) and projects, “anappreciation of the role of governance and control. Thisis essential to foster and assure effective use of resourceswithin and across organizations”, building competenceand creating appropriate contexts for the project aswell as “seeing projects as often complex organizationsinvolving cross-firm relationships engaged in address-ing uncertainty and novelty” (Morris et al. 2011).As stated in the previous sections, the institutional-

based approach focuses on the notion of the three pil-lars of analytical constructs, “intended to identify un-derlying ingredients in institutional systems” (Scott2012). These are namely, regulative, normative andcultural-cognitive elements argued to be contributingto the construction, maintenance and change of a sys-tem. Scott (2008) described the explanation of eachpillar elements as follows,

i The regulative element deals with rule-setting andarenas of control based on compliance to estab-lished system regulations,

ii The normative element deals with the importanceof prescriptive, evaluative and situational obliga-tions that predominate an organisation,

iii The cultural-cognitive element point to the central-ity of cultural schemas as symbolic aspects with-in organizational structures that constitute the ba-sis construction of reality (Berger and Luckmann1966). To avoid confusion, herein this pillar will bereferred to as cognitive.

Although Scott (2012) argued that these three pillarsrepresent their own distinguished empirical elements,

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in that each works in different ways, this study be-lieves that the three corresponds to the three processesof selection as explained in the previous section. Inother words, this paper argues that within the con-cept of cultural ecosystem, the essences of the threepillars can be incorporated into Brooks and McLennan(1991) 4-class system to form an integrated approachto our evolutionary ecological and developmental studyof culture in construction project management. Thus,the three pillars of the institutional theory come in asan auxiliary filter concept in the quest to unpackingthe dynamic mechanism of the TMO’s cultural devel-opment. This pluralistic approach affords more thor-ough comprehension concerning how cultural featuresare affected by environments, effected in development,and transformed during evolution than do more con-ventional cultural values approaches. The reasoningfor a fit in this theoretical juxtaposition is illustratedin Figure 3.From above analysis and discussions, it can be seen

that the dimensions for measuring culture in megapro-jects should not focus on the notion that culturaldifferences is a strong factor for explaining the degreeof coordination in megaprojects. Instead, the analysisshowed that given the number of complex variables andvalue-based interdependencies within a megaproject’scultural ecosystem, it would be more helpful to exploreculture through these complexities in itself. Thus, wearrive to elucidating our conceptual work in progressthat is trying to develop some explanatory power toshed light to help researchers diving into accurate mea-surements about culture-coordination relationships.

4.1 The 4-Class System - A ConceptualWork in Progress

In the previous section, it was argued that Dynam-ics and Ecology lead to a complex interplay between

a megaproject TMOs form, congruence and functionwithin the symbiotic nature of the ecosystem. Devel-opmental complexity then stems from the three relativeenduring qualities that arise and informed the institu-tional pillars. Thus, in developing the 4-class systemconceptual framework, the three factors for complexi-ty - Dynamics, Ecology and Development - need to beintegrated. Thus, the following postulate is generated,

The dynamics, ecology and developmen-tal processes and features of culture canbe mapped systematically through a 4-classcombination of features: form, congru-ence, function and development. This gives16 possible trajectories and categories ofpotential cultural evolution paths to in-crease organisational functional transfer-ability. This combination constituting the4 classes encompasses the aforementionedinterplay between the three levels of cultur-al hierarchy, thereby, facilitating the afore-mentioned conceptual organisational cul-ture synthesis among Dynamics, Ecologyand Development within the constructionTMO.

As the rationale behind this arose from Brooks andMcLennan (1991) and Stone and Hall (2006) biologicalterminologies in their study A System for AnalysingFeatures in Studies Integrating Ecology, Developmentand Evolution, translating and redefining technicalterms for operationalization into a megaproject andTMO context is necessary. The 4-class system iscomprised of three binary super-categorical features,form, congruence and function with two confor-mant developmental modes, comparable and non-comparable. Each feature has different traits, whichare observable properties exhibited by organisations

Figure 3. Elements of institutional constraints and how they materalise, affect and ahape the 4-Class system

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at any level from microscopic to macroscopic. In thissense, traits represent the different levels of culture ex-hibited from the macro national/institutional/networklevel to the meso-corporate/project interface and themicro individual level. The theoretical fit with thethree - Dynamics, Ecology and Development - enduringqualities will also be addressed in the following para-graphs, starting with the super-categories.

Form

According to Bock and van Wahlert (1965) a form canbe defined as “the class of predicates of material com-position and the arrangement, shape or appearanceof these materials”. In other words, feature form isequivalent to what Sewell (1992) term as the structureof an organization, which may be described throughsize, shape, position, typology and others. Togetherwith Weeks and Galunic (2003), these authors agreethat the structure of an organization is a representa-tion of its cultural schema i.e. an organization is an ac-cumulation of culture(s). The emphasis therefore, is onthe exhibition of histories inherited and structural sim-ilarities or dissimilarities to the current megaproject’scultural environment (e.g. as illustrated in the works ofCasey 1996; Clegg et al. 2002). Thus, form reflects thefirst culture-coordination complexity i.e. Dynamics.

Congruence

Feature congruence deals with descriptions of an or-ganisation’s cultural orientations within an ecosystemcontext, which are defined on the basis of compara-tive analyses of the relational spaces between the threeorganisational levels (programme-project-individual).These taxa comprise of a reference group, the out-group and the ingroup. Relating these back to Scott’sinstitutional theory, as units of production from theparent organisation moves into the TMO, its culturalorientation becomes part of the ingroup cognitive ele-ment. The congruence in the TMO’s cultural state ismeasured through synapomorphic regulative elementscoming from the parent organization(s) that has be-come the outgroup. Thus, synapomorphy - a commoncultural trait shared within the corporate-project inter-face - of the TMO’s cultural characters are classifiedas either shared (homologous) among the corporate-project interface (between outgroup and ingroup) or asunique (homoplastic) to the ingroup TMO itself. Thereference group then comprised of any cultural orien-tation at the national/institutional/network level i.e.what Scott (2008) termed as the normative elementspredominating value-laden realms within the relation-al spaces of the project ecology.In sum, congruence involves topographic, structural

and compositional similarity that concerns the dynam-ic and developmental relationships of cultures betweenform, development and position. Putting it anoth-er way, any changes in the relational ecological space

will induce the TMO (and consequently the parent or-ganisation’s unit of productions forming the TMO) ofa pre-existing historical background to develop differ-ently structurally and behaviourally overtime. Thuschanging the relative relationship and association be-tween the different socio-cultural systems within theTMO and hence ultimately the frequency of hereditaryelements from the respective parent organisations.

Function

According to Stone and Hall (2006),

“The association between function and en-vironment can provide information that isuseful for inferring developmental modes,and thereby, categorization. Feature func-tion may be described in accordance withthe term ‘aptive’ [adaptive], which refersto the advantages that are conferred to [or-ganisations] possessing particular features -literally, ’fitting’ them for particular condi-tions.” Stone and Hall (2006)

Although this study does not embrace a resource-based view of an organization, the essence of the ar-gument still stands. As stated in the previous section,in empirically addressing the incremental developmentof culture (firstly at the TMO’s project level and sec-ondly at the corporate programme level), three factorswill be considered as constituting the relative enduringqualities as mentioned earlier.Within these processes of selection, three institution-

al pillars - regulative, normative and cognitive - affectfunctional adaptability through associations with theexternal institutional environments both from whichthese feature functions originated and currently situat-ed in. For example, similar organizational forms thatpersist in dissimilar environments may be interpret-ed as a result of strong cultural constraint if the con-gruence trait that defines the organizational culturalstate is homologous. Thus, as opposed to structure,feature function is a representation of existing organ-isational processes and routines that is embedded inbehaviours, values, identities and core purpose culture-coordination elements.

Development

The previous three super-categories elaborated juxta-positions for theoretical fits. However, each is a staticstand-alone theoretical mobilization. A dynamic viewis needed to underpin and unthread the incremental de-velopment of culture in megaprojects and their TMOs.This is embedded in this feature i.e. development. De-velopment is equivalent to incremental changes withina given period of time as illustrated in Figure 2. In oth-er words, development is the difference in the TMO’scultural state before and after the project, which hasundergone incremental transformations during the life-

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cycle of the project. In this sense, feature developmen-t incorporates more continuity, in which if combinedwith the previous three super-categories, provides amean for analysing and systematically categorizing theincremental and path-dependent trajectory(s) of theTMO’s culture as well as the propensities for anyconformational and non-conformational features with-in the resultant culture as the final product. Anotherway of putting it, feature development as conforma-tional or non-conformational measure provides a meanfor analysing the path-dependent trajectory of the cog-nitive element in response to the other two (regulativeand normative) as the institutional pillars contributingto the TMO’s construction, maintenance and change ofculture.To sum up the arguments within the section, let us

recall Stone and Hall (2006) - and therefore ours -abstraction of the three super-categories and develop-mental modes and their roles in integrating dynamics,ecology and development. The authors stated,

“Form is central to development ... but pe-ripheral to ecology. Congruence is appliedat different hierarchical [cultural] levels ...[and] function is central to ecology but pe-ripheral to development.” (Stone and Hall2006)

From the breakdown of the 4-class system, it is hopedthat they provide some clarity as to the extent towhich:

i The complex cultural ecosystem,ii The interconnectedness of organisational elements

within it,iii How they interface with one another.

Should be regarded when researchers attempt to un-ravel culture in a megaproject and its diverse TMOenvironment.

5 CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

To begin with, this paper is meant to be a literaturereflection of how cultural studies have been and shouldbe focusing upon in megaproject context. It offered anevolutionary perspective in viewing the management ofmegaprojects as a kaleidoscope of temporary structuresin the form of TMOs. The third wave notion rendersthe traditional Hofstede-inspired and other convention-al values studies in evaluating the implications of orga-nizational culture based on static right and wrong orcoherence and incoherence cumbersome. The level ofanalysis in extant literatures differ with one another.On the one hand, national level measurements are usedto explain cultural differences that occur at the organi-sational level. On the other hand, these levels are jum-bled together and it was argued that culture could bescientifically managed from the top-down, overlookingthe bottom-up resistance.

Tackling the enigma of cultural studies, this papertried to integrate between cultural Dynamics, Ecologyand Development to underpin how culture evolves over-time within megaproject TMOs. Linkage between cul-tures at the national, institutional, organisational, andproject levels needs to be isolated and determined giventhe complex and temporary context of a megaprojectTMO coalition. Therefore, providing new theoreticalstarting point in attempting to increase the ability tonotice propensities and predictions for a more transfer-able, optimized and effective continuity of the TMO’sperformance throughout the project lifecycle.It is illustrated that culture in a diverse megapro-

ject environment exists as an ecosystem of symbioticinter-organisational relationships. Through identify-ing two major coordination challenges arising from thisecosystem, relational interfaces faced by the TMO as asocial construct poses constraints in the dynamics anddevelopment of an effective culture.This paper suggests that dimensions for measuring

culture in megaprojects should focus not on the notionthat cultural differences is a strong factor for explainingthe degree of coordination in megaprojects. Nor shouldit focus on only situational power relations, ambiguityand paradoxes. Instead, the analysis showed that giventhe number of complex variables and interdependencieswithin a megaproject’s cultural ecosystem, it would bemore helpful to explore culture through these complex-ities in itself. That is, through its Dynamics, Ecologyand Development within the megaproject as tempo-rary single project firms. It may not be too far-fetchedto say that the field of cultural studies in the man-agement of megaprojects is too ‘green’ to accuratelymeasure culture-coordination relationships.Arguing that it is possible to predict the trajectory of

a megaproject TMO’s cultural development, the 4-classsystem as a mapping instrument have been conceptual-ly introduced. The aim is to predict the upfront natureand magnitude of effect coming from the dynamics ofcultural diversity. Thus, facilitating the developmentof a generalizable operationalization of construct thattranscends across megaprojects.Although scarcely discussed, it is also recognised

that decision-making processes and outcomes mouldsa megaproject TMO’s culture through a cycle of struc-turation process. Further studies could follow up onthis line of thought in underpinning the meaning andimplications of culture in megaprojects and in the con-struction industry. For example, this gives a startingconceptual point for a longitudinal case-study researchfollowing the question “how does the project team andthe permanent organisations view each other through-out the project lifecycle?” Thus, form, function, con-gruence and development are ecological factors andpoint towards a need to explore cultural dynamics as aprocess of organisational evolution. That is to say, the4-class system is not an overthrow of what has gone be-fore but as a significant and potentially exciting move

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forward. This adds to the original contribution of thispaper.

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