The transition from projects to operations requires a spanning from more temporary, goal-oriented, and evolving organizational forms to more permanent, routine, and ongoing organizational forms. A question of practical and theoretical significance is how to organize the transition to operations in large inter-organizational projects. To answer this question, we conducted a longitudinal case study of Beijing Daxing International Airport, which is the largest transportation hub in China to date, and provides rich evidence for successfully managing the transition to operations. By analyzing the organizational design strategy, structures, processes, and management of people in the transition, we provide a synthetic framework for designing the transition to operations in large inter-organizational projects. The framework provides a set of considerations to design organizational boundaries that build connections, emphasize coordination, and achieve continuity between projects and operations. This study contributes to the nexus of operations management and project management and the organizational design of large inter-organizational projects.

@en

Temporary multi-organizations (TMOs) are individual temporary client organizations that are jointly established and owned by multiple shareholders to undertake the predefined purposes in megaproject delivery. We conduct in-depth analysis of the organizational configurations of TMOs through a multi-case study of five megaprojects in China. We believe establishing a TMO is a multi-factorial decision and propose two types of TMO – integrated and independent – based on distinct motives for their establishment. Different TMO structuring processes of integrated and independent TMOs further give rise to distinctive patterns of TMO configuration. Based on the analysis of TMOs’ intra- and inter-organizational configurations, two patterns of organizational configuration – tightly- and loosely-coupled networks – emerge inductively from the data, and we highlight the dynamic nature of TMO configuration. This paper offers guidance to practitioners on designing and structuring TMOs and dealing with intra- and inter-organizational relations.@en