“It worked for manufacturing…!”: Operations strategy in project-based operations

The results of this engaged study indicate that the approach delivered significant new insight for the organisation involved in the study. The contributions of this paper are identified for both practice and theory. For practice we demonstrate an alternative to a reliance on standards and process compliance to an opportunity to gain competitive advantage from PBOs. For theory, we have extended OS into PBOs and provide a basis for future theory testing. We conclude that there is a significant opportunity for further practical and theory development through using an OS perspective.