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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.
... 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.
... The structure significantly contributes to the success of the collaboration in multi-actor projects ( Dietrich et al., 2010 ). Together with the term structure, the terms ' organizational design' or ' architecture' are largely synonymously used in the literature ( Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018 ) . Structure is "the sum total of the ways in which (an organization) divides its labor into distinct tasks and then achieves coordination among them " ( Mintzberg, 1979 , p. 2). ...
... Architecture can be defined as the way in which a system is arranged ( Fjeldstad et al., 2012 ) and in an organizational setting the focus often is on the patterns of interdependencies ( Capaldo, 2007 ). Organizational design explains "what should be the design, structure, or architecture of the organization " ( Burton & Obel, 2011, p. 1198, referring to both the thing , i.e. the resulting organization, and the process to perform the design ( Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018 ). Often scholars do not address the organizational design/structure/architecture of the projects, taking it 'for granted' ( Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018 ). ...
... Organizational design explains "what should be the design, structure, or architecture of the organization " ( Burton & Obel, 2011, p. 1198, referring to both the thing , i.e. the resulting organization, and the process to perform the design ( Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018 ). Often scholars do not address the organizational design/structure/architecture of the projects, taking it 'for granted' ( Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018 ). Still, literature points out that structure stabilizes patterns of interactions between participants in projects and reduces the uncertainty for the involved actors ( Raab, Soeters, van Fenema & de Waard, 2009 ;Söderlund & Sydow, 2019 ), supports governance mechanisms ( Miterev, Mancini & Turner, 2017 ;Van de Ven, Ganco & Hinings, 2013 ), helps to organize the integration of outcomes of different activities ( Srikanth & Puranam, 2011 ;Zerjav, Edkins & Davies, 2018 ), and influences organizational efficiency and performance (e.g. ...
The architects of inter-organizational R&D projects organize collaboration by structuring the activities and the knowledge base of the project. How do these two dimensions interplay and what are the implications on the project execution? The paper aims at developing new perspectives on inter-organizational multi-actor R&D projects using an exploratory inductive multi-case study of projects funded by the European Union's Research and Innovation Programmes. The projects have been studied simultaneously in terms of activity coordination and knowledge integration as well as the implications of their interplay on collaboration, project resilience and project management. The paper provides empirical evidence about six patterns of project architecture. The workflow-integrated architecture disintegrates the knowledge base, provides a lower collaboration potential and may require high management efforts, while a workflow-decomposed architecture makes project management easy but provides little added value from the inter-organizational setting. Nearly decomposable architectures offer the highest collaboration potential under contingent conditions.
... [1,25] Another common function associated with healthcare PMOs is prioritization of large volumes of projects. [25,26] Through these roles, PMOs have been shown to be effective in supporting organisations undergoing major transformations. [1,3,[25][26][27] 3.3 The absence of stakeholders' voices In major hospital transformations, a variety of stakeholders (PMO members, managers, clinicians, patients, etc.), with pluralistic viewpoints, are involved in and/or impacted by the organisational change. ...
... [25,26] Through these roles, PMOs have been shown to be effective in supporting organisations undergoing major transformations. [1,3,[25][26][27] 3.3 The absence of stakeholders' voices In major hospital transformations, a variety of stakeholders (PMO members, managers, clinicians, patients, etc.), with pluralistic viewpoints, are involved in and/or impacted by the organisational change. [4] 3.3.1 PMO teams PMO team members facilitate major hospital transformations through providing project management support, energizing teams and giving them a sense of direction, facilitating discussions and providing information needed for decisionmaking. ...
... [28] 3.3.2 Point-of-care nurses Whereas researchers in this field recognize point-of-care nurses as key players in healthcare change, [1,26,29] no known study has addressed their specific disciplinary perspective ...
Major hospital transformations, hospital projects that combine construction and quality improvement dimensions, are booming around the globe. These costly endeavours have the potential to revolutionize healthcare, yet no known review explores this phenomenon, undermining accessibility of knowledge for healthcare leaders. In order to provide guidance on healthcare project management and on future research avenues, this article aims to synthesize empirical knowledge concerning major hospital transformations and their implications for nursing. An integrative review of the literature using the systematic approach described by Whittemore and Knafl was selected. As major hospital transformations represent a new area of research, the review includes 13 articles out of 116 retrieved for screening. The search strategy included the following electronic databases: CINAHL, MEDLINE, and Business Source Complete. Three main themes emerged from the data: the challenging context of major hospital transformations, the project management office as a key to successful healthcare change, and the absence of certain stakeholders’ voices. Major hospital transformations are important to study holistically as multi-change initiatives cannot be understood through investigating individual changes alone. Healthcare leaders are called to reflect on their governance structures during organisational transformations, as well as on the inclusion and exclusion of certain stakeholders who are essential to making sustainable change.
... The concept of organization design has only recently started to receive explicit attention within the project management field (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Miterev, Turner, & Mancini, 2017c, 2017bSimard, Aubry, & Laberge, 2018). The study objects within the stream include individual projects (Carroll & Burton, 2012;Eriksson & Kadefors, 2017), project management offices (Aubry & Brunet, 2016), multi-project settings (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018) and the project-based organization as a whole (Miterev, Mancini, & Turner, 2017b;2017c). ...
... The concept of organization design has only recently started to receive explicit attention within the project management field (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Miterev, Turner, & Mancini, 2017c, 2017bSimard, Aubry, & Laberge, 2018). The study objects within the stream include individual projects (Carroll & Burton, 2012;Eriksson & Kadefors, 2017), project management offices (Aubry & Brunet, 2016), multi-project settings (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018) and the project-based organization as a whole (Miterev, Mancini, & Turner, 2017b;2017c). Even though program organization design has not attracted comparable explicit attention from researchers, several extant contributions constitute a solid foundation for this discussion. ...
... The analysis has identified that various dimensions of the program organization design needed to adapt over the program lifecycle in order to remain aligned with the goals of specific value processes (cf. Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Simard et al., 2018). Depending on the particular process, the overall organizational form, program boundaries, program protagonist and organizational control modes (Dietrich, 2006;Nieminen & Lehtonen, 2008;Vuorinen & Martinsuo, 2018) were adjusting accordingly in order to enable value definition, value creation and value capture processes. ...
This paper addresses the interplay between organization designs and value processes in the context of programs. Building upon the findings from a longitudinal case study of a complex multi-partner program within Sweden's transportation sector, we argue that different value processes over the program lifecycle require different program management arrangements. Specifically, the paper explores how three distinct value processes, namely value definition, value creation and value capture, were related to specific program organization design dimensions, including overall organizational form, program boundaries, organizational control modes, program protagonist and sources of funding. The paper explicates the dynamics of alignment between organization design and value processes and shows how the external context shaped the process of alignment. Thus, the study contributes to the literature by reporting a rich, longitudinal empirical case, identifying organizational preconditions for different value processes in programs and highlighting the dynamics of these processes.
... The growing importance of the project-related forms of organization calls for a deeper understanding of their management under various organizational preconditions. In particular, the organizational design perspective is gaining momentum in the studies of project-based management across multiple organizational levels (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Eriksson & Kadefors, 2017;Gemünden & Aubry, 2017;. This stream builds upon extensive knowledge developed in the organization theory and design literature over the past 70 years (Greenwood & Miller, 2010;Van de Ven, Ganco, & Hinings, 2013) and adapts it to the context of project-based organizations by taking into account the distinct nature of project work. ...
... To complicate matters further, organizations might not introduce the management approaches and structures that suit their project tasks in the best way (Brady & Maylor, 2010;Ekstedt, Lundin, & Wirdenius, 1992;Martinsuo, Hensman, Artto, Kujala, & Jaafari, 2006) due to a range of isomorphic processes (Miterev, 2017;Miterev, Engwall, & Jerbrant, 2017). Furthermore, the concept of history plays an important role in the project management literature (Engwall, 2003), for example, by constraining choices of the management structures and approaches in the context of multiple projects (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018) and project-based organizations (Bergman, Gunnarson, & Räisänen, 2013). ...
... Project management scholars have addressed various aspects of organizational design of project-based organizations (Hobday, 2000;Huemann, 2010;Keegan & Turner, 2002;Lechler & Dvir, 2010;Lindkvist, 2004;Müller, 2009;Prencipe & Tell, 2001;Söderlund & Bredin, 2006;Turner & Keegan, 1999, 2000, 2001. Recently, organizational design has started to get explicit attention in the literature at multiple levels (Simard, Aubry, & Laberge, 2018), including project (Edkins & Smith, 2012;Eriksson & Kadefors, 2017), multiple projects (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018), and the project-based organization as a whole (Gemünden, Lehner, & Kock, 2018;. ...
This article investigates organizational design choices and their antecedents for the design of project-based organizations. Extant literature acknowledges the diversity of project-based organizational forms, but neither the particular configurations of organizational design dimensions nor the reasons behind their differences are widely addressed. Based on interviews in 12 project-based organizations in various sectors, this study identifies three common organizational design configurations of project-based organizations. It further discusses a range of internal and external factors, which can influence the choice of configuration. The findings are summarized in five overriding conclusions.
... Hospital projects' complex and pluralistic nature (e.g. multiple stakeholders with potentially divergent perspectives influencing decision-making, uncertainties regarding healthcare development and socio-political position) are described by several authors Mintzberg and Glouberman, 2001;Eeckloo et al., 2007;Snowden and Boone, 2007;Klakegg et al., 2010;Olsson and Hansen, 2010;Denis et al., 2011;Pauget and Wald, 2013;Samset et al., 2014;Aubry et al., 2014;Ernst and Young, 2016;S€ arkilahti, 2017;Samset, 2017;Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Fr echette et al., 2020). Time-consuming planning processes combined with a strong Norwegian tradition for involving a high level of medical personnel in these processes, make effective time usage important. ...
... The objectives hierarchy connects to the project strategy and alignment of objectives, which is a premise for project success (Klakegg, 2010;Williams et al., 2019). Hospital projects' complexity contributes to this challenge due to political determinants, stakeholder heterogeneity and hospital organisations' inherent pluralism, leading to different perceptions of success (Denis et al., 2011;Aubry et al., 2014;Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Fr echette et al., 2020). Stakeholder multiplicity in hospital projects makes stakeholder handling in the front-end important to provide the best possible point of departure for satisfying stakeholders' expectations and realisation of societal objectives. ...
Development of healthcare services is a societal responsibility often appearing as major public projects. These types of projects often have a long lifetime expectancy and represent large investments and changes to established welfare systems with a considerable societal impact. This makes strategic project success depending on front-end planning performance crucial. Motivated by literature claiming that the hospital projects’ front-end phase has a potential for improvements, this paper presents findings from a study investigating front-end planning practice in five Norwegian hospital projects. Discovered challenges mainly relate to the planning process or exploration of the opportunity space and concept elaboration. A main conclusion is that implementing theoretical recommendations both in guidelines and in practice should be a desired and possible development to further improve hospital projects’ front-end planning, thereby strengthening the odds for project success both on a tactical and strategical level.
... Here the practitioner stream recently introduced the concept of principles to support processual implementations of OPM, where processes are understood as sequences of tasks (PMI, 2017c). The academic stream of literature emphasizes discontinuity in organizations, where processes are seen as responses to unpredictable external trajectories requiring a resilient OPM implementation, able to adjust to situational contingencies with the capacity to bounce back to its equilibrium state to accomplish organizational strategies in a flexible way (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018). Alongside these ontological differences and the lack of agreement about the logical fit of subject areas (as shown with the example of benefits realization above), is the published research on OPM, which ranges across a variety of subject areas in a rather disconnected manner. ...
... Highly integrated are also the elements of the business integration layer, where (with the exception of benefits realization due to practiced ignorance by many organizations) the elements for portfolio strategy, process, and optimization must be in sync to provide for efficient portfolio management (Cooper et al., 2004). This differs from the organizational integration layer, where the elements are mutually exclusive for the individual business opportunity, but all three of them should be possible in an organization (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018). Elements at the project governance layer should be integrated as they jointly govern project management idiosyncratically for a given project or program (Müller, 2009). ...
The contemporary discourse on organizational project management (OPM) complements project, program, and portfolio management with emerging elements, such as governance, projectification, the project management office (PMO), and organizational design. This creates the need for an integrated model that defines the content and roles in OPM. This article addresses this by conceptually developing a seven-layered model that organizes 22 OPM elements, ranging from the corporate level to the management of individual projects. A theory is developed to explain the interaction of the elements and the layers within the model.
... 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 existing standards for portfolio, program and project management may be used by many organizations that plan to become a PBO and that then adapt its processes to volatile business environments [6,7]. However, there is still a larger downstream difficulty on adapting and integrating the new processes into the existing organization [8]. ...
Companies in highly competitive environments often adopt project management practices to manage their processes and activities in a quest to leverage flexibility. Doing so these companies usually become project based organizations (PBO). This paper aims to design new ways how PBOs respond to change and adapt their project based organization model. This paper adopts an action research methodology and explores the case of a company that faced several environment challenges and so was obliged to change its organizational and information systems processes. From the observed challenges and results, it became obvious that a PBO needs to implement portfolio, program and project management processes and adapt them to volatile business environments. The studied longitudinal case proves that information systems have a crucial role to support the PBO processes as part of an effective change process.
... The leadership style depends on the situation (Jago, 2007) and Shared leadership topology in megaprojects shared leadership is appropriate when partners play distinct but complementary roles (Bolden, 2011). Contingency theory is appropriate for the investigation of organizations managing project-based organization (Aubry and Lavoie-tremblay, 2018), thus contributing to the governance arrangements in megaprojects. Further, according to Tsaturyan and M€ uller (2015), contingency theory can be applied to the different forms of governance on megaproject success. ...
Purpose
Megaprojects present an intricated pattern of leadership activities, which evolve over their planning and delivery and comprises several stakeholders. A framework is useful to navigate this complexity; it allows to identify and cluster the key elements. This paper aims to introduce a novel framework based on boundary spanners to describe the structural pattern of shared leadership in megaprojects.
Design/methodology/approach
A systematic literature review about boundary spanning and shared leadership is used to identify and cluster the key elements of shared leadership in megaprojects. The systematic literature review provides a rich theoretical background to develop the novel shared leadership framework based on boundary spanners.
Findings
There are three key dimensions characterizing shared leadership topology in megaprojects: stakeholders, boundary spanning leadership roles and project phases. The novel framework shows how project leadership dynamically transfers among different stakeholders, showing the importance of shared leadership as a leadership paradigm in megaprojects.
Research limitations/implications
The novel framework epitomizes shared leadership in megaprojects by exploring its antecedents with social network metrics. This paper stresses that shared leadership is the envisaged form of leadership in megaprojects. By modeling complex project leadership in a simple, yet effective way, the framework fosters critical thinking for future research. The modeling introduced by this framework would also benefit practitioners in charge of megaprojects.
Originality/value
The paper moves the project leadership research to the network-level by taking boundary spanners as shared leadership roles in megaprojects. It shows how shared leadership is a valuable management tool for planning and delivery megaprojects.
... The scientific literature has been discussing the transition from the linear-functional management structures that had been developed in the Soviet era to the organizational project management structures that were more progressive in a market economy for several years so far [12,13]. These include: a dedicated organizational structure (a project is created based on the parent organization's resources), project management (a temporary project is created inside the parent organization), general project management (the activities of the parent organization are the project activities), a dual organizational structure (the implementation of the project with the equivalent participation of two parent organizations) and complex organizational structures. ...
This article examines the various options for design structures and their application in construction organizations. The hypothesis on the management company role importance in improving the efficiency of the design structures’ use in construction in the Russian Federation has been put forward. The scheme “Project management - management company function”, which reflects the composition and place of the team, the relationship between project participants has been presented. The project’s resource support has been described with such a scheme for organizing a construction project. The authors have analyzed and described the differences between the management company and the developer or technical customer. Based on the system analysis methods, the authors determined the advantages of completing a construction project with the management company involvement, listed the advantages of digitalizing the project participants’ interaction and organizing a single information space. The synergistic effect of attracting a management company to carry out the construction project management function and the organization of this interaction in a single information space has been analyzed. The potential arising from the combined action of these factors is described. The options for organizing a single information space that makes it possible to unite the project participants and complement the positive impact of the management company’s participation in the project are indicated. The methods of organizing the information exchange between the construction project’s participants within the project team have been described.
... That makes designing a highly-iterative process of which the management is expected to be complex (Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Chan et al., 2007). Project managers have to deal with the perpetual expansion of the design process by redefining problems at hand, by managing overflows, and by operating within contexts of high uncertainty (Dijksterhuis and Silvius, 2017;Mahmoud-Jouini et al., 2016). ...
Purpose
While more and more organizations commit to transformation projects with the aim of redesigning simultaneously their workspaces, work organization, and technologies, the design process supporting such projects remains largely understudied. This paper examines the political tensions that occur when such processes unfold as well as their implications for project management. By doing so, the paper counterbalances the prescriptive and normative literature on “New Ways of Working” which largely overlooks the political complexity of such projects.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on a qualitative study of a triple design process in a media company. Data collection mainly consists of a nine-month process of non-participant observation of weekly meetings held by the strategic group in charge of the project. Semi-structured interviews with members of the executive committee have also been conducted.
Findings
The analysis illustrates how space, organization and technology are gradually designed and structured. Four interconnected and often concealed mechanisms that support triple design processes are identified: political tensions, unexpected twists, conflicting temporalities and arbitration measures.
Originality/value
The originality of the paper lies in breaking down the concept of design in three separate objects – organization, space and technology – and examining how these objects were conjointly problematized by an organization in transformation, whereas existing studies often investigate organization design, space design or technology design in isolation.
... They track projects performance throughout the life of projects to be ensure stakeholder requirements are met and to manage changes [6,10] . In recent years, projects are getting more complex [11], which necessitates organizational strategic accountabilities and capabilities to support managing their projects [12]. Organisations need to align projects with their organizational goals to get more values [13]. ...
In recent years, competitive environments require
organisations to have a plan looking at the future. Projectbased
organisations are no exception to this rule and need an
effective project management (PM) plan. They need a
bespoke frameworks and processes to guarantee successful
projects. Nowadays, some organizations have a wrong
perspective on using PM frameworks. They just use PM
framework, which are available in market, without any
tailoring and plan. They need to have a plan not only to
customize PM frameworks and processes but also to make
an integration between different parts of an organization.
An effective Project Management Roadmap (PMR) can
enable organizations to overcome this issue. It creates a
forward-looking map to improve PM processes to get more
value from investments in portfolios of projects. This paper
proposes a useful model to help organizations develop their
PMR. This model considers internal and external
environmental factors, PM frameworks and processes,
potential portfolios of projects, and organization
infrastructures as main layers to develop a bespoke PMR for
organizations. It makes an integration between all parts of
an organization and shows its future PMR as well.
... The 'Process' dimension is related to the information and decision-making processes and, thus, to the level of autonomy and specialisation individuals have. Finally, the 'Structure' dimension refers to the organisation's architecture and, thus, the location of decisionmaking power.Other authors have suggested revisions to this model concerning specific applications, such as project management(Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Müller et al., 2019;Sankaran et al., 2017), knowledge management(Chouikha, 2016), service management(Avadikyan et al., 2016;Raddats and Burton, 2011), and operations management(Cagliano et al., 2019;Longoni et al., 2014). ...
This article aims to investigate the organisational implications of adopting Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies, giving specific attention to operations. The paper addresses these implications in two directions: organisational prerequisites for, and consequences of, I4.0 technologies.
The research is based on a multiple case study of Italian Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in manufacturing. Ten case studies have been developed through interviews, company visits and secondary data collection.
The multiple case study results show that: i) a lean organisational structure supports effective adoption of I4.0 technologies; ii) introducing such technologies is linked to developing a new kind of job profile (i.e., the “Autonomous Operative Job Profile”); and iii) higher levels of technology adoption create a higher need for non-technical competences.
A limitation of this research relates to the highly heterogeneous maturity levels of the sampled companies, due to the relative newness of the I4.0 paradigm. Future research could, therefore, longitudinally analyse the technology integration process within organisations.
This research provides preliminary evidence about how organisations and technologies co-evolve, thus suggesting that managers should co-design these areas. It also demonstrates the extreme importance of designing a structured process and a clear set of human resource management tools to favour SME organisational development.
The study is built upon a conceptual framework, derived from the sociotechnical perspective, that analyses the interconnections between technology implementation and organisational change. From the results, three research propositions are derived to be tested on a larger scale.
... Furthermore, a number of recent studies have adopted contingency theory as their theoretical perspective to study project governance (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Joslin & Müller, 2016b;Müller et al., 2017;Müller & Martinsuo, 2015). This trend is an indication of the wider shift in the literature from the pursuit of a 'one-size-fits-all' framework of project governance to more nuanced discussions on appropriate governance practices based on the specific characteristics of individual projects, as well as their organizational and cultural contexts PMI, 2016). ...
Project governance is widely recognized to be among the most critical factors for successful project delivery and benefits realization. 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, although project governance occupies the prime position to ensure that projects are aligned with organizational strategic objectives, the guidelines for how project governance can enable organizational strategy implementation through projects is a crucial yet under-researched area in the literature. Accordingly, building on the insights from past reviews and an initial scoping study, a systematic literature review was conducted on project governance examining and comparing 271 publications from both academic and professional literatures. The findings of this study build upon the efforts of its predecessors to shed light on the discourse on project governance pertaining to its definition, theoretical underpinnings, forms, and role in enabling organizational strategy implementation. Furthermore, a typology of projects is proposed to help link project governance guidelines to specific project contexts. Finally, future research directions for progressing the theoretical and practical understanding of project governance are identified.
... They found out patterns suggesting the co-evolution of PMO and portfolio management. Reference [35] analyzed three PMOs in the University hospitals in Canada. They applied contingency theoretical background, historical approach, and social theory to reach insights for an organizational design theory that explains projects as temporary organizations. ...
This paper aims, through a longitudinal case study, to present and analyze the transitions in operational activities and the performance of a Project Management Office (PMO) in a technology-based company. The paper discusses functions, tensions, stakeholders’ interfaces, performance and how they drove the major changes faced by the PMO. The changes in the PMO were mainly based on non-planned events rather than in a change of the management process. The results demonstrated that political tensions in the organization, rather than project management performance, explained the PMO transitions. Managers must look for identifying tensions in the project management environment, project performance and stakeholders’ satisfaction in order to propose and direct PMO changes and the sustainability of project ongoing best-practices. This study also contributes to the collection of evidences that corroborate previous literature appointments, as well as to question some results that need to be contextualized according contingencies for avoiding mimicry in the PMO implementation and transformation.
... We focus on German hospitals as an example for professional service organizations (Boh, Ren, Kiesler, & Bussjaeger, 2007) where employees play a central role in service delivery generally, and in the innovation process in particular (Adler & Kwon, 2013;Greenhalgh, Robert, Macfarlane, Bate, & Kyriakidou, 2004). This specific industry focus, which has strong professional identities and strict service quality requirements, adds a novel perspective on project management and innovation enhancing factors, since management mechanisms can have different effects in these organizations (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Aubry et al., 2014). The adoption and implementation of new medical technologies and procedures are central to the innovation activities of hospitals (Kimberly & Evanisko, 1981;Tucker, Nembhard, & Edmondson, 2007). ...
This study investigates how top management involvement and project management professionalization affect firm innovativeness. We focus on hospitals as representative of professional service organizations characterized by pluralistic individual and organizational interests. A multiyear analysis of project management survey and objective performance data of 90 hospitals indicates that top management involvement in innovation projects reduces hospital innovativeness, and project management professionalization increases hospital innovativeness. However, increasing project management professionalization simultaneously strengthens top management involvement’s effectiveness. The results contribute to our understanding of potential interactions and different effects of project management efforts at different organizational levels in professional service organizations.
... Recent research shows that contingency theory still has considerable influence in project management (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018). In designing and implementing a PMS, there is a need to involve skilled people who understand the context and the project, and can establish diagnoses, reflexively evaluate results, and adapt the PMS accordingly. ...
... A key organizational influence on management styles is organizational structure (Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018, Kerzner and Trimm, 2009, Miterev et al., 2017a, Miterev et al., 2017b. Organizational structure is a critical factor that affects organizational behavior and operations. ...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the management styles adopted by project managers in the software industry in Oman.
Design/methodology/approach
A sample of 208 project management professionals is drawn from the Omani software industry. Data analysis is based on factor analysis and analysis of variance techniques.
Findings
The results suggest that project managers in the Omani software industry mainly adopt three management styles: people oriented, task oriented and organization oriented. Furthermore, the management styles of project managers are affected by their experience and age, and the organizational structure.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to the literature by examining management styles adopted by managers in a temporary organization environment from an under-researched context, Oman.
... Public healthcare also comprises professional, bureaucratic, and hierarchic organizations (e.g., Bate, 2000), a dynamic that presents challenges for public healthcare change projects that utilize project-based work (Lunkka & Suhonen, 2015; see also Suhonen & Paasivaara, 2015). Therefore, healthcare change projects should be studied in a way that accounts for their emergent nature and unique context (see Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018;Aubry et al., 2014;Winch et al., 2011). ...
This study investigates project participants’ sensemaking of lived work experiences during periods of organizational change within Finnish public healthcare. It introduces a discursive sensemaking perspective to investigate lived experiences, that is, reflexive practitioners’ situational thinking. Drawing upon 17 interviews, the study identifies diverse repertoires through which the lived experiences are considered meaningful. These are repertoires of: (1) transformation, (2) realism, (3) politics, (4) individuality, (5) reflexivity, and (6) senselessness. The results show that project-based work in public healthcare differs from project participants’ expectations because projects are perceived to increase rather than decrease bureaucracy and include unsustainable working conditions that have to be endured.
... Scholars hold different views about the concept of organizations, e.g. whether they consist of artefacts or processes (Van de Ven and Poole, 2005;Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018). Such distinctions can be traced back to antiquity and differing philosophies, e.g. ...
Link to full article - https://www.emeraldinsight.com/eprint/ASHH3VDRXSIQBHURDFB7/full
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify and complete the existing lack of quantitative data at the crossroads between organizational support (OS) practices and project management success in global projects (GPs) and discuss implication of the results in perspective of the theory–practice gap.
Design/methodology/approach – Building on classical organizational theory and GP knowledge areas, a survey addressing GP practitioners was designed. This paper focuses on OS practices as success factors and addresses a subset of the survey (1,170 respondents across 74 countries).
Findings – OS practices included in the study were found to have high importance for managerial success.
OS practices for selection and training of team members show significant correlation with project efficiency but have low adaptation in many organizations. Statistically significant correlations were found to be weaker than expected, indicating that the relation between OS practices (as success factors) and project efficiency (as success criteria) is more complex than expected.
Research limitations/implications – The work constitutes opinion-based research and is vulnerable to variations in OS practices and the definition of success in different organizations and industries. The granularity level of the theoretical framework brought about relative high-level survey questions and may impact the applicability of the results.
Practical implications – To improve the efficiency of GPs, better implementation of OS practices for selection processes and training personnel has been suggested.
Originality/value – The theoretical alignment of classical organizational variables with GP knowledge areas and associated practices provides an original approach to the “theory–practice gap” discourse.
... Building on this understanding, the two steams of literature developed within their particular sphere, with the practitioner literature introducing the concept of principles to support processual implementations of OPM, where processes are understood as sequences of tasks (Project Management Institute, 2017). The academic literature emphasizes the continuous change in the organizational design and integration, where processes are seen as responses to unpredictable external trajectories requiring a resilient OPM implementation, which is able to adjust to situational contingencies and then bounce back to its equilibrium state in order to accomplish organizational strategies in a flexible way (Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018). The present paper builds on and aligns with the latter stream of literature by defining OPM as "The integration of all project management-related activities throughout the organizational hierarchy or network" . ...
The current discourse on organizational project management (OPM) focuses mainly on the integration of project, program and portfolio management, and ignores the contributions of other organizational entities and tasks to OPM. This paper overcomes this shortcoming by taking an organization theory perspective to develop and validate a seven layer "onion" model of elements that constitute OPM, their relationships, integration, and structural implementation in organizations. The particular combination of elements at each layer of the onion provides the necessary conditions for the adjacent layer of the model. The layers are organizational philosophy, OPM approaches, OPM governance, business integration, organizational integration, project governance, and project management. The model provides for an integrated view of OPM, assessment and profiling of OPM in organizations, and theorizes on the conditions for implementing OPM measures. Hence, the paper addresses the often articulated need for more theory in (organizational) project management.
... Let us also take the first article in this issue from Miterev, Engwall, and Jerbrant (2017) as a starting point for more research on isomorphism in project organizing. It might be that there is a lower variance within a project-based organization or a more major part of it than we have expected, but we may also discover that there are also major differences between different organizations-even within the same industry (e.g., Aubry & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018). This would trigger further research into why such differences exist and how they developed. ...
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.
The article, through presenting a company's project management office (PMO), arguments about practices a PMO must establish for supporting new product development (NPD) in high-technology companies. A holistic case-study was performed where data gathered comes from interviews, direct and participant observation, and document analysis. The practices identified differ from the current literature about the PMO functions. The whole set of functions performed by the described PMO responds to specific processes an NPD project asks for. It begins monitoring, analysing, and systematising product requirements to develop project schedules. During project execution, it supports configuration management through engineering change management. When prototyping, it carries on provisions of the necessary materials and subcontracted processes for assembling and testing. These PMO functions are compared to the current PMO literature. It is suggested that the functions undertaken by the PMO can enhance the theoretical options for structuring PMOs in NPD-based companies avoiding mimicry dysfunctions.
Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Barbalho, S.C.M. (xxxx) 'The differential practices of project management offices for supporting new product development in high-tech companies', Int.
Isomorphic pressures are thought to stimulate change and adoption of best practice in risk management (RM). Although this certainly occurs in most industries, it is not occurring in the construction industry. This research investigates institutional isomorphism in the Australian construction industry. In-depth interviews and surveys about the use of current risk tools and techniques (RT&T) by 25 experienced construction project managers (CPMs) were used to examine existing practice. A Delphi survey was conducted to validate these interviews using 11 experienced CPMs. These CPM reconfirmed that coercive and normative pressures created institutional isomorphism and a common approach in managing occupational health and safety (OH&S) risks. In contrast, for other categories of risk, CPMs have decoupled their practice from stipulations in standards by adopting a limited range of predominantly qualitative risk tools and techniques. CPMs, consider it more efficient and effective to rely on accrued experience, teams and external experts because of the unique constraints in construction projects. This research challenges the notion that CPMs are deficient in adopting new paradigms and opens an academic discourse on whether industry-specific project RM standards should be developed.
The purpose of this paper is to introduce fuzzy-sets Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) as the appropriate method in order to explore the causal configurations of capabilities related to future Multiple Project Management software, which is expected to be used by eco-label industry project managers as a testing tool in their forthcoming work. Results show that eight different configurations of MPM software capabilities affect the outcome, encouraging the eco-label industry actors’ interest of testing and using its features. We have also identified a necessary condition for the intention of testing and using the multiple project management software, represented by a combination of high capability in the provision of a shared resource pool to all project managers, high ability of leveling over-allocated resources identified within projects, and low capability of performing comparisons of target and real values for the assessment criteria of performance, costs and time, added to high capability of monitoring activities’ progress according to milestone deadlines.
The analysis illustrates how powerful fsQCA is as a method for exploring the complexity of multi-project environments, being also able to provide useful information to MPM software designers and developers from the perspective of users expectations.
As projects constitute a major part of organizational budgets and strategic development, practitioners become dependent on project portfolio management (PPM). However, the existing knowledge on how to evaluate and improve PPM is rather fragmented and lacks empirical grounding. We ask: How can we develop a holistic and empirically validated PPM evaluation framework? Drawing on evaluation theory, we structure contributions from 20 PPM publications into a framework with four evaluation areas. Together with a large company, we develop, apply, and refine the framework. As a result, we offer two contributions: (1) a theory-ingrained artifact that structures a fragmented body of knowledge into four related PPM evaluation areas, and (2) a demonstration of how a theory-ingrained evaluation artifact can serve as an evaluation framework that helps practitioners identify strengths and improvement potential in PPM. In conclusion, we discuss how our results may inform future research and help organizations evaluate PPM.
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.
This chapter looks at a specific activity undertaken within organizational project management: organizational design in the context of the Project Management Office (PMO). At the moment, this notion of organizational design has not yet entered the field of project management. However, this is exactly what decision-makers in organizations do when they put in place or renew a PMO or several PMOs. Clearly, they deal with challenges of delivering multiple competing projects in complex and pluralistic contexts. We contribute to the definition of organizational project management by identifying what people really do when they are organizing for projects. Introduction Following the latest reform of health and social services, almost all healthcare entities have been merged. I am the deputy CEO of one of these merged institutions. One of my main roles is to organize the internal functioning of our organization. In this approach, I have set up a coordination structure at the top level of the organization. I have dissociated on one hand the coordination of current operations (i.e., clinical activities) in an integrated services with the reform context, and on the other hand, the performance and improvement, of which one component is the monitoring and control of “all” projects (strategic, lean, accreditation, and so forth). (Personal email received recently from a decision-maker, translated and adapted by one of the authors) The excerpt presented above translates in a vivid way the challenges facing decision-makers in how to organize activities in a changing context, while being asked to reach high level-performance objectives. Not only does this represent a challenge for keeping operations ongoing, but facing the management of multiple projects makes this situation even more problematic. At the heart of these challenges is organizational design using strategic thinking. The PMO is only one part of this global thinking. Organizational design is defined as “the structures of accountabilities and responsibilities 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). What we are interested in is the particular problematic that relates to the management of multiple projects in large organizations. Contrary to the situation prevailing in management and organization theory, scholars in project management have been interested in this problematic through a diversity of perspectives, while not associating their work with the organizational design stream.
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.
