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This study sheds light on polycentric forms of organizing and corresponding performance implications. Organizations with a polycentric architecture supplement their internal hierarchical decision-making structures with egalitarian, local structures to encourage collaboration with independent stakeholders. We ground our study on the planning stage for four large infrastructure projects in the UK. We first establish that project planning is carried on by polycentric organizations. We show that in this form of organizing the promoter has decision-making authority over high-order choices, but shares the authority over local choices with groups of autonomous stakeholders. We also show how this architecture addresses local disputes and pressures to relax performance targets. Our main contribution is a contingency model that proposes four conditions linking performance to polycentric organizing, whether or not: i) the institutional environment empowers an 'umpire' to referee disputes; and ii) the system leader can mobilize substantial slack resources to reconcile conflicting interests. We argue that the four conditions reveal different classes of managerial problems, and draw implications for practice and policy including but not limited to megaprojects.

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