Paper Type
Complete
Paper Number
PACIS2026-2100
Description
Organizations increasingly seek to scale agility, reshaping structures, processes, and roles in ways that fundamentally affect how team autonomy is established and governed. While autonomy is widely re-garded as desirable, discussions highlight that its effects depend on how it is balanced with coordination and control, especially in dynamic environments. This underscores the need to understand how auton-omy is implemented when agility is scaled across an organization. We therefore examine the question How are team autonomy governance mechanisms enacted in scaling agility? Based on a 22-month multiple-case study, we identify three themes that characterize how autonomy manifests in scaling contexts: designing cross-functional teams along the value stream, orchestrating dependencies while sustaining discretion, and balancing stability and flexibility as a consequence of autonomy. We further identify four mechanisms through which organizations address these themes. From these insights, we derive propositions for future research and outline theoretical and practical implications for scaling agility.
Recommended Citation
Frey, Julian; Hund, Axel; Beimborn, Daniel; and Grewe, Elias, "Team autonomy in scaling agility: themes and organizational mechanisms" (2026). PACIS 2026 Proceedings. 15.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/pacis2026/it_strategy/it_strategy/15
Team autonomy in scaling agility: themes and organizational mechanisms
Organizations increasingly seek to scale agility, reshaping structures, processes, and roles in ways that fundamentally affect how team autonomy is established and governed. While autonomy is widely re-garded as desirable, discussions highlight that its effects depend on how it is balanced with coordination and control, especially in dynamic environments. This underscores the need to understand how auton-omy is implemented when agility is scaled across an organization. We therefore examine the question How are team autonomy governance mechanisms enacted in scaling agility? Based on a 22-month multiple-case study, we identify three themes that characterize how autonomy manifests in scaling contexts: designing cross-functional teams along the value stream, orchestrating dependencies while sustaining discretion, and balancing stability and flexibility as a consequence of autonomy. We further identify four mechanisms through which organizations address these themes. From these insights, we derive propositions for future research and outline theoretical and practical implications for scaling agility.
Comments
11-Strategy