Disentangling Exploitation and Exploration in Hybrid Projects: The Case of a New Nuclear Reactor Development

Stéphanie Tillement (stephanie.tillement@imt-atlantique.fr), Frédéric Garcias, Guy Minguet (guy.minguet@imt-atlantique.fr) and Florence Charue Duboc
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Stéphanie Tillement: LEMNA - Laboratoire d'économie et de management de Nantes Atlantique - IEMN-IAE Nantes - Institut d'Économie et de Management de Nantes - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises - Nantes - UN - Université de Nantes, IMT Atlantique - SSG - Département Sciences sociales et de gestion - IMT Atlantique - IMT Atlantique - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris]
Frédéric Garcias: Université de Lille
Guy Minguet: IMT Atlantique - SSG - Département Sciences sociales et de gestion - IMT Atlantique - IMT Atlantique - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris]
Florence Charue Duboc: CRG I3 - Centre de recherche en gestion i3 - X - École polytechnique - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris - Université Paris-Saclay - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: Using a qualitative research approach, this article addresses a gap in the project management literature that is the coexistence of exploitation and exploration learning dynamics within a single large-scale and complex project. We investigate the case of the New Sodium Fast Reactor (NewSFR) project, a large-scale, complex, and multi-actor project aimed at designing a new technology of nuclear reactor. Through a grounded, interpretive, and multilevel methodological approach, we characterize NewSFR as a hybrid project that combines high exploration and exploitation goals. We investigate the hybridizing process, which takes into account long-term temporal dynamics and interactions between two levels of analysis: the knowledge domains within the project and the project itself. This enables us to report three major contributions. First, at a macro-level, we highlight the ambiguity related to the difficulty for project members to agree on either exploratory or exploitative NewSFR status, which leads us to qualify it as a hybrid project. We then investigate the case dynamically and at a micro-level (i.e., the level of knowledge domains within the project). We emphasize the temporal processes underlying the hybridization, and how this hybridization evolves in time through two data-based concepts: deliberate exploration and emerging exploration. We identify and categorize the main drivers of deliberate and emerging exploration throughout the project, and highlight how these drivers affect project management processes. Finally, we discuss the issue of managing such hybrid projects.

Keywords: project management; exploration/exploitation; hybridity; nuclear reactor; product development; gestion de projet; exploration / exploitation; hybridation; projet complexe; réacteur nucléaire; conception (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-10-01
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-02276378v1
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Published in Project Management Journal, 2019, 50 (5), pp.538-553. ⟨10.1177/8756972819870343⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-02276378

DOI: 10.1177/8756972819870343

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