Total recall? Organisational memory and innovation in project-based firms

This thesis examines the processes through which engineering design consultancies integrate knowledge across projects and professions. Over the last two decades, firms in the construction industry have been widening the scope of their in-house competencies in order to cope with the growing demand for integrated provision of design, construction, maintenance and operations of buildings, civil engineering structures and industrial installations such as schools, offices, roads and power generation plants. Such changes raise issues that the innovation literature is ill-equipped to address, because it is largely based on studies focused on mass manufacturing industries. In particular, two are accumulated at the level of the firm despite the discontinuity of project operations. The second is how these firms can manage the integration of bodies of knowledge that have traditionally been the exclusive domain of specialised professions and occupations. In order to address these issues, this thesis relies on the metaphor of organisational memory. This metaphor allows a focus on the specialised competencies firms already possess in house as the basis for innovation based on their integration. Empirically, this thesis analyses the bidding activities of a large integrated engineering design consultancy. Bidding is interpreted as an observable memory process operating at firm level. Building on practice-oriented social studies of science, this research provides empirical evidence of the processes through which project-based firms deploy a variety of 'replicators' in order to remember from project to project. This thesis shows that organisational routines play an important role as forms of organisational memory in project-based firms engaged in the provision of professional services, besides the relevance commonly attributed to individuals in professional settings. Moreover, this research provides empirical evidence about the role of memory artefacts in enabling new routines to be shaped in ways that solve both cognitive and conflict issues. It shows that memory artefacts contribute to the establishment of patterned behaviour and to the management of cognitive conflict. This research documents the strategic use that occupational communities make of memory artefacts in order to further their status in the organisation, providing empirical evidence about the neglected interactions between competence accumulation processes, power and conflict. Therefore, this thesis contributes to furthering the understanding of how firms are able to accumulate competencies, despite the discontinuity of project operations, and to integrate them across occupational and organisational boundaries.