In order to analyze the fit, firstly the development to a strategic project needs to be looked at, since the history and pre-conditions have implications on a phenomenon (Strauss and Corbin, 1990, p.166; Langley, 1999). As the findings show, expectations, ambitiousness and common interest lead to the creation of a strategic project. Since the area was important, the expectations and ambitiousness had been growing during the long process and a consensus had been reached. When the right event occurred (Gersick, 1994) and ambitiousness of specifically one strategist with a special interest in Kivistö area, gained a position of power, the common interest of the city with regard to expectations of income began to be driven forward ambitiously. However, the common interest regarding the creation of the separate project organization from the municipality’s perspective can be questioned, since there was a veil of secrecy casted by the power over the project. Consequently, it can be seen that some practitioners’
interests were emphasized over others as was also presented by Kornberger and Clegg (2011) in their study on strategizing in the city of Sydney.
In fact, as municipality is a public sector organization with pluralistic traits, the decisions do not always follow a rational planning process (Arnaboldi, Azzone and Savoldelli, 2004; Cuccurullo and Lega, 2013), and secrecy may prevail. However, the decisions taken in municipalities should be open, also to public scrutiny, which as described by Crawford and Helm (2009) is conducted by the media. Therefore, the secrecy which characterized the creation of the project and often characterizes product development, unique projects and projects of a large scale (Lundin and Söderholm,
1998, p.15; Sovacool and Cooper, 2013 cited in Van de Graaf and Sovacool, 2014, p.18) is not fitting in the municipality context.
As brought forward before in the findings, the manner in which the project was created and separated as an independent organization from the rest of the organization set in motion progressions around concepts during the project phase. More specifically, the progressions comprised action and interaction between the individuals in and around the project organization. The progressions mainly resemble the parallel progressions described by Van de Ven (1992) who draws from Van den Daele (1969; 1974 cited in Van de Ven, 1992, p.172) and Flavell (1972 cited in Van de Ven, 1992, p.172). These progressions were connected to each other and were interplayed by the progressions of top management interests due to which they can be also seen as conjuctive. Moreover, due to the connection to the past, namely to the creation of the project as well as the past practices of the municipality organization, they can be seen as cumulative progressions (Van den Ven, 1992).
The first progression was around the concept of culture. The specific managerial interest towards the area, gave the managers the will to create the specific reporting and supportive structures for the project. Moreover, the project was physically separated from the line organization, which drawing from Blomquist and Packendorf, (1998) can be due to an aim to effectively manage the project. Due to the different structures and the physical separation, an own subculture developed in the project organization. The practices, withholding norms and values, in the subculture were not aligned with the ones in the rest of the organization, specifically where the planning of other areas was executed. However, in the beginning of the project phase, the creation of the own culture with own practices can be seen to have been good, since they served as motivation or even as hype for the project members. Moreover, the own way of working as well as the independency and flexibility provided by the project, allowed for creation of new praxis such as the work groups which brought together actors from different parts of the organization, to strategize about the area.
Supportive organizational environment is described to be important to project outcomes (Gray, 2001). In the beginning of the project phase, the high top management interest and consequently the support given to the project organization was notable. In the beginning of the project phase, the interests of the management and politicians toward the development of the area also created a new praxis, namely Marja-Vantaa Committee, where similarly to Hoon’s (2007) findings, the thinking of the different
level strategy practitioners in and around the project could be discussed and aligned. As there was regular interaction between the project members and the people in the positions of power, the project can be seen to have fit in the municipality strategizing at least from the organization’s upper echelon perspective in the beginning of the project phase.
However, as the secrecy, which characterized the development to a project, continued during the beginning of the project-phase, faulty information about the culture could spread in the organization, since outsiders were not able to observe the actions of insiders. Consequently, they were not able to attain a correct picture of the culture, since as Morgan (1997) brings forward, it is difficult to truly understand a culture from outside. The secrecy and the consequent faulty information are connected to the second progression around the concept of inclusion of other actors, namely the outsiders. The inclusion of outsiders, both by enabling the physical participation and by sharing information, in the actions of the project was restricted, since not all outsiders felt included. As found out by Mantere and Vaara (2008), dialogue enhances participation.
Due to the secrecy there was a lack of dialogue in the beginning of the project phase.
The project organization in the field of Land use and Environment had a central role in calling the participation due to which outsiders both in the field of Land use and Environment and other fields were partly excluded. Moreover, planning the area apart from others was not considered to be strategically wise, since the municipality should be planned as a whole.
Planning apart connects to the third progression, namely to the concept of resources.
One reason why the project was separated from the line organization was the possibility to provide it with more resources, comprising both financial and human resources. In a pluralistic environment where projects compete for resources (Parker, Parsons and Isharyanto, 2015), an area which is considered as strategically important, a “spearhead project”, should have the resources and the time as well as the freedom to operate in the best possible manner despite the municipality’s low resources.
In fact, the good aspects of the independency were that it gave the project members the resources, that is, to invest more time in for example interacting with the parties outside the municipality organization, namely the Ring Rail Line organization and Marja-Verkko. Owing to the interaction with the aforementioned parties, the project members as strategy practitioners were given the right arena to share the information with the citizens and engage them in the strategy making similarly as shown by
Balogun, Best and Lê (2015). Larger engagement of the citizens in the strategizing is important which is promoted in the new public management and public value management thinking (see for example Crawford and Helm, 2009). Moreover, from this perspective, the flexibility of the project organization provided the practitioners with good opportunities for cooperation and possibly new ways of cooperation with the third sector, which according to Vaara and Whittington (2012, p.287), is a societal practice.
However, it needs to be acknowledged that the starting point for Kivistö was completely different than that of the strategizing related to the municipality’s other already built areas, since the area was one of the last areas which could be developed in the city and consequently there were also expectations laid on it. Moreover, the planning in the area needed to begin from zero. Although resources were constantly added, insiders of the project felt a constant lack of resources. The lack of resources can be seen to be connected to the time pressures and the consequent symptoms in the working culture, which influenced the internal fit of the project and consequently also the external fit as the symptoms were seen outside the project.
The event or events which can be seen to have finally shaken the fit of the independent project organization, are the changes in management between 2011 and 2012 as well as the media scrutiny directed towards the insiders of the project. Due to the changes in management, the special interest toward developing the area decreased. Consequently, it can be seen that there was no interest to solve the internal conflicts of the project organization. However, it has to be acknowledged that the different views about the project management can have played a role in the finalization and the fit of the project.
In addition to the managerial interests, the political interests decreased which I believe is firstly related to the media scrutiny about the insiders of the project and to the consequent effects on the municipality. Secondly, the perception that the politicians saw that their part in the planning was done could be seen as a natural decreasing development of interests. However, the finalization of the project was also close to change of the City Council. Moreover, there can be seen to have been time pressures and consequently pressures to give more resources to the development. On the other hand, the project took resources from the line organization since there were resource dependencies. Thus, the project, despite being very independent in the beginning of the project phase, had resource dependencies to the line organization and therefore cannot
be considered to have been an autonomous unit as the one Lozeau, Langley and Denis.
(2002) show.
Overall, despite the good aspects brought by the separate project organization, the overall fit of the project in the municipality strategizing was limited from the beginning of the project phase. The fit was limited due to the secrecy which was reflected in the bad aspects specifically in the progressions of culture and inclusion. Although there was a continuous limited fit, the project was kept as an independent organization by the high interest and commitment of the management, including both the public servants and the politicians. The aforementioned finding supports the arguments of the importance of top management support for project management brought forward in the previous research for example by Arnaboldi, Azzone and Savoldelli (2004), Brown and Botha (2005) and Crawford and Helm (2009).