Doctoral thesis: Steering processes in R&D consortia

Sanne Bor's doctoral thesis "A theory of meta-organisation: An analysis of steering processes in European Commission-funded R&D 'Network of Excellence' consortia" examines the steering processes in R&D consortia - including governance, management and administration. The analysis of these steering processes shows that during the initiation process a key activity is the creation of the boundaries of the work and the division into smaller parts. The governance, management and administration of these activities are most often undertaken by a small group of initiators, with a central role played by the person who in most cases becomes the coordinator. When the collaboration is set up and in action, however, the activities undertaken by participants from the member organisations are largely self-steered. Connections and links are made from bottom-up, and fitted into the thematic groups formed. Overall steering, especially evaluation and control are seen as uneasy.

"The results indicate that centralised control is avoided, externalised or formalised to deal with the lack of hierarchical authority in these consortia", explains Bor.

In the thesis, the analysis of the steering processes is used to refine and extend meta-organisation theory. Meta-organisation theory specifies the specific conditions met in organisations like consortia and alliances, whereby member organisations constituted the meta-organisation. Two factors, organisations as members and constituting membership, lead to conditions specific to this type of organisation.

The study is conducted on R&D consortia, funded as Networks of Excellence by the European Commission under its Research Framework Programme 6. The study is based primarily on five case studies, by way of documentation and interviews. In addition, the study draws on data collected on 101 consortia and consortium agreements from 50 consortia.

M.A Sanne Bor defends her doctoral thesis in Management and Organisation: "A theory of meta-organisation: An analysis of steering processes in European Commission-funded R&D 'Network of Excellence' consortia" on Friday 5 December.

Time: 5 December 2014, at 12
Place: Room 309, Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki
Opponent: Professor Steve Cropper, Keele University, UK.
Custos: Professor Jeff Hearn, Hanken School of Economics, Finland

For more information, please contact:
Sanne Bor
bor@hanken.fi
+358-50-3583811

A copy of the thesis can be down loaded at: http://hdl.handle.net/10138/144154