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Rethinking organizational design for managing multiple projects
Abstract
This paper aims at positioning organizational design as an important phenomenon in the field of project management with a high potential of contributing to organizational theory. While organizational design has been neglected by scholars of management and organizational theory, it has been of great interest to those from the project management field. This incongruence—comprising the focus of this study—calls for new insights on theorization in context. The paper provides a preliminary theoretical framework combining contingency theory, the historical approach and social theory to understand organizational design, both as a thing and as a process. It provides empirical evidence from three case studies in healthcare. Findings confirm the specificity of each design while at the same time adopting a similar temporal pattern. We take this opportunity to highlight the seminal work of Rodney Turner on project-based organization and design.
... It took time to move away from the positivist approach and explore the PMO as a social and dynamic phenomenon within broader management and organizational studies (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Bredillet et al., 2018). This view suggested that approaching PMOs from the perspective of project organizing might be very fruitful. ...
... The notion of engaged scholars resonates with the work carried out in this field of study, and it would be interesting and useful to reflect on how researchers and practitioners can mutually benefit from knowledge exchange (Brunet et al., 2020). • Instead of adopting a one-size-fits-all approach, enhancing a pluralistic understanding (through pluralist theoretical framework) of organizational design and PMOs that recognizes the need to accommodate complexity and diverse stakeholder interests and adapt to varying project management needs across different parts of the organization (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Aubry, Richer, Lavoie-Tremblay, & Cyr, 2011). ...
... Referring to the organizational design definition proposed by Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay (2018), the authors unpack organizations as a structure (the thing), comprising the materiality of it, such as organizational charts and physical spaces, but also organizations as an action, as the active process of design (the designing). They address specifically how organizational design could help megaprojects, as their complexity significantly raises coordination issues. ...
... These activities include project, program, portfolio management and governance; project management offices (PMOs); and many others (see Figure 1). By looking at the entirety of all project management-related activities rather than a single activity (like project management only), OPM created "a new sphere of management" (Aubry et al., 2007, p. 332), which, through situationcontingent adjustments of its constituting elements (i.e., the project management-related activities), provides for resilience in organizations' efforts to accomplish strategic objectives (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018). ...
... The study is of value for practitioners as it provides information about existing practices. Academics benefit from enhanced OPM and OPMO insights through the extension of the OPM theory outlined by Müller et al. (2019) and the PMO context contingencies developed by Aubry and colleagues in their various studies (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018). The study continues prior work on organizational design that identified PMO categories by project types in public administration organizations (Aubry & Brunet, 2016) into the context of OPM and its focus on the network of project-related activities within organizations. ...
... The former emphasized the role of OPM processes and functions in improving project management maturity, whereas the latter addressed the distinction between espoused and practiced theories. Academics used individual case studies to scope the OPM concept and then diversified into organizational matters such as processes and new subject areas and management theories within the scope of OPM (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Drouin & Jugdev, 2014). Further expansion of subject areas followed, including industry specifics, models, standards, and methodologies, and added to the diversified picture of OPM. ...
Organizational project management (OPM) integrates project-related activities in organizations, including project management offices (PMOs) and their services. Using an organizational design perspective, this study models nine different PMO service delivery categories along scope, frequency, and delivery entity and identifies their particular OPM contexts (i.e., landscapes). Two hundred and sixty-five responses to a global survey identified nine types of OPM landscapes, grouped into three regions, with their particular logic of investment in OPM and their particular PMO service mix. The framework helps practitioners set up their PMOs in line with established practices. Academics benefit from a base for theorizing organizational designs using OPM.
... Lately, the organization design perspective has emerged as one of the ways to comprehend this complexity (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Sydow & Söderlund, 2023), referring to the "structures of accountability and responsibility used to develop and implement strategies, and the human resource practices and information and business processes that activate those structures" (Greenwood & Miller, 2010, p. 78). This perspective proved to be fruitful for examining diverse project-related settings, such as project management offices (Aubry et al., 2022;Aubry & Brunet, 2016), multiactor programs (Miterev et al., 2020), interorganizational projects Eriksson & Kadefors, 2017;Fu et al., 2022;Zhang et al., 2024), and project-based organizations Söderlund, 2023;Turner & Miterev, 2019). ...
... This perspective proved to be fruitful for examining diverse project-related settings, such as project management offices (Aubry et al., 2022;Aubry & Brunet, 2016), multiactor programs (Miterev et al., 2020), interorganizational projects Eriksson & Kadefors, 2017;Fu et al., 2022;Zhang et al., 2024), and project-based organizations Söderlund, 2023;Turner & Miterev, 2019). Monique Aubry's work has been instrumental in pioneering the explicit application of an organizational design lens in project studies (Aubry et al., 2022;Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Simard et al., 2018). Two contributions appear particularly important in this vein. ...
... Two contributions appear particularly important in this vein. First, Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay (2018) emphasized the process dimension of organization design, conceiving it as both a thing and a process. Second, a pluralistic, multiparadigmatic discourse on the topic has been strongly advocated for (Aubry et al., 2022;Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018). ...
Why are certain organization design arrangements enacted in a project-based organization? Building on extant literature, this article addresses this fundamental question by explicating three distinct explanations of the raison d'etre of salient organization design arrangements: Functional, Legitimacy, and Agency. Conceiving these explanations as coexisting, interacting logics of organizing, the article argues to draw upon the powerful concept of logic multiplicity to pave the way for integrating diverse theoretical perspectives. Thus, the article contributes to the organization design stream of research in project studies by developing a typology of organization design logics and proposing a way forward for pursuing pluralistic theorizing.
... Such factors continuously influence the organizational design since early works, involving: internal and external uncertainty (Galbraith, 1977;Thompson, 1967), triggers of change (Burns & Stalker, 2011;Gareis, 2010); institutional traditions, norms, values (Simard et al., 2018), complexity (Daniel & Daniel, 2019); and individual behaviors and social networks (Oubrich et al., 2021;Prasad & Tanase, 2021). Organizational design is understood as both the structure (the thing), comprising the materiality of it, such as organizational charts and physical spaces; and as the active process of design (the designing)-a reflexive exercise by which organizational design is performed and constantly reconfigured (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Bakker et al., 2016;Simard et al., 2018). Despite progress in the organizational design literature, little is known in the context of megaprojects. ...
... The advancement of organizational design has allowed acknowledgment of the formal (material) organization, the informal (social) organization, and the interchangeability between both, following the evolution of a product or project that is constantly changing, as it develops (i.e., both the thing and the process) (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018). Organizations are understood as complex systems, involving dynamic and open boundaries, called intra-and interorganizational boundaries, connected through coordination roles at different levels. ...
... Yet, such diversity of understanding in organizational design provides a wide range of words used to refer to organizational design, usually more related to the artifact or the action. Common terms in the artifact domain are "organization configuration" (e.g., Ennen & Richter, 2010;Mosca et al., 2021;Turner & Miterev, 2019), "organization structure" (e.g., Bakker, 2010;Chandler, 1992;Galbraith, 1977;Miles et al., 1978;Miterev et al., 2017) "organization arrangements" (e.g., Burton & Obel, 2018;MacCormack et al., 2012;Miterev et al., 2020), and "organizational architecture" (e.g., Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Browning, 2001;Nadler et al., 2011). Common terms in the action domain are "organization forms" (e.g., Ford & Randolph, 1992;MacCormack et al., 2012;Miterev et al., 2017Miterev et al., , 2020Mosca et al., 2021), "organizational culture" (e.g., Elsbach & Stigliani, 2018;Ford & Randolph, 1992), and "organizational networks" (Giustiniano & D'Alise, 2015;Gulati et al., 2012). ...
Organizational design is composed of structure, the artifact, and coordination, the action. Existing organizational design literature lacks coherence, resulting in models that overlook the importance of coordination as an organizational design issue, which intensifies in megaprojects. We explore the roles of clients when designing megaproject organizations, identifying four coordination roles: (1) meta-organizer, (2) gatekeeper, (3) interface manager, and (4) mediator. These roles align with management levels (strategic, tactical, operational), corresponding to megaproject phases and organizational design development. The conceptual framework contributes to the organizational design literature by providing a systems-wide view and enriching the understanding of the multilevel coordination roles of clients.
... In consequence, interorganizational projects have received considerable attention by scholars and practitioners in recent years (Lee-Kelley & Turner, 2017;Sydow & Braun, 2018). Thereby organizations, especially large corporations, are not only sequentially but often even simultaneously involved in several such projects, characterized by dual if not multiple project ownerships (Olsson, 2018) and calling for some kind of competent, boundary-crossing interorganizational multiproject or project portfolio management (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Martinsuo & Ahola, 2022;Unger et al., 2012). ...
... Organizational design as a practice and a theoretical lens has been considered one of the cornerstones of management and organization research for decades. More recently, the value of organizational design seems to have been rediscovered not only by management and organization researchers (Dunbar & Starbuck, 2006;Puranam et al., 2012;Van de Ven et al., 2013) but also by project scholars (e.g., Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Aubry et al., 2022;Fu et al., 2022;Miterev et al., 2020). In this latter, much more specialized discourse, the definition of Greenwood and Miller (2010) seems to be preferred, probably because of their link to strategy or strategizing, which has also become increasingly significant in project studies (Clegg et al., 2018). ...
... Empirical studies in fact show an increasing variety of PMO forms, for instance, concerning the decision-making authority and staffing of such entities (Hobbs & Aubry, 2007) or their engagement in supporting not only project management but also project portfolio management, if not globally, then at least regionally (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Unger et al., 2012). The development of PMOs in organizations should be viewed in its historic context, since they have coevolved with their organizational setting and also involve episodes of creative destruction, leading to further organizational transition . ...
Based on conceptual reasoning, combined with illustrations from the air cargo industry, this paper proposes a gradual broadening of the concept of what PMOs are in charge of to provide added value to the collaborating organizations when planning for and executing inter¬organizational projects. So far, the ability of PMOs to support interorganizational projects and practices is restricted – this goes for project management practice as well as for a lack of concepts and theoretical reasoning from research in the domain of project studies. Against this background, this paper distinguishes four types of PMOs and identifies promising organizational design elements pointing to functions and barriers, as well as to the interorganizational bridging practices of PMOs in support of their inter¬organizational responsibilities.
... Lundin et al., 2015, pp. 225-230) but, as long as it follows a tall rather than flat ontology (Seidl & Whittington, 2014), is quite akin to the pluralistic framework proposed by Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay (2018) that combines contingency theory, the historical approach and social theory, in order to capture organizational design not only as an entity, but also as a process. ...
... Organizational design as a practice and a theoretical lens has been considered one of the corner stones of management and organization research for decades. More recently, the value of organizational design seems to have been rediscovered not only by management and organization researchers (Dunbar & Starbuck, 2006;Puranam et al., 2012;Van de Ven et al., 2013), but also by project studies (e.g., Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Fu et al., 2022;Miterev et al., 2020). In this latter, much more specialized discourse, the definition of Greenwood and Miller (2010) seems to be preferred, probably because of their link to strategy or strategizing, which has also become increasingly significant in project studies (Clegg et al., 2018). ...
... Empirical studies in fact show an increasing variety of PMO forms, for instance concerning the decisionmaking authority and the staffing of such entities (Hobbs & Aubry, 2007) or their engagement in supporting not only project management but also project portfolio management, if not globally, then at least regionally (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Unger et al., 2012). The development of PMOs in organizations has to be seen in its historic context, since they have co-evolved with their organizational setting and also involved episodes of creative destruction, leading to further organizational transition . ...
Based on conceptual reasoning, combined with illustrations from the air cargo industry, this article proposes a gradual broadening of the concept of what project management offices (PMOs) are responsible for to provide added value to the collaborating organizations when planning for and executing interorganizational projects. Thus far, the ability of PMOs to support interorganizational projects and practices has been restricted—this goes for project management practice as well as a lack of concepts and theoretical reasoning from research in the domain of project studies. Against this background, this article distinguishes four types of PMOs and identifies promising organizational design elements pointing to functions and barriers, as well as to the interorganizational bridging practices of PMOs in support of their interorganizational responsibilities.
... They argue that most research is based in contingency theory, with a few contributions anchored in historical studies, social theories, and theoretical pluralism. They suggest that we think of organizational design as a larger social phenomenon with two dimensions: a structural component (as a thing) and a dynamic component (as a process) (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018). They suggest three layers of analysis: a wide, macroview of organizational design; a mesoview of organizational design for managing projects; and a microview of project organizational design. ...
... They suggest three layers of analysis: a wide, macroview of organizational design; a mesoview of organizational design for managing projects; and a microview of project organizational design. Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay's (2018) research addresses the mesoview, as they study the configuration of different project management offices (PMOs) as both structures and as trajectories to deliver projects, building on previous work investigating the relationship between PMOs and organizational design (Aubry & Brunet, 2016). ...
... However, we suggest that in a co-owned project, a collaborative governance PMO should have a neutral role for all co-owner organizations. This interorganizational design, consisting of governance mechanisms and of a PMO to implement them, echoes the mesoview suggested by Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay (2018), with the difference that there are several organizations involved as co-owners. ...
Co-ownership of major projects increases organizational complexity but remains underexplored in project studies. This article examines these complexities, employing an engaged scholarship approach with a group of practitioners facing a significant challenge regarding collaborative governance of a major project. This approach enables us to develop a framework for major projects, which includes four types of collaborative governance mechanism: sensemaking, structural, procedural, and relational. Our work has implications for interorganizational design, suggesting that a project management office (PMO) could play a leadership and integrative role in collaborative governance.
... The pattern of the couplings defines different types of project architectures. However, both, the architecture, or the 'thing', and the processes, should be analyzed when studying the organizational design (Aubry & Lavoie--Tremblay, 2018). Several authors pointed out that a better understanding of the organizing for knowledge creation in inter-organizational settings (Nisula et al., 2022), of the processes, i.e. of the dynamics of the couplings (Yang et al., 2021;Jakobsen et al., 2019;Sydow & Braun, 2018;Manning, 2017;Majchrzak et al., 2015;Davis, 2016), and of its implications on the collaborative innovations (Michelfelder & Kratzer, 2013;Hofman et al., 2016) are required. ...
... This research advanced the understanding of couplings in multi-actor RDI projects, but it took a static approach. In addition, an investigation of the dynamic layer of the processes in the projects is also required (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Lundin & Söderholm, 1995). There are also multiple calls for research to explain the processual features of inter-organizational collaborations (Yang et al., 2021;Jakobsen et al., 2019;Sydow & Braun, 2018;Majchrzak et al., 2015), in particular in multi-actor RDI projects (Calamel et al., 2012;vom Brocke & Lippe, 2015) and to investigate how patterns of couplings influence collaborative innovation over time (Michelfelder & Kratzer, 2013;Hofman et al., 2016). ...
... All but one of these evolutions point in the non-increasing direction, at best resulting in the maintenance of the planned couplings, at worst leading to abandoning. Thus, through empirical exploration and induction, our study complements the literature on processes in inter-organizational settings and on the evolution of the project architecture (Majchrzak et al., 2015;Berends & Sydow, 2019;Ligthart et al., 2016;Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Sydow & Braun, 2018). In all projects, there was a systematic degradation of the couplings at the interfaces; this happened without major concerns of the organizational actors, as long as their own objectives were reached (Mannak et al., 2019). ...
Publicly funded multi-actor research, development and innovation projects are a setting where a network of multiple organizational actors form a temporary consortium to jointly create new knowledge and market-upstream innovations. The couplings between the organizational actors and sub-groups of these actors represent joint work that leads to flows of knowledge and flows of activities. The dynamics of the couplings in this empirical context and their implications are not well understood yet. Using an inductive comparative multiple case study of projects funded in European Research and Innovation Programmes, we investigated 4 projects with 54 organizational actors, which produced 50 innovations. The evolutions of all couplings went through the same phases, although the temporality of the phases differed. We identified eight types of evolutions of couplings and their underlying generative mechanisms. These evolutions led to different, mostly negative implications on the planned collaborative innovations. Particularly, we observed a systematic degradation of the couplings that were planned to connect sub-groups of organizational actors. Over time, the projects became less collaborative than planned, and they have a tendency to fragment into isolated activities by subgroups of actors. Based on these findings, we propose an emerging process model which helps to better understand how and why the couplings evolve in multi-actor RDI projects.
... In this article, organizational design is explored through project management offices (PMOs) as they offer a good entry point to the overall project governance and structure. Indeed, the literature review on organizational design shows the predominance of contingency-based approaches (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Hobday, 2000;Van de Ven et al., 2013). These approaches are based on the premise of the preexistence of design types, of which one ought to be chosen from a set of potential designs selected from factors considered to influence this choice (e.g., Miterev, Mancini et al., 2017). ...
... These authors define isomorphism as a process of homogenization of organizations in the same organizational field, especially in a context of uncertainty and constraint. Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay (2018), for their part, arrive at the conclusion of equifinality; in other words, a variation in the organizational design of the three cases studied that nevertheless leads to similar performance results. ...
... The first one is about the transformation project while it is being carried out. The results of a first analysis were also the subject of a first publication (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018). These results highlighted equifinality and, therefore, the importance given to the preparation of the project, which was also observed. ...
This article examines how governance mechanisms were put in place in three organizational transformation projects undertaken in university hospital centers. Our focus is guided by a theoretical discourse on the place of rational choices on organizational design versus the desire to imitate other organizations. The article presents two complementary points of view: a longitudinal study and a recent a posteriori reflection with five key players. A first result highlights efforts invested in the preparation stages and that these nevertheless resulted in comparable performances: hence, the concept of equifinality. However, a second result reveals complementarity between equifinality and institutional isomorphism.
... Organisational, structural and managerial complexity due to e.g. multiple and heterogenic stakeholders ( Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018 ; scant, places demands on the project participants both on an individual and organisational level. Inter-organisational collaboration is associated with both risk and complexity, and collaborative efforts are associated with high failure rates ( Bygballe & Swärd, 2019 ;( Gulati et al., 2012 )). ...
... The context is very important when designing organisations ( Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018 ). It shapes the organisation and should be described through a joint collaborative effort among project stakeholders ( Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018 ). ...
... The context is very important when designing organisations ( Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018 ). It shapes the organisation and should be described through a joint collaborative effort among project stakeholders ( Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018 ). The hospital organisation and project operate in pluralistic settings, characterised by diffuse power and divergent interests ( Aubry et al., 2014 ;Denis et al., 2011 ). ...
Hospital projects, like other major projects, start with the front-end phase, which considerably affects projects’ strategic success. There is an expressed need for more knowledge of the front-end to improve and thus strengthen the odds for strategic success. Hospital projects are complex and challenging to run much due to multiple stakeholders and societal impact. Hospital projects’ stakeholder multiplicity makes collaboration a fundamental activity in the front-end. In this paper, we propose a framework for front-end collaboration in hospital projects constituting the following interdependent categories: contexts, structures, means and catalysts. The categories interact to make collaboration happen and make collaboration work, indicating that the different categories should be considered at different times in the planning process. Successful collaboration may positively affect project outcome and leads to innovation and learning, which are important assets for hospital projects in identifying successful future solutions, hence strengthening the projects’ odds for long-term success.
... Understanding how university-industry collaborations are organised and managed is crucial to understanding their impact (Perkmann & Walsh 2007). Open collaborations can be seen as a distinct and viable organisational form (Levine & Prietula 2014), and organisational design offers a useful lens to study the processes by which open collaborations are formed and the resulting organisations (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018). This constitutes an appropriate starting point for our present study. ...
... We draw on the concept of organisational design (Burton 2006;Greenwood & Miller 2010) to identify design elements that can be used to characterise and distinguish between OSPs. Organisational design has previously been overlooked in the literature on management and organisation (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay 2018;Burton et al. 2019) but has gained traction in recent years (e.g. Burton & Obel 2018) in the study of established companies (e.g. ...
Open Science Partnerships (OSPs) are gaining attention as alternatives to university–industry collaborations with restrictive IPR and knowledge sharing policies. OSPs have different expected outcomes and deploy varying means to reach them. Appreciating these differences is crucial to understanding their scientific and socio-economic impact, and yet these differences have never been systematically investigated. This exploratory study draws on qualitative case studies of five biomedical OSPs involving academic partners and pharmaceutical companies. It identifies key elements—purpose, activities and structure—that can be used to describe how OSPs are designed. We identify two key aspects of purpose—predominant intent and research aims—which we argue affect the activities and structure of an OSP. Based on these two aspects, we propose four ideal types of OSPs that are designed to provide a starting point for researchers who explore the nature and impact of OSPs and for practitioners who are developing OSPs and wish to ensure that they deploy appropriate means to meet the intended outcomes of their partnership.
... However, determining best practices of governance is difficult as project governance is observed to be a heterogeneous, multifaceted and multilevel phenomenon (Biesenthal and Wilden, 2014;Lappi et al., 2018;Derakhshan et al., 2019, Ul Musawir et al., 2020. Nonetheless, scholars have proposed conceptualizations, organizational design models and typologies (M€ uller et al., 2019;Simard et al., 2018;Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Miterev et al., 2017) which benefit comprehension of project governance, guide future investigations as well as help to minimize long-standing debates for example governance being structural versus human (Turner and Keegan, 2001;Clegg et al., 2002) or internal versus external to a project (Ahola et al., 2014, Ul Musawir et al., 2020. ...
... Likewise, organizational structures have been bifurcated into mechanistic and organic systems (Burns and Stalker, 1961). So, understanding these variations between human and structure is crucial because PBOs are not just structures (things) and their reflexive processes contribute to organizational choices (Bakker et al., 2016;Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018). Apart from these human versus structure compatibility concerns, which require more deliberation at the project level, within human differences at the organizational and the ...
Purpose
Variations of human-versus-structure and within-humans at the organizational and the project level are critical in shaping the internal arrangement for effectiveness of project-based organization’s (PBOs) governance. Recent discourse presents governmentality at the organizational level and leadership at the project level as human agency of governance, whereas governance structures to be their counterpart. However, project-level mechanisms of governmentality that can help to understand possible variations among these governance dimensions remained veiled. This study uses institutional theory to explore these internal arrangements accommodated by variations of PBOs governance dimensions at the project level.
Design/methodology/approach
The study followed Eisenhardt protocols of multiple case study design using an abductive research approach. Considering the heterogeneity of governance as a phenomenon in literature, boundary conditions were established before theorizing the model of the study to avoid ambiguities and define the research scope. Five PBOs were chosen using theoretical sampling, yielding 70 interviews. Data were analyzed by constant comparison with theory, using replication logic and cross-case analysis.
Findings
Findings revealed that project managers perform a buffer function for governmentality at the project level. Identified mechanisms of governmentality at the project level included two downward mechanisms, i.e. communication and informal interactions of governors, and two upward mechanisms of adaptation and reciprocity by project managers and project team members. Cross-analysis for variations among PBOs’ governance at the project level revealed seven arrangements showcasing synergies or contrasts.
Originality/value
The study adds to organizational project management literature by advancing the significance of congruence between humans and structures in project governance. Furthermore, the synchronization of the project manager’s leadership style with the governmentality approach and governance structure of PBOs is of crucial importance at the project level. Findings suggest the same by showcasing synergetic versus contrasting internal arrangements accommodated in varying PBOs governance dimensions. Implications highlight that synergies among PBOs governance dimensions and project manager’s styles can minimize conflicts and inconsistencies in governance implementation, whereas contrasts might trigger them.
... Within organisational studies, organisational design is a field that is well-established and focuses on various organisational forms, the variety of design techniques that CEO's and managers might use, and their internal and external consequences (Turner & Miterev, 2019;Miterev, Mancini, & Turner, 2017). Organisational design has garnered a lot of attention lately, especially in the field of project management (Aubry & Lavoie-tremblay, 2018). Restructuring that is primarily concerned with structural issues is rarely successful and is not an organisational design. ...
... The underpinning theory for the modified star model was the contingency theory(Van De Ven, Ganco, & Hinnings, 2013;Aubry & Lavoie-tremblay, 2018). The contingency theory emphasises that the alignment of the internal arrangements and external setting determines an organisational unit's effectiveness. ...
Local construction firms in Ethiopia and other emerging economies are faced with fierce competition from international firms, regional market dynamics, economic setups , and capacity-related problems. Rethinking the parent organization's design is essential to fostering a favourable work environment for projects. A Project-based organization (PBO) is a suitable organizational form for managing and executing business operations centred on projects. PBOs undertake work primarily in the form of projects. Hence, they prioritize adaptability, innovation, and flexibility to address the unique challenges of each project. A construction firm is essentially a PBO as it conducts most of its operations through projects. There are scanty empirical studies that focused on performance of construction firms, specifically on design and management of construction firms as PBOs-a significant gap in addressing the issue of construction firms which have remained active behaving as non-PBOs. The phenomenon of behaving like non-PBOs has put them in a confusing state and qualifying them as "default PBOs" handling construction projects. Behaving and embracing "non-PBOs" characteristics by pretending to engage in routine activities, where processes are repetitive and ongoing , have significantly affected their performances and strengthened the need to address the research gap mentioned-specifically finding a formal way of moving construction firms from "default PBOs" to "full-fledged PBOs". This study aimed to close this gap by developing a conceptual model to assist ECFs to become full-fledged PBOs. An exploratory QUAL-quant design was adopted. A thematic content analysis was done for the interviews. One-way ANOVA and Pearson correlation were used to analyse the quantitative data. A transformational model is proposed, the transformation process should start with evaluation of the environment, strategic documents, and PBO characteristics in the organisation. The missing PBO characteristics which led to the confusing state described above need to be well assimilated in the design of ECFs.
... Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay (2017) have put the spotlight on the importance of organisational design for companies that have to manage multiple projects. To perform at their best, organisations must implement an organisational design that best fits their unique context (Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay, 2017). In their research, the authors acknowledge both the importance and the complexity of this requirement, leading them to coin the term 'slow organisational design' that reflects the need for every company to find its own specific model, bearing in mind its own context and historical identity, thus making it difficult to simply copy outside examples, which is laborious and needs time (Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay, 2017). ...
... To perform at their best, organisations must implement an organisational design that best fits their unique context (Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay, 2017). In their research, the authors acknowledge both the importance and the complexity of this requirement, leading them to coin the term 'slow organisational design' that reflects the need for every company to find its own specific model, bearing in mind its own context and historical identity, thus making it difficult to simply copy outside examples, which is laborious and needs time (Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay, 2017). The ability to assess the overall project performance has been raising concerns within PBOs, to spot inefficiencies and act in a timely manner. ...
... The PMO substantially impacts organizational performance, aligning projects with the organization's strategic objectives and ensuring that projects are in harmony with its overall mission (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018). The PMO's structured approach enhances project outcomes by reducing uncertainties, improving decision-making, and ensuring project delivery meets predefined criteria. ...
Project management offices (PMOs) connect the complex relationships of strategies, projects, and organizational structures to boost the success of business. However, PMOs face significant challenges in clearly defining their roles and responsibilities due to the variety of potential functions that can be assigned to them. This study presents a systematic analysis of PMO typologies, types, and respective functions, providing an in-depth understanding of the dynamic PMO role. We found 16 typologies and 60 PMO types in the literature, showing that PMOs are complex and evolving entities that can assume various forms and organizational responsibilities.
... Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay [2] trace the evolution of the theories associated with the design of organizational structure. Contingency theory postulates that structure must adapt to variables in the external environment. ...
Within hospitals, supply chain activities support the clinical mission of these organizations. As a result, the departments in charge of supply chain activities often lack the attention of top hospital management. This situation hinders the implementation of best practices that can enhance healthcare supply chain performance. This chapter offers an integrated understanding of the dynamics of supply chain activity configurations in hospitals. The research adopts a qualitative approach “based on” the case study of the public health system of a Canadian province and the systematic observation of six units of analysis to understand the evolution of their supply chain activity configurations. The results of the study show that the knowledge acquired in the logistics function, the experience of the supply chain manager and his team, and political maneuvers influence the configuration of logistics activities. The study also underlines that the new configurations provided a foundation for improving organizational performance.
... Therefore, it regulates the responsibility distribution, authority lines, way to connect activities, internal environment, external reality, context, behavior, strategy, and structure. Additionally, organizational design terms are associated with other terms which used identically [25], such as architecture [26] or organizational structure [27]. Numerous studies in recent years state that various organizations are still based on the Tayloristic principle [28], in which organizational design is established on a high level of structure and labor division [29]. ...
Modern organizations assert that cynicism and organizational design provide advantages for knowledge-intensive settings. However, organizational crises may lead to resource shortages, prompting increased knowledge hiding (KH) among workers for competitive edge. Therefore, current study aims to examine the influence of organizational design and cynicism on job performance with organizational justice and KH through the moderating effect of servant leadership. Convenience sampling technique was used for data collection from 730 manufacturing organization employees via a survey questionnaire and data were analyzed with AMOS (28.0). Findings showed that KH's behavior negatively influenced by organizational design and positively influenced by cynicism. The current study also validates that higher management needs to practice advanced organizational justice to improve performance that drastically generates justice practices and reduces KH within the firms. Moreover, deploying servant leadership helps to control the cynicism, and employees start practicing knowledge-sharing behavior that significantly contributes to the performance.
... That assumption illustrates the danger in medical infrastructure projects, of inadequately appreciating potential human and patientexperience factors by not engaging more fully with patients, operational medical staff and expert medical staff. Drawing on three case studies previously researched (Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018) the chapter adds further reflections based on 4þ years more of research into complimentary topics to widen the value of the chapter's content from its cited papers. Appendices A32.1 and A32.2 are particularly useful, The fascinating Chapter 33 by Paravan et al. tackles new areas of project and program governance. ...
... We link the two different organizational forms of projects and operations by designing the strategy, structure, process, and people of the transition. A combination of organizational design literature from both sides (project and operations) informs the design considerations of such hybrid temporary and permanent spaces (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Slack & Brandon-Jones, 2019). As shown in Figure 4, the framework provides considerations for managing the strategic tensions between projects and operations, and spanning the organizational forms of structure, process, and people between projects and operations. ...
The transition from projects to operations requires a spanning from more temporary, goal-oriented, and evolving organizational forms to more permanent , routine, and ongoing organizational forms. A question of practical and theoretical significance is how to organize the transition to operations in large inter-organizational projects. To answer this question, we conducted a longitudinal case study of Beijing Daxing International Airport, which is the largest transportation hub in China to date, and provides rich evidence for successfully managing the transition to operations. By analyzing the organizational design strategy, structures, processes, and management of people in the transition, we provide a synthetic framework for designing the transition to operations in large inter-organizational projects. The framework provides a set of considerations to design organizational boundaries that build connections , emphasize coordination, and achieve continuity between projects and operations. This study contributes to the nexus of operations management and project management and the organizational design of large inter-organizational projects. K E Y W O R D S large infrastructure projects, organizational design, owners and operators, project transitions, temporary-permanent organizing Highlights • The transition should be designed to achieve continuity between projects and operations, emphasizing coordination, information exchange, and reconciling temporary and permanent organizational forms. • Ad hoc integrated organizations should be designed to manage transitions, emphasizing concurrent leadership, and job rotation in temporary (project) and permanent (operations) organizations.
... However, there is very little previous literature on the client's role and responsibilities in collaborative-contracted hospital construction projects (cf. Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Larsen et al., 2020). In particular, the client's role in complex projects has evolved to promote integration, coordination and innovation through stakeholder engagement, especially in the front-end phase where the client is the key actor (Tampio et al., 2022a). ...
Purpose
The research problem in this study is how a client (as a project owner) should organise early stakeholder involvement and integration in the front-end phase of a project. This study aims to create normative managerial statements as propositions from the client's perspective and to combine them into a set of activities enabling efficient organisation in the front-end phase of a hospital construction project.
Design/methodology/approach
Action design research (ADR) was carried out in a large hospital construction project where the first author acted as an “involved researcher” and the other authors acted as “outside researchers”.
Findings
The authors created seven normative managerial propositions that were verified by the case project stakeholders and developed a managerial framework describing the client's essential stakeholder involvement and integration activities in the front-end phase of a hospital construction project based on these propositions. The authors have also depicted the subphases of the front-end phase: value definition phase in the client permanent organisation, value proposition phase in the client Programme Management Office (PMO) and finally development phase in the alliance organisation ending on the final investment decision.
Practical implications
The collaborative contract delivery model enables the early involvement and integration of stakeholders. It has been somewhat surprising to note the extent to which collaborative contracts change the client role in the project front-end. The results offer practical activities for how clients can manage front-end activities in collaborative contracts.
Originality/value
The case project offered a platform to analyse how the collaborative contract delivery model changes the emphasis of activities in the front-end of a project. One of the key benefits of collaborative contracts is that development, design and delivery occur partially in parallel, thereby enabling contributions from production to be included in the design and development. The benefit of having a real-life case under study provides the possibility to triangulate and analyse rich data, however limited by the qualitative case method.
... PM is linked to organisations through the use of projects as platforms for improving business, implementing changes, fostering innovation, and gaining a competitive edge, as explained by the authors of [16]. In their research, Aubry et al. [17] highlighted a growing interest in social perspectives that take politics, organisational dynamics, paradoxes, and pluralism into consideration. This presents an opportunity for PM scholars to contribute to management and organisational theory. ...
Nowadays, companies employ various project management (PM) methodologies to ensure that their projects are effective and successful. It is worth knowing that differences in principles and processes of PM methodologies influence the use of different PMs in managing non-repetitive and repetitive construction projects. This paper presents the selection and application of a rational construction PM methodology to a repetitive construction project after a comparison of two PM methodologies, namely Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) and Projects IN Controlled Environments (PRINCE2). The object of this study is a repetitive anti-corrosion works project for steel structures conducted at Company X. The research was carried out in two steps. First, a quantitative survey of the respondents from companies involved in the management and execution of construction projects was conducted with the aim to identify a rational approach to construction PM. The questionnaire consisted of fourteen closed-ended questions, six of which were generic and eight were PMBOK- and PRINCE2-specific questions. Companies that took part in the quantitative study identified the PRINCE2 project management approach as the most suitable for managing a repetitive construction project. Using the PRINCE2 PM methodology, the repetitive construction project would aim to provide as much information as possible to the project participants, form a team and assign team leaders responsible for the phases, establish a financial plan, a detailed timetable for the execution of the works, a quality control plan, and a plan of responsible persons, and detail the technological sequencing of the works. Second, a quantitative study on the selection of a rational construction project management approach for a repetitive construction project was pursued, and a qualitative assessment of construction project monitoring trends and actions was conducted. The qualitative research was performed using a structured interview method and asking the representatives of different companies X, Y, and Z the same 15 questions. The results of the qualitative research showed that a successful PM depends on the size of the project team, the PM tools and methodologies used, the PM philosophy, and the frequency of monitoring and discussing the project progress.
... Contingency theory suggests that an organisation is an adaptive system that is reacting and evolving under the influence of its surrounding environment (Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967): the context creates the requirements. Contingency theory underscores the importance of contextual conditions, which have been studied by scholars in different settings (Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018). Organisational learning influences the ability of the organisations to react to the changing contextual conditions (Argote and Hora, 2017) and to anticipate them. ...
This paper analyses the evolution of the contextual conditions during the advancement of the degree of technological maturity of innovative technical solutions and their interplay with the R&D processes in the setting of collaborative inter-organisational publicly-funded R&D projects. Extant literature investigated the role of contextual conditions for the development process of technologies across different settings, but the evolution of their role has not yet been analysed in detail during the same development process over different levels of maturity. It has also not been investigated how the inter-organisational collaboration is affected by this interplay. To address this gap, we put in place exploratory qualitative research in the empirical setting of collaborative inter-organisational R&D projects that were funded by the EU's Research and Innovation Framework Programmes. Such projects often advance the maturity of several new technical solutions in different constellations of partners within the same project and therefore provide rich data for our analysis. The research design is a comparative multiple case study. We studied 5 projects that developed 49 innovative technical solutions, adopting a grounded theory approach, through the analysis of the project documentation and semi-structured interviews. The evolution of the non-technical contextual conditions and their interplay with the R&D processes and the inter-organisational collaboration were found to be similar across different technologies, but their role was significantly different at different stages of the advancement of maturity. Medium TRLs constituted a watershed for inter-organisational cooperation, whereas when going to higher TRLs, the role of the intra-organisational context became dominant. As a consequence, the changes of the contextual conditions should be anticipated by project planners and project managers to avoid that the R&D processes get stuck at medium technology readiness levels. We also discuss the implications for policy interventions when reaching higher TRLs is intended.
... 2. Contingency theory does not provide suggestions for organizational leaders and managers when facing any of the contexts (Northouse 2019). 3. The static nature of contingency theory in today's dynamic world (Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay 2018;Donaldson 2006). ...
The present study contributes to developing a pragmatic constructivist framework for detecting the nature of real-world's problems. To do so, we developed a framework that appreciates factual and logical aspects of reality and considers the values of actors participating in the situation using their communication. This occurs by integrating contingency theory and sense-making theory, which utilize rational and discursive inference mechanisms , respectively. In order to effectively cope with the complexity of understanding problems' nature, it is suggested to use rational and discursive mechanisms in complement. To do so, in this study, organizational information processing theory (OIPT) from contingency theory was utilized to enrich the Cynefin framework stemming from sense-making theory. Then, we used qualitative conceptual analysis to investigate Cynefin papers in a deductive-inductive way to develop the evolved Cynefin framework. The rationality of OIPT improves the analytical capabilities of Cynefin. Additionally, OIPT's contextual factors facilitate structuring debate sessions to reach a consensus. Cynefin helps us extract contextual narrations, which enables the acquisition of new knowledge. OIPT tries to extract actors' existing explicit and tacit knowledge. Finally, the developed framework is validated by utilizing it in the field of business process management and discussing how it helps problem-solvers make sense of their processes.
... The dynamic relationship between the enterprise (metasystems integrator) and project levels might inspire future research regarding the specific capabilities (Davies & Brady, 2016;Leiringer & Zhang, 2021) to be built by different actors in the evolving megaproject organisational system (Denicol et al., 2021). The exploration of how to design such inter-organisational dynamics might lead researchers to reveal the connections between the systems integration (Whyte & Davies, 2021) and organisational design literatures (Aubry & Lavoie--Tremblay, 2018). Finally, researchers could consider new infrastructure delivery models Whyte, 2019), analysing how procurement and commercial decisions might create the conditions to improve the systems integration process in complex projects. ...
Systems integration is essential for the design and execution of large, complex projects, but relatively little is known about how this task develops over time during the life cycle of a project. This paper builds on the concept of “disciplined flexibility” to describe how systems integration can be conceived as a dynamic process of maintaining stability, while responding flexibly to changing conditions. We examine the dynamics of systems integration through a case-study of Crossrail, the construction of London's new urban railway system, which will be called the Elizabeth Line when it opens for service. The balancing act of stability and change manifests during critical periods of the project life cycle as various interdependent systems evolve with different degrees of maturity. We identify how various types of reciprocal interdependencies in complex projects such as Crossrail – at the system and system of systems levels – require ongoing monitoring and control, and the mutual adjustment of tasks.
... Ces phases durent plusieurs années, elles débutent après de nombreuses rencontres entre les différentes parties prenantes impliquées dans les phases préliminaires de discussions et de prise de décision. Dans certains cas, les caractéristiques de nouveauté et d'unicité du projet ne sont pas réunies, souvent l'idée fut abordée et discutée dans le passé(Aubry et Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018), mais n'a jamais franchi la porte d'approbation pour de nombreuses raisons (infrastructures manquantes, absence de compétences, fuite aux médias et soulèvement de l'opposition, coûts, incompatibilité avec les besoins, etc.). Il est donc important de tenir compte de l'histoire qui précède la gestation du projet en tant qu'élément d'existence ex ante, voire constitutif du projet sur lequel se greffent les autres portions du projet en devenir(Tsoukas et Chia, 2002). ...
... However, research that addresses multiple projects is still limited. Previous studies discuss changes in organizational design/company structure in managing multiple projects, how to manage multiple projects using demand-based approach methods, motivation under multiple project conditions and what factors influence the success of multiple project groups [2], [4]- [6]. Inspired by previous research, which states that multiple-projects management different when compared to single-projects management. ...
... Unlike repetitive operations, projects are temporary endeavors (Turner and M€ uller, 2003;Jacobsson et al., 2015;Project Management Institute, 2017;Sydow and Braun, 2018;Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018). However, the amplitude of projects as strategic endeavors has led to their strong presence in every kind of business. ...
Purpose
This paper aims to explore how new product development (NPD)-based project management offices (PMOs) work, their drivers to deliver performance and their project success impact.
Design/methodology/approach
The study used a survey of 35 Brazilian and multi-national companies that identified the effort to perform a list of PMO functions, some PMO drivers in the company and five project performance perception indicators. The authors apply a specific set of statistics to uncover the relations between these dimensions of interest.
Findings
The factorial analysis allows us to find the main functions influencing each other. The project teams’ perception of project management (PM) performance is suggested as a success factor that drives PMOs when working on portfolio management issues, managing project files and promoting PM over the company.
Practical implications
This paper contributes to a contingency approach for designing a project machine involving PMOs to support NPD projects. Managers can set the most suitable PMO functions avoiding mimicry when structuring their NPD efforts.
Originality/value
PMOs have impacted team satisfaction and control of project data but not indicators related to triple constraints.
... Indeed, the emerging literature stream on organisational project management (Aubry et al., 2007(Aubry et al., , 2012Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Crawford, 2006;Drouin and Besner, 2012;Drouin and Jugdev, 2014;M€ uller et al., 2019a, b;Sankaran et al., 2017) centres on an organisation-level perspective on project management while acknowledging strong connections to strategic management, organisation science and behavioural science (Sankaran et al., 2017). This paper extends this discourse by highlighting the organisational context of one specific and major category of projects, notably the strategydriven internal project. ...
Purpose
The purpose of this conceptual paper is to describe and explain how organisations use internal projects to implement organisation-level strategy objectives.
Design/methodology/approach
Theory development with an emphasis on explaining key constructs and their mutual relationships. The theoretical contribution is represented in a diagram along with a detailed verbal account.
Findings
The paper develops a dynamic, cross-level framework to illustrate the organisational processes and outcomes that determine project-based strategy implementation within a single organisation. The interplay between the base organisation and the project, and benefits realisation were singled out as key future research areas. The proposed framework engages with central discourses in the fields of project management, strategic management, innovation studies, knowledge management and organisation studies.
Research limitations/implications
Only the contours of an organisation-level theory of strategically motivated internal projects are outlined. Future research must elaborate on the complexities, the non-linear relationships and the boundary conditions that follow from the proposed framework.
Practical implications
Managers are alerted to the strategic role of internal projects, how these projects help connect strategy and performance and what the accompanying organisational processes and outcomes look like.
Originality/value
The paper constitutes an early conceptual treatment of strategy-driven internal projects as a distinct project category, thus addressing a major knowledge gap in project studies. Organisational project-management theory is extended with suggestions for future research.
... The sixth contribution of this research is that by using a broad sample of experts from a wide range of countries and industries to develop and validate the guidelines, this research adopts and contributes to the contingency theory perspective (Donaldson, 2001) of project governance (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Joslin & Müller, 2015Müller & Martinsuo, 2015;Müller et al., 2017). This perspective emphasizes tailoring the governance system to suit the needs of individual projects as well as the parent organization. ...
There is a growing recognition that projects are the primary drivers of organizational change and strategy implementation. However, a large proportion of projects do not meet their intended objectives and the majority of projects are not aligned with organizational strategy. The project governance system occupies the prime position for ensuring that, firstly, projects are selected in accordance with their expected contribution to organizational strategy and, secondly, that projects realize their business case and the target benefits stated therein. These would, in turn, support the implementation of organizational strategy through projects. However, the literature on project governance is fragmented and despite past efforts by researchers in the field, there is yet a lack of consensus on what project governance is and the fundamental elements it constitutes. Furthermore, there is a dearth of research on how project governance can enable organizational strategy implementation through projects. Accordingly, this research aimed to examine the concept of project governance at a foundational level and to develop principles-based guidelines of project governance for enabling the implementation of organizational strategy through projects. To this end, a multi-method qualitative research design comprising three sequential studies was adopted. The first study was a systematic literature review of 271 publications on project governance from both academic and professional literature. The findings shed light on the discourse on project governance in the literature pertaining to its definition, theoretical underpinnings, forms, and role in enabling organizational strategy implementation. The second study involved semi-structured interviews with 23 project governance experts. The findings helped to elucidate how project governance is defined and implemented in practice, as well as experts’ guidelines on how a project governance system can be formulated to enable strategy implementation. Subsequently, the findings of the first and second study were synthesized to develop the preliminary guidelines comprising 7 principle statements and their related discussions. The third study employed the Delphi method to validate the preliminary guidelines based on feedback from a panel of 17 project governance experts. The preliminary guidelines were progressively revised based on the qualitative and quantitative feedback received from the panel over the three rounds of the study. The final guidelines were rated highly by the panel and comprise 10 principle statements that were unanimously endorsed by all panel members. The main theoretical contribution of this thesis is the development of an expanded conceptualization of governance of projects that represents a holistic approach to governance spanning all stages from strategy translation to benefits realization. It also contributes to the growing stream of literature that views projects as instrumental for strategy implementation, and also advocates a contingency theory perspective of project governance. The main practical contribution of this research is the development of a validated set of core principles that would serve to guide practitioners in developing and implementing a project governance system that would enable them to more effectively implement organizational strategic objectives through projects.
... Aubry (2015) suggests that performance resulted from a PMO transformation is moderated by the organizational context, change management, and by changes in coordination mechanisms-control or service orientation. Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay (2018) bring trajectory to describe the necessary changes not only PMOs but also the whole project organization has in some contexts. ...
This paper aims to present and analyze the transi tions in operational activities and the performance of a Project Management Office (PMO) in a technology-based company through a longitudinal case study. The paper discusses tions, tensions, success factors, indicators, and performance and how they drive the major changes faced by the PMO. The results demonstrated that political tensions, more than performance, explained PMO changes. Tensions are originated from both requirements from project stakeholders that were not addressed and success itself, meaning that stakeholder pute for capitalizing on the success’s honors and benefits. Issues about centralization, project performance, and focus on holders’ demands seem to be central for designing the role and functions of project management offices in the studied high- technology company. In the end, a theoretical framework sents the results of the case study in terms of factors influencing PMO transitions.
... Recent statistics put project work at about one-third of developed countries' GDP (Schoper et al., 2018). Project management studies have gained attention on various tiers of the organization (Aubry and Tremblay, 2018). The capability and knowledge of the project team members and the project manager have been much more critical than any resources such as investments and infrastructure (Hadaya et al., 2012;Wu et al., 2012). ...
In general, certified project management professionals are perceived to enhance project performance. However, this narrative has quite often been challenged in previous literature. We investigate this controversy by including professionalism and psychological capital as intervening variables. The research is based on an empirical survey of certified project managers in the region of Rawalpindi/Islamabad. 373 data samples were collected and further analyzed on the basis of critical success factor theory. The impact of project management certification along with intervening variables were hypothesized and validated to have direct and indirect relationships with project performance. Responses from certified project management professionals in the region of Rawalpindi/Islamabad support the perception but reflect that professionalism plays a supporting role between certification and performance. However, the study dismisses the role of psychological capital between professionalism and performance. We conclude that project management institutes and associations should ensure professionalism in the certification process to actually enhance project performance. The findings contribute to the body of knowledge in predicting improved project management performance by employing certified project managers with strong professional skills. Consequently, the research will help professional institutes to review the conformity of the required professional skills rather than just focusing on just passing an exam.
The frequency and richness of the theories developed, tested, and used by researchers in an academic discipline exemplify several pertinent factors, namely, the growth, the maturity, the independence, the legitimacy, and the influence of the discipline. Although organizations have been working on projects for centuries, Project Management (PM) is a considerably new academic discipline with emerging research themes, models, methodologies, frameworks, and paradigms. These PM concepts are anchored on or reinforced by new or existing theories. This exploratory study aims to add to the existing PM body of knowledge by investigating the prevalence of theory use in PM research. A systematic content analysis of 9200 PM research articles published from 2000 to 2019 (20 years) in the leading PM journals identified 248 unique theories. These results reveal that the PM discipline is increasingly embracing the use of theories with game theory, fuzzy theory, agency theory, contingency theory, and stakeholder theory emerging as the most dominant theories in the reviewed research articles. Also, although PM is developing its theories, the results revealed that PM researchers continue to heavily use theories borrowed from other academic disciplines such as psychology, sociology, mathematics, and economics.
This article has three main objectives: (1) to present Monique Aubry’s professional trajectory, (2) to describe her intellectual legacy, and (3) to reveal her craft and work values. The first two sections are narrated by Monique in her own voice. The third part is based on conversations between Monique and Viviane Sergi, her colleague, collaborator, and friend, which took place in May and June 2023, while writing the other parts of this article.
Construction firms across the world work in a turbulent, dynamic, open, inconsistent and complex business environment. Local construction firms in Ethiopia and other developing countries are facing fierce competition from International construction giants and local market dynamics and other economic setups. A plethora of study reports on the Ethiopian construction industry found that most of the local contractors in Ethiopia have failed to deliver government and private projects in scheduled time and intended cost mainly due to their setups and capacity related problems. Hence the need to create an environment within the Ethiopian construction industry to allow construction firms as project based organization (PBOs) to transcend market dynamics and other economic setups challenges. Creating a conducive organizational environment for successful projects needs rethinking of the organizational design of the parent organization. A construction company is inherently a PBO as it executes most of its activities through construction projects. Different organizational design dimensions and their antecedents of PBOs were identified by prior studies. By studying the different unique characteristics of PBOs from project management literature, this paper extends the prior knowledge on organizational design of PBOs. The paper is based on the argument that six additional antecedents should be considered on the modified star model of PBOs besides the previously identified antecedents including: Awareness and knowledge of project management, Project core teams; Strategic project management information system; Readiness for change; Upper management support; and competency of project managers. From theory and practice of PBOs a research conceptual models is developed and research questions and propositions are advanced towards conducting an intensive study to develop a conceptual model.
Introdução: Dentre as unidades organizacionais que contribuem para o sucesso de projetos, destaca-se o escritório de gerenciamento de projetos (PMO). Entretanto, há poucos trabalhos na literatura que consideram a realidade brasileira e, mais ainda, realizados por meio de um survey. Assim, esta pesquisa tem como objetivo analisar a relação entre o nível de responsabilidade do PMO e o sucesso em projetos. A revisão bibliográfica descreve as características do PMO e o sucesso em projetos. Método: A pesquisa caracteriza-se por ser um estudo descritivo, quantitativo e transversal. A amostra é composta por 100 profissionais que atuam em PMOs, em organizações brasileiras privadas de grande porte. Optou-se por uma amostra não probabilística, com procedimento de amostragem por conveniência. A coleta de dados foi realizada no primeiro trimestre de 2021. Resultados: Somente uma hipótese foi confirmada, ou seja, PMOs com maior nível de responsabilidade tiveram uma frequência de sucesso maior no médio prazo. Conclusão: a pesquisa sugere que organizações que buscam desenvolver e aprimorar suas equipes de projeto devem ter PMOs com maior nível de responsabilidade, ou seja, PMOs com maior nível de autonomia.
This review paper has been prepared to provide an overview of multidisciplinary research that combines recent findings in the fields that support digital transformation development. The potential impact of digital technologies on organizational performance is the leverage that enables changes in common elements of organizational design; such are strategy, structure, processes, or workforce. According to reports by various authors, choosing an approach to digital transformation potentially includes an emphasis on strategy, processes, a structural approach, a project approach, and other performances. Such transformation is often performed through a portfolio of interrelated projects that change the organization. Most contemporary organizations establish a project management office (PMO) as an organizational entity responsible for implementing digital transformation initiatives. In this article, PMO is highlighted as an element of organizational design that promises success in meeting the demands of digital transformation initiatives, such as digital agility or innovation project management, by introducing new digital competencies into its professional domains. Such extensions of PMO domain expertise may lead to the transformation of "traditional" PMOs into digital PMOs. The paper analyses the cases of application of structural elements of digital PMO and their characteristics in three Croatian companies.
Purpose
Discover how organizations effectively integrate the temporary program outputs into the permanent organization.
Design/methodology/approach
A grounded theory approach deriving knowledge from interviews, field observations and documentary evidence.
Findings
A network of actors integrates the multiteam program system into the overall organization, generating alternate political and implementation impetus.
Research limitations/implications
The paper significantly contributes to the literature of IT-enabled programs by surfacing processes, mechanisms and structures that simultaneously address extant concerns in the program management literature.
Practical implications
The directives of current research and program standards of professional societies identify an individual responsible for integrating the program output into the organization. The study indicates greater autonomy on the responsible actor requiring adjusting to changing stakeholder groups.
Originality/value
The authors add a missing link in understanding how programs can institute effective work structures to address emerging program conflicts and issues, suggesting strategies to foster interaction between temporary and permanent organizations.
While project governance research is burgeoning, the prevalence of a structural focus and project business perspective may impede the understanding of governing practices and contextual interaction. Therefore, we adopt a multidisciplinary systematic review and begin by scrutinizing the main topics, theories, and methodologies of project governance research. Then, and most importantly, we elaborate a comprehensive framework with four alternative archetypes: organizational project governance, organizational project governing, institutional project governance, and institutional project governing. These four archetypes extend previous views and clarify the underlying commonalities and differences among different project governance studies. Moreover, we identify the practice turn and contextual turn as two promising shifts for conceptualizing the governance phenomenon as an ongoing process interacting with a broader societal context. Our findings will not only help scholars to recognize the lived experience and situated contexts of governing practices, but also encourage them to generate dialogs across different archetypes and the theory-practice gap.
Business Model Innovation (BMI) is a way for companies to develop its competitive advantage. The upstream-supply of technologies and products, in parallel to the development of key infrastructures are indispensable for a company to build the value network of a new business model. However, the development of innovation ecosystems is dependent to the factors external to the company and to the managers.Companies face varying constraints to achieve BMI when the development of relevant innovation ecosystem remains uncertain. The thesis focuses on the pre-stage of a BMI: the phase when the technology or the product required to achieve a BMI is not yet available. How do managers deal with this pre-stage situation?The research uses a case-study analysis of a start-up based in Bangalore that was the first company in India to use Electric Vehicles (EVs) to provide Corporate Employee Transport (CET) services. The company aims to scale-up its service line-up beyond CET service before other potential market players in order to build a first-mover’s advantage. However, appropriate EV models required for service diversification are not yet available since the innovation ecosystem of EV remains under development. The thesis suggests that a clear recognition of the pre-stage of BMI is critical to better understand the BMI process, especially because the organizational capabilities required during the pre-stage differ from those of post-pre-stage such as Dynamic Capabilities: capabilities to execute a BMI.
Purpose
Critical knowledge and lessons learnt from the delivery of infrastructure projects have often remained untapped mainly due to the transient and fragmented nature of construction delivery. The main aim of this paper is to investigate the mediating role of a project facilitator in attenuating disruptions in knowledge flows during the delivery of an infrastructure project.
Design/methodology/approach
An inductive case-study method is employed in examining the mediating role of the facilitator in an infrastructure project. Content analysis was undertaken by coding the data derived from eight focus group interactions, 23 semi-structured interviews and 24 documentary sources from workshops using NVivo 12 plus.
Findings
(1) The project facilitator provided a coherent context to re-invent the narratives (i.e. behaviours and events) by creating a forum for understanding critical problems and stimulating constructive dialogue and intervention. (2) The project facilitator leveraged on both explicit and tacit knowledge within the team, leading to improvement in the proactive management of emergent technical, operational and behavioural challenges, and (3) The project facilitator sustained a valuable intervention in attenuating disruptions in knowledge flows for problem-solving, relationship-management, best-practice strategies, coaching and leadership, as well as reflexive practice.
Originality/value
The novelty of this research is that a facilitator is used as the “knowledge-broker” in a multi-party infrastructure delivery team assembled using a traditional lump-sum contract framework. Facilitators have only previously been used in collaborative contract environments like alliancing and partnering.
An effective organisational structure is vital for the management of prefabricated buildings. This study aims to redesign a virtual organisational structure for such projects. Two-pronged action research was adopted. The survey was to redesign the virtual organisational structure. The case study was to validate the virtual structure redesigned and conduct an in-depth description of the application of the virtual organisational structure on real prefabricated projects. The result shows that the virtual organization’s core actors are client, general contractor, designer, and PC manufactory. The chain of command starts with the client, and ends with peripheral actors such as subcontractor elements. Meanwhile, prefabricated buildings that adopted the virtual organisational structure proposed are better managed and have better project performance than those that did not. This study contributes to the knowledge of the management for prefabricated buildings by showing that a virtual organisational structure needs to incorporate stakeholder salience attributes and stakeholder relationships.
The purpose of this research sought to investigate the relationship between project management competencies and project complexity upon project success. A literature review indicates that project complexity is a primary source of project failure. A gap exists concerning how project management competencies and project complexity predict project success. The first research question was, “To what extent do project management competencies predict project success?” The second research question was, “To what extent does project complexity predict project success?” A quantitative method nonexperimental research design, using a correlational approach, was deployed. The theory of complexity explains that the relationship between project management competencies and project success is influenced by project complexity. The standard
project management model and the expanded standard project management model were used to relate the three variables. The study population was project management professional certified project managers, who operated in the United States of America, and who completed a project within the last six months from the time of this research. Research results showed that project management competencies positively predict project success. Results were inconclusive concerning whether project complexity predicts project success. The predictive model involving project management competencies and project complexity upon project success is a good model.
The predictive model offers insight into managing project complexity. Using project
management competencies, project managers can establish an environment built on collaboration and knowledge sharing. Using collaboration and knowledge sharing, project managers can seize creativity and ingenuity, available in complex systems through interdependence, to influence project success.
Australia's bushfire seasons are expected to become longer and more severe due to the effects of climate change and an increasing population living in rural-urban fringes. Social and economic vulnerability to extreme natural hazards means that Australia’s emergency services sector plays a significant role in community safety and wellbeing. Therefore, it is important that the sector continually improves. Australia has a long history of conducting external reviews into significant bushfires. While these reviews receive good support and seek to identify relevant lessons, barriers remain that prevent these lessons from being effectively learnt. It is possible that some of these barriers exist because the stratum of work impedes the capture, codifying and adjustments to systems. This research investigated the premise that lessons learnt in the Australian emergency services sector occurs on a stratum, with different types of lessons learnt at different levels of work. Four significant independent bushfire reviews were analysed to evaluate whether specific lessons could be aligned to the stratum of work. Findings were that not all lessons apply to all levels of organisations. This supports the premise that lessons are learnt on a vertical organisational stratum; for example, some lessons were operational, others were tactical and some were strategic. It was determined that a lack of understanding of the barriers within an organisations stratum could impede the effectiveness of lessons being learnt.
In recent years, organizational project management (OPM) has emerged as a field focused on how project, program and portfolio management practices strategically help firms realize organizational goals. There is a compelling need to address the totality of project-related work at the organizational level, providing a view of organizations as a network of projects to be coordinated among themselves, integrated by the more permanent organization, and to move away from a focus on individual projects. This comprehensive volume provides views from a wide range of international scholars researching OPM at a cross-disciplinary level. It covers concepts, theories and practices from disciplines allied to management, such as strategic management, organization sciences and behavioural science. It will be a valuable read for scholars and practitioners alike, who are looking to enrich their understanding of OPM and further investigate this new phenomenon.
This article examines how project networks may be viewed as either a single interorganizational project or as a series of projects that are interconnected by interorganizationalrelationships. The article then discusses some core theoretic assumptions about project networks as more than temporary systems in comparison with the extant empirical research. Next, the article presents four types of mechanisms for governing and coordinating not only projects but also project networks: responsibilities, routines, roles, and relationships. Finally, the article
unearths five types of paradoxes (the distance paradox, the learning paradox, the identity paradox, the difference paradox, and the temporal paradox) impacting project networks and offers insights into the
governance-based choices available for coping with these paradoxical tensions.
Practitioners place strong emphasis on business cases with the expectation that using business cases to inform and drive investment decisions will assist in creating value from those investments. Maximizing the value generated by project investments is a central aim of the project portfolio management, and the business case provides the underlying rationale for the evaluation of the value created in each project. However, research regarding the use of business cases at a project portfolio level is scarce, and there is a little guidance for portfolio managers on when and how to control the business cases. We identify three elements of a business case control at the portfolio level-the initial review, the ongoing monitoring during the project execution, and the postproject tracking until the business case is realized-and investigate the relationship between business case control and project portfolio success. Furthermore, we analyze enablers and contingencies for the application of the business case control. Based on a cross-industry sample of 183 firms, we find that the business case control is positively related to the project portfolio success. Accountability for business case realization and corresponding incentive systems increase this positive effect. Finally, we show that the portfolio complexity also positively moderates the relationship.
Taking perspectives from papers published previously in Organization Studies, we argue for progress in strategy-as-practice research through more effective linking of local' strategizing activity with larger' social phenomena. We introduce a range of theoretical approaches capable of incorporating larger-scale phenomena and countering what we term micro-isolationism', the tendency to explain local activities in their own terms. Organizing the theories according to how far they lean towards either tall or flat ontologies, we outline their respective strengths and weaknesses. Against this background, we develop three broad guidelines that can help protect against empirical micro-isolationism and thereby extend the scope of strategy-as-practice research.
Process studies focus attention on how and why things emerge, develop, grow, or terminate over time. We identify various ontological assumptions underlying process research, explore its methods and challenges, and draw out some of its substantive contributions revealed in this Special Research Forum on Process Studies of Change in Organization and Management. Process studies take time seriously, illuminate the role of tensions and contradictions in driving patterns of change, and show how interactions across levels contribute to change. They may also reveal the dynamic activity underlying the maintenance and reproduction of stability.
As organizational environments become more global, dynamic, and competitive, contradictory demands intensify. To understand and explain such tensions, academics and practitioners are increasingly adopting a paradox lens. We review the paradox literature, categorizing types and highlighting fundamental debates. We then present a dynamic equilibrium model of organizing, which depicts how cyclical responses to paradoxical tensions enable sustainability—peak performance in the present that enables success in the future. This review and the model provide the foundation of a theory of paradox.
It has become axiomatic in research on project organising that projects are temporary organisations. Yet there are a number of challenges to this axiom: research on matrix organisation, the embeddedness of projects in project ecologies, and projectification all emphasise the relationship of the project to permanent organisations. Similarly, research on project-based firms and owner organisations which are relatively permanent challenges this axiom. This paper develops a conceptual framework which defines three domains of project organising: project-based firms; projects and programmes; and owners and operators as its principal theoretical contribution. This conceptual framework draws our attention to two important new areas for future research in project organising. The first is at the interfaces between the three domains of project organising: commercial, resourcing, and governance. The second is on project organising as temporary configurations of permanent organisations in coalitions to deliver particular outputs.
This explorative article develops a relational typology of PMOs based on their roles with stakeholders. A multi-case study was used to identify the roles of PMOs in multiple-PMO settings. A three-dimensional role space allows locating the complex relational profiles that PMOs take on with respect to their stakeholders
in practice. Superordinate, subordinate, and coequal roles were identified in a framework of servicing, controlling, and partnering in organizations. While servicing (subordinate role profile) and controlling (superordinate role profile) support organizational effectiveness and exploitation of knowledge, partnering (coequal role profile) creates the slack necessary for potential exploration of new knowledge.
Project management is a rapidly expanding subfield of management and organization studies. This paper seeks to make sense of this development and the current state of project management research. It reviews the literature published over the last five
decades in 30 leading management and organization journals. In total, 305 articles
were included in the data set. The paper proposes a categorization of the published
articles into seven ‘schools of thought’: Optimization School, Factor School, Contingency
School, Behaviour School, Governance School, Relationship School and Decision
School. The schools vary in terms of their main focus and use of the project concept,
major research questions, methodological approaches and type of theorizing. It is
suggested that a better awareness on how to make use of the schools and the identified
perspectives would stimulate cross-fertilization, unification and thus enhance a pluralistic
understanding of projects and project management at the same time as it would
prepare research to frame more accurately the problems of contemporary projects. In
that respect, the paper offers ideas on how to navigate at the crossroads between
specialization and fragmentation.
The book is based on an international research project that analyzed sixty LEPs, among them the Boston Harbor cleanup; the first phase of subway construction in Ankara, Turkey; a hydro dam on the Caroni River in Venezuela; and the construction of offshore oil platforms west of Flor, Norway.
As the number, complexity, and scope of large engineering projects (LEPs) increase worldwide, the huge stakes may endanger the survival of corporations and threaten the stability of countries that approach these projects unprepared. According to the authors, the "front-end" engineering of institutional arrangements and strategic systems is a far greater determinant of an LEP's success than are the more tangible aspects of project engineering and management. The book is based on an international research project that analyzed sixty LEPs, among them the Boston Harbor cleanup; the first phase of subway construction in Ankara, Turkey; a hydro dam on the Caroni River in Venezuela; and the construction of offshore oil platforms west of Flor, Norway. The authors use the research results to develop an experience-based theoretical framework that will allow managers to understand and respond to the complexity and uncertainty inherent in all LEPs. In addition to managers and scholars of large-scale projects, the book will be of interest to those studying the relationship between institutions and strategy, risk management, and corporate governance in general.
Contributors Bjorn Andersen, Richard Brealey, Ian Cooper, Serghei Floricel, Michel Habib, Brian Hobbs, Donald R. Lessard, Pascale Michaud, Roger Miller, Xavier Olleros
In recent years, organizational project management (OPM) has emerged as a field focused on how project, program and portfolio management practices strategically help firms realize organizational goals. There is a compelling need to address the totality of project-related work at the organizational level, providing a view of organizations as a network of projects to be coordinated among themselves, integrated by the more permanent organization, and to move away from a focus on individual projects. This comprehensive volume provides views from a wide range of international scholars researching OPM at a cross-disciplinary level. It covers concepts, theories and practices from disciplines allied to management, such as strategic management, organization sciences and behavioural science. It will be a valuable read for scholars and practitioners alike, who are looking to enrich their understanding of OPM and further investigate this new phenomenon.
Cambridge Core - Organisation Studies - Organizational Design - by Richard M. Burton
Organization design is an established field of research within organization studies, focusing on different organizational forms, the array of the design strategies available to managers and their external and internal contingencies. However, our understanding of the complementary design choices available to managers of project-based organizations is limited. Building on both organization theory and design and project management literature this study identifies design choices available for the design of the project-based organization. Adopting the contingency perspective, it reviews the literature on project-based organizations to explore key factors that influence the design of the project-based organization in comparison with more traditional organizations. The resulting model offers a starting point for further studies on the design of the project-based organization. The study concludes by suggesting a research agenda in light of the results.
The impact of multilevel level governance on the frequency of ethical issues in temporary organizations (TOs) is investigated. A structural equation model, based on a global survey, showed that behavior control, as a governance mechanism at the temporary organization (TO) level, reduces the frequency of ethical issues. This relationship is partly mediated through corporate governance, which controls ethical issues by following good governance principles. Using institutional and agency theory, we identify a substitution effect, where micro
level (TO) governance substitutes for ‘holes’ in the macro level (corporate) governance. Situational contingencies for the synchronization of governance efforts across macro and micro levels are discussed.
The article focuses on the development of a theory. A discussion is presented about steps involved in developing a theory, such as seeing which factors logically should be considered as part of the explanation of the social or individual phenomena of interest. The authors assert that authors developing theories are considering these factors, they should err in favor of including too many factors, recognizing that over time their ideas will be refined. The article presents information about the importance of sensitivity to the competing virtues of parsimony and comprehensiveness.
This research-based book takes an organization-wide perspective to describe the governance and governmentality for projects in organizations. Governance of projects defines and directs the ways managers of projects, programs, and project portfolios carry out their work. Governmentality is the way the managers of these managers present themselves to those they lead. Governance and Governmentality for Projects begins by introducing existing theories, models, and paradigms for governance and governmentality. It then develops a chronological framework of how governance and governmentality for projects is enabled in organizations, how it subsequently unfolds in organizations of different types and sectors, and the consequences of different governance approaches for project results, trust, control, and ethical issues in projects. Special emphasis is given to the link between corporate governance and the governance of projects, programs, and project portfolios. Three real-life case studies exemplify the research findings described in the book.
Through its structure, this book describes the development of governance and governmentality in the realm of projects from its organizational origins, via observable practices, to expected consequences of different implementations.
Aimed at academics, postgraduate students in business and management, reflective practitioners, standards or policy developers, those in governance roles, and others in need of detailed knowledge of the spectrum of project-related governance in organizations, this book will help develop a comprehensive understanding of the theoretical and practical underpinnings of the subject, their interaction, and implications for implementation. This allows for understanding and developing of both generic and idiosyncratic governance structures, such as those needed in project-based organizations.
The aim of this article is to present a brief conceptual overview of the "historical alternatives" approach to business history. The notion of alternatives is central to this approach in both a historical and a historiographical sense. Historically, the hallmark of the historical alternatives approach is its emphasis on the salience of alternative possibilities, contingency, and strategic choice in the development of modern industry over the past three centuries. Historiographically, it represents an alternative to mainstream currents in economic, technological, and business history: an alternative, in particular, to Chandlerian business history focused on the economic and technological efficiency of administrative coordination and learning within large, hierarchically managed enterprises. The article sets out the core elements of the historical alternatives approach in the form of ten positive theses, before going on to respond to five major misconceived objections that have recurrently arisen in the course of the ensuing debate.
This paper presents a framework for building governance regimes for large complex projects. The framework is based on three sources: 1) a re-examination of a study of 60 large capital projects (Miller & Lessard, 2000), 2) the institutional, corporate, and project governance literatures and 3) interviews centered on the revision of the British Private Finance Initiative and on the development of the Norwegian project approval process. The literature tends to treat governance issues as being static, but project development processes and environments are dynamic. The governance regimes must adapt to the specific project and context, deal with emergent complexity, and change as the project development process unfolds. Learning to manage project governance regimes is difficult for organizations that are not involved in great numbers of large complex projects. The framework based on the progressive shaping of the project through the project development life cycle is designed to help overcome this dilemma.
Real Social Science presents a new, hands-on approach to social inquiry. The theoretical and methodological ideas behind the book, inspired by Aristotelian phronesis, represent an original perspective within the social sciences, and this volume gives readers for the first time a set of studies exemplifying what applied phronesis looks like in practice. The reflexive analysis of values and power gives new meaning to the impact of research on policy and practice. Real Social Science is a major step forward in a novel and thriving field of research. This book will benefit scholars, researchers and students who want to make a difference in practice, not just in the academy. Its message will make it essential reading for students and academics across the social sciences.
Real Social Science presents a new, hands-on approach to social inquiry. The theoretical and methodological ideas behind the book, inspired by Aristotelian phronesis, represent an original perspective within the social sciences, and this volume gives readers for the first time a set of studies exemplifying what applied phronesis looks like in practice. The reflexive analysis of values and power gives new meaning to the impact of research on policy and practice. Real Social Science is a major step forward in a novel and thriving field of research. This book will benefit scholars, researchers and students who want to make a difference in practice, not just in the academy. Its message will make it essential reading for students and academics across the social sciences.
Understanding and effecting change in project-based forms of organization is made difficult by the dispersed nature of management practices in such organizations and their effects upon the reinforcement of localized practices and routines that militate against the spread of organization-wide change initiatives. Taking a perspective that is informed by the ‘situated’ approach to knowledge and learning (Lave and Wenger, 1991), this paper focuses in upon the role of organizational routines (Becker, 2004) in constraining or enabling the spread of new management practices within the firm. Drawing upon four case studies of change within UK construction firms, the paper examines the relationship between new and existing management practices and routines, focusing upon the effects of agency and managerial power and influence. Two key dimensions are revealed that influence the nature and extent of change: the extent to which new management initiatives interfere with existing project management practices; and the extent to which they disrupt the balance of power/knowledge within the organization. Implications for understanding and managing change in project-based organization are drawn out and assessed.
Much has been learned, and even more needs to be learned, about designing organizations and institutions. Since the 1960s this research has evolved from contingency to configuration, to complementarity, to complexity and creative theories of organizing. This chapter reviews these evolving theories (better called perspectives) and urges scholars to return to the frontier of organization studies by addressing an important new agenda in designing organizations with promising new research methods.
This research tests Williamson's M-form hypothesis which posits an information imperative of organizational form instead of a technology imperative. The experimental design is a two-by-two factorial design. Two levels of decomposability of technology are the values for the first variable. The multidivisional form (M-form) and the unitary (U-form) are the values for the second variable. The data are generated from a perturbed decomposed mathematical programming model that is coordinated by a Dantzig-Wolfe pricing approach. The data are analyzed using the Kruskal-Wallis nonparametric approach. The results substantiate Williamson's hypothesis that the M-form of organization is superior to the U-form organization alternative. For each of the two levels of decomposability of technology, the M-form of organization yields higher profit solutions than the U-form.
Project-based organisations have emerged as new forms of organisation in the last few decades. However, hierarchy persists. Both serve their own purpose, but entail different sets of values. This is particularly true in relation to the contribution of project management to organisational performance. The competing values framework has been used to highlight different sets of values and preferences underlying the evaluation of PMO performance and emphasizes the competing aspect. The research adopted a participatory action research approach in a university hospital where a major organisational transformation is taking place. Findings reveal the existence of paradoxes between the executives and the PMO regarding the PMO performance and show how these paradoxes evolved over time. This sheds light not only on the paradoxes, but also on the dynamic process related to performance evaluation within a transformation project.
Many companies today are adopting strategies to package products and services into solutions. However, several well-managed companies are experiencing difficulty in transitioning from stand-alone product offerings to solutions. These difficulties stem directly from the organizational challenge. This challenge derives from the necessity to create a customer-centric unit or units and integrate it into the existing organization. The existing organization usually consists of product-centric business units. The leadership task is to create the management processes with which to manage the resulting inevitable conflict. This article defines a customer-centric unit. It then identifies the different solutions strategies that will determine different degrees of customer-centricity and different forms of organization. The article concentrates on the structure and management processes that are needed to implement reasonably complex solutions. The recommended structure is the front-back hybrid model that has been adopted by IBM Corp. and Nokia AB oyj. The five key processes that need to be added are customer strategy, product portfolio planning, solutions development, solutions ordering and pricing, and the assembly and disassembly of teams. These key processes are the primary vehicles through which the leaders manage the tensions between product- and customer-centric units. In addition, the redesign of reward systems is mentioned. To complete the organization, the issues of developing and selecting talent for account management and project management are highlighted. Overall, the development of skills to manage conflict and the management of this conflict through the five key processes are the organizational challenges that are featured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
This book presents a novel and comprehensive process theory of organization applicable to 'a world on the move', where connectedness prevails over size, flow prevails over stability, and temporality prevails over spatiality.
The process theory developed in the book draws upon process thinking in a number of areas, including process philosophy, pragmatism, phenomenology, and science and technology studies. Salient ideas from these schools are carefully woven into a process theory of organization, which makes the book not only a thought provoking theoretical contribution, but also a much needed glimpse into the challenges faced by organizers. Taking a distinctly temporal view of organizational life the author shows how actors operate in an on-going present in which they draw upon their past and project their past as ambitions for the future. This on-going work in which technologies, concepts, and social actors take part is crucial for the making of any type of organizational formation. A key construct of the book is that of events, which provide force, movement, and continuity to organizational life.
The book is suitable for scholars and advanced level students in organization studies, management studies, technology studies, and sociology. It contains a number of practical examples to illustrate the theoretical framework.
Readership: Academics, researchers, and graduate students in organization studies, management studies, technology studies, and sociology
This study operationalizes an existing concept for the categorization of governance approaches for projects. For that the concept's four governance paradigms, based on the overlay of the shareholder–stakeholder orientation with the behavior–outcome control of a project's parent organization are measured. The measurement dimensions were derived from the intersection of governance and organization theory with project management theory, thereby addressing those areas of corporate governance and organizational control that extend into projects. The application of the measurement construct, its validity and reliability are tested through a world-wide questionnaire with 478 responses. Analysis of the responses shows the differences in governance structures for projects by country, project size, and project type. The results are important for managers developing governance structures and academics developing governance theories.
Our article answers the call for renewing the theoretical bases of project management in order to overcome the problems that stem from the application of methods based on decision-rationality norms, which bracket the complexity of action and interactions in projects. By grounding our reflection in the practice perspective and by adopting Nicolini's (2013) toolkit approach, we suggest ways that could help practitioners and theorists make better sense of aspects that are highly relevant for project management but are usually overlooked. The paper discusses Nicolini's five dimensions of practice and three social theories (activity theory, actor–network theory and structuration theory) to highlight the combinations that are most appropriate and fruitful for addressing various theoretical and practical issues requiring the attention of project management researchers.
This paper discusses the literature on the management of projects with unforeseeable uncertainty. Recent work demonstrates that, when confronted with unforeseeable uncertainties, managers can adopt either a learning, trial-and-error-based strategy, or a parallel approach. In the latter, different solutions are developed in parallel and the best one is chosen when enough information becomes available. Studying the case of the Manhattan Project, which historically exemplifies the power of the parallel approach, has led us to show that the either/or logic underlying the existing literature on the parallel approach oversimplifies the question. The Manhattan case demonstrates that managers must not necessarily choose between solutions, but can also combine them or add new ones during the project.
This research addresses management control in the front end of innovation projects. We conceptualize and analyze PMOs more broadly than just as a specialized project-focused organizational unit. Building on theories of management control, organization design, and innovation front end literature, we assess the role of PMO as an integrative arrangement. The empirical material is derived from four companies. The results show a variety of management control mechanisms that can be considered as integrative organizational arrangements. Such organizational arrangements can be considered as an alternative to a non-existent PMO, or to complement a (non-existent) PMO's tasks. The paper also contrasts prior literature by emphasizing the desirability of a highly organic or embedded matrix structure in the organization. Finally, we propose that the development path of the management approach proceeds by first emphasizing diagnostic and boundary systems (with mechanistic management approaches) followed by intensive use of interactive and belief systems (with value-based management approaches). The major contribution of this paper is in the organizational and managerial mechanisms of a firm that is managing multiple innovation projects. This research also expands upon the existing PMO research to include a broader management control approach for managing projects in companies.