No abstract

This study contributes insights on how actors cope with constraints in ill-structured problem solving situations, and what implications this coping has for creative action. To date, most research on constraint handling has treated constraints, regardless of their nature, origin, or role, as external factors that enable or hinder creativity. In contrast, we consider constraints to be inextricably intertwined with all creative action. We focus our study on one specific practice for constraint handling: namely, shattering. Empirical data were collected for 12 projects in two engineering consulting firms, and four shattering practices were identified: protesting, proposing, betraying, and sabotaging.We discuss their enactment in various parts of the problem space and their implications for the management of creative action in organizations.

This article explores situated practices in communities that provide transnational services. Communities of practice generally focus on reinforcing local ties. Our study identifies two distinctive but interdependent communities of practice that are transnational and virtual: one community consists of employees who share work and tasks, labeled communities of task; the other consists of employees who jointly share and create knowledge, labeled communities of learning. We extend the existing community of practice literature by providing a heterogeneous understanding of the different types of situated practices, claiming that the situated practices of sharing work and sharing knowledge stem from the type of participation within the communities, either through service relays or virtual servicing. Empirical data in this study were collected from two transnational professional service firms. Our study shows that both types of communities benefit from managerial facilitation, even though one community type is more formal and the other is informal.

This study presents three different business models (continuous, repetitious, and unique)

To ensure cooperation, parties in inter‐organizational relationships (IORs) draw upon both control and trust. Yet, how control–trust dynamics change as IORs evolve remains unclear. This study illuminates the interplay between control–trust dynamics and IOR dynamics by unpacking how control and trust refer to and create one another through action–reaction cycles. We find that conflicting enactments of vulnerability and risk caused by critical incidents lead to tensions between the parties (IOR dynamics) regarding how and when they rely on control and trust. Consequently, coping practices are applied to redefine the controlling and trusting domain and mediate between the multiple and temporal domains to ensure that control and trust refer to and create one another to (re)form positive expectations. The study's main implication is that it makes little sense to study control‐trust dynamics in IORs, like other relational phenomena, in isolation and at a single point in time.