Working in IT projects – Options and Limits of Work Design

Flexible forms of work like project work are gaining importance in industry and services. Looking at the research on project work, the vast majority of present literature is on project management, but increasingly, problems concerning the quality of work and the efficiency of project teams become visible. The question now is how project work can be structured in order to simultaneously provide efficient and flexible work and healthy working conditions ensuring the development of human resources for a long time. Selected results of publicly funded research into project work will be presented based on case studies in 7 software development /IT consulting project teams (N=34). A set of different methods was applied: interviews with management/project managers, group interviews on work constraints, a monthly diary about well-being and critical incidences in the course of the project, and a final evaluation questionnaire on project outcomes focusing on economic and health aspects. Findings reveal that different types of projects exist with varying degree of team members’ autonomy and influence on work structuring. An effect of self-regulation on mental strain could not be found. The results emphasize, that contradicting requirements and insufficient organizational resources with respect to the work requirements lead to an increased work intensity or work obstruction. These contradicting requirements are identified as main drivers for generating stress. Finally, employees with high values on stress for more than 2 months have significantly higher exhaustion rates than those with only one month peaks. Structuring project work and taking into account the dynamics of project work, there is a need for an active role of the project team in contract negotiation or the detailed definition of work – this is not only a question of individual autonomy but of negotiation the range of option for work structuring. Therefore, along with the sequential definition of the (software) product, the working conditions need to be re-defined.Working conditions; human resources; work organisation

The management of academic workloads: full report on findings

The pressures on UK higher education (from explicit competition and growth in student numbers, to severe regulatory demands) are greater than ever, and have resulted in a steady increase in measures taken by universities to actively manage their finances and overall quality. These pressures are also likely to have impacted on staff and, indeed, recent large surveys in the sector have indicated that almost half of respondents find their workloads unmanageable. Against this background it would seem logical that the emphasis on institutional interventions to improve finance and quality, should be matched by similar attention given to the allocation of workloads to staff, and a focus on how best to utilise people’s time - the single biggest resource available within universities. Thus the aim of this piece of research was to focus on the processes and practices surrounding the allocation of staff workloads within higher education. Ten diverse organisations were selected for study: six universities in the UK, two overseas universities and two non higher education (but knowledge-intensive) organisations. In each, a crosssection of staff was selected, and in-depth interviews carried out. A total of 59 such interviews were carried out across the ten organisations. By identifying typical practices, as well as interesting alternatives, views on the various strengths and weaknesses of each of their workload allocation approaches was collated; and associated factors requiring attention identified. Through an extensive process of analysis, approaches which promoted more equitable loads for individuals, and which might provide synergies for institutions were also investigated

Contracts, relationships and innovation in business-to-business exchanges

Purpose: – This paper aims to contrast two approaches to the study of contracts in business and industrial marketing: first, as a legal document in shaping at the outset exchanges and interactions, for instance in projects; and second, as relational norms in becoming integrated into a business relationship through interactions, for instance as a resource. Design/methodology/approach: – The paper draws on cross-case comparison of three projects, as actors develop an engineering service for optimizing the maintenance of large-scale capital equipment by analyzing real-time data from sensors and user records. Comparison is by coding interview and observational data as micro-sequences of interactions among actors. Findings: – Preparing contracts allows a project to commence and is an early form of interaction, intensifying new relationships or cutting into and recasting established ones. Relational norms augment and can supersede the early focus on the contract, thus incorporating incremental innovation and absorbing some uncertainties. Research limitations/implications: – The research approach benefits from detailed comparison and captures some variety across its three cases, but the discussion is limited to theoretical generalization. Practical implications: – The analysis and discussion highlights and focuses on when different approaches to understanding contracting are more apparent across durable business relationships. Transitions from a contractual document to a view of relational norms are subtle, vulnerable and not always made successfully. Originality/value: – This paper’s originality is in it comparison of overlapping approaches to understanding businesses’ uses of contacts in business and industrial marketing, of contract and relational norms. It develops a valuable research proposition, in the transition from a mainly contractual to a mainly relational uses of contracts, thus identifying contract as a particular business resource, to be deployed and embedded

Scientists' coping strategies in an evolving research system: the case of life scientists in the UK

Scientists in academia have struggled to adjust to a policy climate of uncertain funding and loss of freedom from direction and control. How UK life scientists have negotiated this challenge, and with what consequences for their research and the research system, is the empirical entrance point of this paper. We find that policy impacts can be modulated and buffered by strategies and compromises devised and deployed at research performer level. This shifts conceptualisation from terms of responses to one of more or less proactive strategies of scientists and science organisations which add up, intentionally or unintentionally, to shifts in the overall system

Theorizing Risk and Research: Methodological Constraints and Their Consequences

Conflict, postconflict settings, and other risky research sites are important with wide-ranging policy implications. Microlevel, field-based research lends critical insights to how conflicts work and the mechanisms behind macrolevel correlations that underpin quantitative political science. This article identifies how the risks associated with conflict and postconflict contexts influence researchers’ choices by theorizing the existence of distinct adaptive strategies. Specifically, researchers facing elevated risk generally manage it through three main strategies: outsourcing risk, avoiding risk, and internalizing risk. We argue that these strategies systematically shape and circumscribe outputs. We conclude by discussing how the relationship between risky fieldwork and what we know about conflict is poorly acknowledged. Thinking about how we manage risk should play a larger role in both our preparation for and interpretation of research, particularly in conflict and postconflict contexts

The determinants of successful partnering: a transaction cost perspective

Support is emerging for the assertion that partnering can have a significant beneficial influence on project relationships and project outcomes. However, not all of the evidence bears this out: there are some examples of less-than-successful experiments with partnering approaches. Questions quite naturally arise as to whether any particular elements or aspects of partnering have differed in some of the documented examples, thus giving rise to their relative success or failure. In order to answer such questions there is a need for a theoretical framework against which to analyse the relative performance of partnering projects. In this paper, the authors propose an approach based upon aspects of Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) theory. It is argued that two main factors, contractual incompletedness and opportunism, are fundamental in determining whether project relationships are adversarial or not. The validity of the approach is examined by applying it retrospectively to a strategic partnering agreement involving more than 80 individual building projects. This agreement had been the subject of a four-year study and had been found to produce benefits in a number of areas, not least in the avoidance of conflict and disputes. After analysis, evidence for the reduction of contractual incompletedness was mixed, however the opportunistic inclinations of the participants (specifically, the contractors) were effectively attenuated by a clearly observable combination of factors, which included preselection criteria, and the use of appropriate management and commercial frameworks in which to operate. The case study suggests a prima facie validity to the analytical approach that was adopted, which merits further testing: the next stages being to develop and refine the framework, and to carry out comparative multi-case research on a number of different partnering projects

Directing the Teaching and Learning Research Programme: or ‘trying to fly a glider made of jelly’

TLRP’s generic phase (1999-2009) is believed to have been the largest ever UK investment in educational research. This paper describes the critique from which TLRP emerged, its strategic positioning and the roles of successive directors and their teams in its development. The paper offers an early stock take of TLRP’s achievements from the perspective of the last Programme Director. The efficacy of the form of the Programme, once likened to ‘a glider made of jelly’, is discussed

Risk management implementation in small and medium enterprises in the UK construction industry

Purpose – The competition and challenges facing construction firms during the recent recession have brought risk management (RM) to the fore in people’s minds. Examination of the difficulties of implementing RM in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the UK construction industry has been relatively untouched. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – As part of on-going research to facilitate RM processing aimed at improving the competitiveness of SMEs, the difficulties in RM implementation were identified through a literature review of RM implementation in SMEs. Postal questionnaire were sent to SMEs who have experience of construction management. Findings – Of the 153 of SMEs responding, most highlighted that the main difficulty experienced is how to scale RM process to meet their requirements. None of the available standards explain the fundamental principle of applying RM to the situations that SMEs find themselves in. This difficulty is further exacerbated by a lack of management skills and knowledge in the adoption of RM tools or techniques to identify and analyse the business’ risks. Originality/value – The identified difficulties can be considered to develop a process to facilitate RM process within SMEs. </jats:sec