Sailing Wild Winds of Change: How a project-based organization sustained continuity in a turbulent environment

This thesis explores how project-based organizations (PBOs) navigate turbulent environments. A key challenge of PBOs is dealing with the continuity–turbulence problem, in which the firm's efforts to survive, maintain a robust order book, and repeatedly use its expertise across projects are challenged by frequent disturbances posed by the environment. Founded on critical realism, this work presents the case of a Danish supplier to the energy sector from 1965 to 2008.

The study introduces the operating core, as the central mechanism orienting the way the firm behaved in its trajectory. The operating core is a notion that aggregates the expertise of firms; it is akin to a woven blanket that grows in times of plenty, but that must stretch beyond its original coverage in times of scarcity. The operating core of an organization embodies that which is valuable, and enables a firm's power of acting.

The findings contribute to expanding the Behavioral Theory of the Firm, by introducing the particularities of project-organizing. In particular, this thesis provides insight to search behavior, the logic of decision-making, and the exploration–exploitation dichotomy. This is, in effect, not only the study of the behavior of an organization, but also a narrative of industrial evolution, seen through the eyes of an exemplary player.