Polycentric organizing and performance: A contingency model and evidence from megaproject planning in the UK
研究了多中心组织形式（即内部层级与平等地方结构并存）对绩效的影响，基于英国四个大型基础设施项目的规划阶段，提出了一个包含四个条件的权变模型，帮助管理者判断多中心组织何时有效。
This study sheds light on polycentric forms of organizing and corresponding performance implications. Organizations with a polycentric architecture supplement their internal hierarchical decision-making structures with egalitarian, local structures in order to encourage collaboration with legally independent stakeholders. We ground our study on the planning stage for four capital-intensive infrastructure development projects (megaprojects) in the UK. We first establish that megaproject planning is carried on by polycentric organizations. We show that in this form of organizing the promoter has decision-making authority over the high-order choices, but shares the authority over the local choices with groups of autonomous stakeholders. We also show how this organizational architecture addresses local disputes and pressures to relax performance targets. Our main contribution is a contingency model that proposes four conditions linking performance to polycentric organizing, whether or not: i) the institutional environment empowers an ‘umpire’ to referee disputes; and ii) the system leader can mobilize substantial slack resources to reconcile conflicting interests. We argue that the four conditions reveal very different classes of managerial problems, and draw implications for practice and policy including but not limited to megaprojects.