The project-oriented organization and its contribution to innovation

This paper presents a new conceptualization of the project-oriented organization. The project-oriented organization is conceptualized as an entrepreneurial, future- and stakeholder-oriented innovating organization, which uses projects as temporary, task-focused organizations, to define, develop, and implement its strategies, to transform its structure, culture and behavior, and to define and develop new products, services, and business models. The concept of the project-oriented organization consists of the three segments (1) values, (2) structures, and (3) people. For each segment three important areas are described, which characterize a project-oriented organization. The model is theoretically based on a wide spectrum of management disciplines: (1) The orientations in the value segment have been developed in entrepreneurship, strategic management and technology and innovation management; (2) The foundations for the design of the socio-technical artefacts in the structure segment of derived from organizational design, planning and controlling, and ICT systems theory; (3) The foundations for the elements of the human side come from organizational behavior, human resource management, and knowledge management theories. Our model shows a clear linkage to these theories, references key articles, and gives special consideration to empirical studies in the realm of projects, programs, project portfolios, and project-based or project-oriented organizations. Thus, our assumption that the elements of our model are supposed to increase project success, innovation success, and business success is based on empirical evidence.