Professional roles within inter-organizational projects have become increasingly diverse and contested, yet little is known about how professionals react to such threats of marginalization. Drawing on empirical data from interviews with architects, a profession in which historically established role boundaries have become particularly blurred, we analyse how professionals negotiate their roles in
inter-organizational projects. We identified three types of boundary work—reinstating, bending, and pioneering role boundaries—and illustrate their antecedents and effects for project collaboration. These categories exemplify different responses to the threat of marginalization depending upon professionals’ perceptions of what the specific project called for. Our study provides important insights into boundary work practices emerging in the context of inter-organizational projects and how professionals adjust their claims-making to perceived opportunities, thereby triggering incremental as well as more radical changes in the professional role structures. ... Read more

Strategy and identity can work together and enable organizations to reconcile short-term and long-term objectives, but their interplay may easily lead to vicious circles that prevent innovation or jeopardize an organization’s distinctiveness. On the one hand, identity may impede change if the strategic alternatives it allows for do not align with the new problems the organization faces. On the other hand, continuously reconstructing identity along with strategic decisions that are made can result in the organization losing its distinctive, central selling point and potentially even the commitment of the organizational members who identify with it. Previous research has shown how a sustained interplay in which strategy is – over a longer period of time – meaningfully framed by identity and serves to enact identity, may help organizations escape these vicious circles in the long run. Yet, how the day-to-day interactions of groups of organizational members influence the construction and management of a sustained identity-strategy interplay is still underexplored. Consequently, we know little about how organizational members can collectively nourish or compromise a well-balanced relationship between identity and strategy in their organization through their daily interactions. We opted for a process research design that allowed us to observe and compare interactions of multiple groups of organizational members in concentrated modes of strategy-making, thereby viewing process as an ‘activity’. Adopting a rhetoric-based perspective of identity work and strategy work as continuously inter-weaving dynamics, we study the emotionally-laden, rhetorical accounts of 17 groups of architects during project-oriented strategy workshops to see how they collectively give form to identity-strategy interplays when discussing their daily work. Studying group interactions around identity and strategy in contexts where members pursue multiple, possibly competing goals and uphold multiple, possibly competing identities, such as in architectural firms, is particularly relevant, as such complex, dynamic organizational settings are becoming more and more prevalent. ... Read more

‘Future Roles for Architects’ describes the core insights from a research project into new role structures in the Dutch architectural sector, conducted as part of the futurA project on “future value chains of architectural services”. For four years a joint team from Delft University of Technology and Radboud University in Nijmegen, working in close collaboration with BNA, the Royal Institute of Dutch Architects, studied the future of the professional roles performed by architectural firms within the broader construction process. FuturA was one of 23 projects funded by NWO, the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, in 2013 as part of the CLICK.NL programme, to strengthen knowledge about and innovation in the creative sector. The objective of this particular project was to better understand changes to the architectural profession arising out of ongoing social trends and the recent financial crisis, as well as to expose opportunities for the future. The architect “as entrepreneur” has long been a largely neglected topic in research on the construction industry. Thankfully, entrepreneurship has now become an accepted concept within the architectural sector. The Royal Institute of Dutch Architects (BNA), for example, has developed many activities in this field. As a team, we are extremely proud of the enthusiasm with which our PhD students Marina Bos-de Vos and Bente Lieftink have foraged for scientific understanding amidst the forest of interesting practical examples and personal experiences in their respective areas of expertise. As a result of their efforts, we have not only been able to gather solid know-how about the creation and capture of professional, financial and use value, but also gained a good understanding of the various role structures within the construction supply chain, as well as the consolidation of changes to them. This academic design guide for the architectural firm of the future is one of the products of our research. As well as providing theoretical insights into the architectural firm itself and into project collaboration in general, we present four practical role identities that architectural firms can take on within the construction process: “initiator”, “specialist”, “product developer” and “integrator”. The board game with cards accompanying this publication can be used in a variety of ways to stimulate collective reflection about the direction you as a firm want to take with a particular project and about which revenue models and collaborative strategies are best suited to that trajectory. For each role identity, we present the most crucial professional challenges and opportunities facing the architectural firm as part of the supply chain. This should enable you to design your own role within a given project. But with that our task is complete. From here, it is up to you as a reader of this book and a player of the game to translate the lessons you learn into financially and professionally sustainable roles as an architect of the future. ... Read more

‘De toekomstige rol van de architect’ beschrijft de essentie van onze wetenschappelijke verkenning naar nieuwe rolstructuren in de Nederlandse architectenbranche. Deze verkenning is uitgevoerd in het kader van het futurA project, dat verwijst naar future value chains of architectural services. Vier jaar lang hebben we vanuit de Technische Universiteit Delft en Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen in nauwe samenwerking met de BNA onderzoek gedaan naar de toekomstbestendigheid van de rollen die architectenbureaus in het bouwproces vervullen. Het futurA project is één van de 23 projecten die vanuit NWO, de Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, binnen het programma CLICK.NL in 2013 tot stand is gekomen om de kennis over en innovatie in de creatieve industrie te versterken. De doelstelling van het project was om veranderingen in het werkveld van de architect ten gevolge van sociaal-maatschappelijke verschuivingen en de financiële crisis te doorgronden en kansen voor de toekomst bloot te leggen. De architect als ondernemer was lange tijd een onderwerp waar weinig aandacht voor was in de bouw. Inmiddels is ondernemerschap in de architectenbranche een gangbaar begrip. Ook de BNA ontplooit veel activiteiten op dit gebied. We zijn als team uitermate trots dat onze promovendi Marina Bos-de Vos en Bente Lieftink, ieder vanuit hun eigen expertisegebied, met veel enthousiasme wetenschappelijke verdieping hebben gezocht in het woud aan interessante praktijkvoorbeelden en persoonlijke ervaringen. We hebben hierdoor zowel gedegen kennis kunnen vergaren op het gebied van het creëren en toe-eigenen van professionele, financiële en gebruikswaarde, als inzicht gekregen in de verschillende rolstructuren in de bouwketen en het bestendigen van veranderingen hierin. Ons onderzoek heeft geleid tot de ontwikkeling van deze ontwerpgids die zijn gebundeld in deze wetenschappelijke ontwerpgids voor het architectenbureau van de toekomst. Naast theoretische inzichten over het bureau en de samenwerking binnen een project wordt een onderscheid gemaakt in vier rolidentiteiten van waaruit de architect in de bouwketen kan acteren: de initiator, de specialist, de productontwikkelaar en de integrator. Het spelbord met kaartjes, dat als bijlage beschikbaar is bij deze publicatie, kan op verschillende manieren gebruikt worden om in gezamenlijkheid na te denken over waar je als bureau met een project heen wilt en welke verdienmodellen en manieren van samenwerken daar het beste bij past. Per rolidentiteit worden de meest cruciale uitdagingen en kansen voor de bedrijfsvoering van architectenbureaus en de samenwerking in de keten weergegeven. Dit maakt het mogelijk om je rol in een project zelf te ontwerpen. Onze taak zit er hiermee op. Het is aan de lezer van het boek en gebruiker van het spel om de opgedane inzichten verder te vertalen in financieel en professioneel duurzame rollen voor de architect van de toekomst. ... Read more

How do organizational members handle tensions between identity and strategy in their strategizing processes? Identity-strategy struggles are particularly salient in creative professional service firms as these firms have to reconcile the often-competing value systems that they are based upon. Creative professionals continuously negotiate the values and beliefs of the different groups they belong to with their organizations’ professional and commercial goals. Yet, there has been little empirical research on their strategizing, possible inherent identity-strategy tensions and consequences for the organization. This research examines how identity work and strategy work of creative professionals are interrelated based on observational data from strategy sessions at 17 architectural firms. We found that practitioners continuously frame the arena of strategic options based on their professional identity, thereby strengthening organizational identity. The research contributes to the body of literature on strategy-as-practice by articulating how professional aspects of identity enable and constrain practitioners to shape and be shaped by their strategic actions and decisions. ... Read more