Designing Infrastructure for Evolvability : Constraints on Collective Investments in Design Flexibility
This study investigates a dilemma that inter-organizational collectives formed to develop new infrastructure face at the project front-end: either invest in flexible designs that cope with change in requirements, this is design to evolve — at risk the extra costs upfront will not pay off if the uncertainties fail to resolve favourably in the future. Or endorse cheaper but more rigid designs — at risk of higher adaptation costs if the uncertainties materialise later on. Through an inductive study, we reveal how the collectives invariably engage in ad hoc future-proofing discussions to address this dilemma. But faced with tight budgets, conflicting interests, and mutual ignorance, they struggle to design in flexibility. Through lab experiments, we unexpectedly find that a formal framework to facilitate multilateral future-proofing discussions and thus improve process efficiency fails to significantly impact on the development process and outcomes. Hence, we argue, infrastructure design for evolvability is a collective action problem constrained by its inter-organizational structure. We conclude by discussing how structural changes may enable infrastructure design organizations to exploit in full the complementarity between design flexibility and project risk management
Year of publication: |
2014
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Authors: | Gil, Nuno A. |
Other Persons: | Biesek, Guilherme (contributor) |
Publisher: |
[2014]: [S.l.] : SSRN |
Saved in:
freely available
Extent: | 1 Online-Ressource (36 p) |
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Type of publication: | Book / Working Paper |
Language: | English |
Notes: | Nach Informationen von SSRN wurde die ursprüngliche Fassung des Dokuments April 10, 2014 erstellt |
Other identifiers: | 10.2139/ssrn.2345704 [DOI] |
Source: | ECONIS - Online Catalogue of the ZBW |
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013062400
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