Deliberate or Emergent? How Organizations Adopt Hybrid Project Management

Hybrid project management combines traditional and agile approaches for managing complex projects. While its benefits and setups are well studied, how organizations adopt and implement hybrid project management remains unclear. Hence, this study addresses this gap through a multiple-case design, finding that hybrid project management adoption is shaped by organizational context, leadership, and iterative adjustments to evolving needs. It proposes a Hybrid Project Management Adoption Model, featuring a novel distinction between conscious adoption (a deliberate, structured transition) and unconscious adoption (an organic, emergent evolution). The study advances hybrid project management research by theorizing adoption as a dual-path process and explaining how practices evolve under organizational conditions.