Innovation management research demonstrates that political behavior is necessary for project leaders to conduct breakthrough innovation (BI) projects successfully. Although it is known that project leaders' political behavior contributes to BI project success by maintaining continued support for the projects, this study focuses on another function of organizational politics: the uncertainty-handling function. Project leaders encounter uncertainties during their BI projects and are tormented by unintended project stagnation. While scholars and practitioners have developed several logic-based responsive approaches to address uncertainty problems, project leaders also employ political behavior. The realization provokes questions such as, what type of uncertainty in particular triggers a project manager's political behavior in the context of BI development? Is there any specific linkage between a particular type of uncertainty and particular political behavior? What mechanisms underpin those relationships? To answer these questions, we investigate six BI projects in five mature Japanese companies through the lens of the meaning management perspective. The analysis reveals that (1) project leaders use political behavior to address a specific situation in which two uncertainties are intertwined; (2) project leaders use different political behavior depending on the type of intertwined uncertainties; and (3) project leaders resolve intertwined uncertainties with political behavior and then address each uncertainty in their BI projects. This study contributes to the innovation politics literature and innovation management practices by identifying specific conditions under which BI project leaders use political behavior and suggesting the fit between particular political behaviors and uncertainty conditions.

中文翻译：

---

突破性创新中项目负责人政治行为的不确定性处理功能

创新管理研究表明，政治行为对于项目领导者成功开展突破性创新（BI）项目是必要的。尽管众所周知，项目领导者的政治行为通过保持对项目的持续支持来促进 BI 项目的成功，但本研究重点关注组织政治的另一个功能：不确定性处理功能。项目负责人在 BI 项目期间会遇到不确定性，并会因意外的项目停滞而受到折磨。虽然学者和实践者已经开发了几种基于逻辑的响应方法来解决不确定性问题，但项目领导者也采用了政治行为。这种认识引发了一些问题，例如，在 BI 开发背景下，哪种类型的不确定性会特别触发项目经理的政治行为？特定类型的不确定性和特定的政治行为之间是否存在任何特定的联系？哪些机制支撑着这些关系？为了回答这些问题，我们从意义管理的角度调查了五家成熟日本公司的六个 BI 项目。分析表明：（1）项目领导者利用政治行为来应对两种不确定性交织在一起的特定情况；（2）项目领导者根据相互交织的不确定性类型采取不同的政治行为；(3) 项目领导者解决与政治行为交织在一起的不确定性，然后解决其 BI 项目中的每个不确定性。这项研究通过确定商业智能项目领导者使用政治行为的具体条件并提出特定政治行为与不确定条件之间的契合度，为创新政治文献和创新管理实践做出了贡献。