The precursors and impacts of BSR on AMT acquisition and implementation.

This paper reports on the results of research into the connections between transaction attributes and buyer-supplier relationships (BSRs) in advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) acquisition and implementation. The investigation began by examining the impact of the different patterns of BSR on the performance of the AMT acquisition. In understanding the phenomena, the study drew upon and integrated the literature of transaction cost economics theory, BSRs, and AMT, and used this as the basis for a theoretical framework and hypotheses development. This framework was then empirically tested using data that were gathered through a questionnaire survey with 147 companies and analyzed using a structural equation modeling technique. The results of the analysis indicated that the higher the level of technological specificity and uncertainty, the more firms are likely to engage in a stronger relationship with technology suppliers. However, the complexity of the technology being implemented was associated with BSR only indirectly through its association with the level of uncertainty (which has a direct impact upon BSR). The analysis also provided strong support for the premise that developing strong BSR could lead to an improved performance in acquiring and implementing AMT. The implications of the study are offered for both the academic and practitioner audience

Thinking the ontological politics of managerial and critical performativities: an examination of project failure

Recent contributions within Critical Management Studies have argued for critical engagements with performativity to acknowledge and advance the plurality of performance calculi within organizations. However, even critically minded authors persist in deploying managerial calculi of performance when criticizing the failure of management on its own terms. Equally, interpretive analyses of performance narratives as discursive power games have thus far offered little substantive challenge to managerial understandings of performativity, as orientated around maxims of efficiency, control and profit. Positioned against these managerialist and conservative tendencies in extant understandings of performativity, we draw together the ANT- derived notions of ontological performativity and politics, alongside empirical research on projects, and specifically project failure, to propose that if ontologies are performative, multiple, and political, then performativities are ontological, multiple and political, and are thus capable of being realized otherwise; but crucially, we can advance this thesis only if we better understand how managerial performativity simultaneously others and depends on that which is outside it: an absent hinterland of different performative realities. This theoretical move challenges how we might not only understand but assemble multiple performed realities — demanding new methodological, analytical and political resources and responses to engage with performativities

Who reads the project file? Exploring the power effects of knowledge tools in construction project management

Various critical authors have questioned the salience, efficacy and power effects of formal project management bodies of knowledge (PMBoKs). As a result project management knowledge tools are increasingly being conceptualized along more flexible, adaptable, reflexive, democratic and informal terms. A central driver for this shift is that PM knowledge will be more relevant and useful for practitioners if it can be reflexively tailored to fit local project scenarios, emergent problems and different communities of practice, rather than projects being structured to fit generic ‘best practice’ ideals. Hence new knowledge tools increasingly would appear critical to alleviate various detrimental power effects associated with bureaucratic knowledge practices within project‐based industries, not least construction. This assumption is examined through a study of a formal and codified project management knowledge tool—a project file—within a small team of project practitioners in a large civil engineering consultancy. Various concepts of power related to actor‐network theory (ANT) are mobilized to understand how non‐human artefacts can enact power and knowledge in nuanced ways within organizations. This theoretically informed study will aid both researchers and practitioners interested in the consequences of developing prescriptive or reflexive project management knowledge within construction contexts and beyond

Data analytics for project delivery : unlocking the potential of an emerging field

Purpose: In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the potential of data analytics to enhance project delivery. Yet many argue that its application in projects is still lagging behind other disciplines. This paper aims to provide a review of the current use of data analytics in project delivery encompassing both academic research and practice to accelerate current understanding and use this to formulate questions and goals for future research. Design/methodology/approach: We propose to achieve the research aim through the creation of a systematic review of the status of data analytics in project delivery. Fusing the methodology of integrative literature review with a recently established practice to include both white and grey literature amounts to an approach tailored to the state of the domain. It serves to delineate a research agenda informed by current developments in both academic research and industrial practice. Findings: The literature review reveals a dearth of work in both academic research and practice relating to data analytics in project delivery and characterises this situation as having “more gap than knowledge.” Some work does exist in the application of machine learning to predicting project delivery though this is restricted to disparate, single context studies that do not reach extendible findings on algorithm selection or key predictive characteristics. Grey literature addresses the potential benefits of data analytics in project delivery but in a manner reliant on “thought-experiments” and devoid of empirical examples. Originality/value: Based on the review we articulate a research agenda to create knowledge fundamental to the effective use of data analytics in project delivery. This is structured around the functional framework devised by this investigation and highlights both organisational and data analytic challenges. Specifically, we express this structure in the form of an “onion-skin” model for conceptual structuring of data analytics in projects. We conclude with a discussion about if and how today’s project studies research community can respond to the totality of these challenges. This paper provides a blueprint for a bridge connecting data analytics and project management

A ‘Strategy-as-Practice’ exploration of lean construction strategizing

This article was published in the journal, Building Research and Information [© Taylor & Francis (Routledge)] and the definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09613218.2012.655925A growing body of work emerging from the management and organizational studies literature is the ‘Strategy-as-Practice’ (SaP) perspective, which focuses on the ways in which strategy is actually enacted within organizational settings. This perspective is used to examine the diffusion of lean construction. In recent years lean construction has grown in prominence to become one of the primary performative improvement recipes for the construction sector. However, rather than providing a stable strategy around which more collaborative, intelligent and efficient project-based organizations develop, this research reveals how the lean concept transforms during its journey with unintended organizational consequences. An ethnographic case study, informed by SaP, demonstrates how a lean strategy and its effects on organizational practice and culture cannot be understood separately from material and embodied practices and power effects. As well as contributing to the examination of lean construction practice, the findings show how strategy is enacted within construction organizations and the ensuing effects of social power. A new trajectory is opened for research into strategizing within construction organizations, which provides ways to explore actual practices and spaces where strategizing occurs

Cost overruns – helping to define what they really mean

Civil engineers are often in the firing line for alleged cost overruns, particularly on major publicly funded infrastructure projects. This usually occurs when the final cost of a project is simply compared with the original estimate, even though this was published a long time ago, in different circumstances and for a quite different project to the one carried out. This paper proposes a systematic approach to ensure that cost overruns, should they occur, are more accurately defined in terms of when the initial and end costs are assessed, from which point of view, at which project stage, and including scope changes and financial assumptions. The paper refers to the UK’s £163 billion nuclear decommissioning programme

An exploration of the relationship between nuclear decommissioning projects characteristics and cost performance

Nuclear Decommissioning Projects and Programmes (NDPs) are characterized by high complexity and variety, and a schedule that can take decades. Moreover, NDPs estimates at completion can reach billions of Euro and (for many of these projects) keep increasing, while there is a limited understanding of why this happens. To address this knowledge gap, this paper describes how to statistically test the association between the NDP characteristics and the NDP cost performance. The implementation of statistics on a pool of European NDPs highlights the significance of several country-specific and site-specific characteristics (e.g. respectively, the governance system and the availability of facilities to deal with radioactive material on site). Hence, the original contribution of this paper consists in (i) the selection of statistical tests suitable for analysing small sample sizes (i.e. NDPs) and (ii) the presentation of the results from the implementation of these tests on a pool of 24 European NDPs with an illustrative purpose

Developing policies for the end-of-life of energy infrastructure: Coming to terms with the challenges of decommissioning

Energy sector policies have focused historically on the planning, design and construction of energy infrastructures, while typically overlooking the processes required for the management of their end-of-life, and particularly their decommissioning. However, decommissioning of existing and future energy infrastructures is constrained by a plethora of technical, economic, social and environmental challenges that must be understood and addressed if such infrastructures are to make a net-positive contribution over their whole life. Here, we introduce the magnitude and variety of these challenges to raise awareness and stimulate debate on the development of reasonable policies for current and future decommissioning projects. Focusing on power plants, the paper provides the foundations for the interdisciplinary thinking required to deliver an integrated decommissioning policy that incorporates circular economy principles to maximise value throughout the lifecycle of energy infrastructures. We conclude by suggesting new research paths that will promote more sustainable management of energy infrastructures at the end of their life

Convalescent plasma in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 (RECOVERY): a randomised controlled, open-label, platform trial

SummaryBackground Azithromycin has been proposed as a treatment for COVID-19 on the basis of its immunomodulatoryactions. We aimed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of azithromycin in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19.Methods In this randomised, controlled, open-label, adaptive platform trial (Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19Therapy [RECOVERY]), several possible treatments were compared with usual care in patients admitted to hospitalwith COVID-19 in the UK. The trial is underway at 176 hospitals in the UK. Eligible and consenting patients wererandomly allocated to either usual standard of care alone or usual standard of care plus azithromycin 500 mg once perday by mouth or intravenously for 10 days or until discharge (or allocation to one of the other RECOVERY treatmentgroups). Patients were assigned via web-based simple (unstratified) randomisation with allocation concealment andwere twice as likely to be randomly assigned to usual care than to any of the active treatment groups. Participants andlocal study staff were not masked to the allocated treatment, but all others involved in the trial were masked to theoutcome data during the trial. The primary outcome was 28-day all-cause mortality, assessed in the intention-to-treatpopulation. The trial is registered with ISRCTN, 50189673, and ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04381936.Findings Between April 7 and Nov 27, 2020, of 16 442 patients enrolled in the RECOVERY trial, 9433 (57%) wereeligible and 7763 were included in the assessment of azithromycin. The mean age of these study participants was65·3 years (SD 15·7) and approximately a third were women (2944 [38%] of 7763). 2582 patients were randomlyallocated to receive azithromycin and 5181 patients were randomly allocated to usual care alone. Overall,561 (22%) patients allocated to azithromycin and 1162 (22%) patients allocated to usual care died within 28 days(rate ratio 0·97, 95% CI 0·87–1·07; p=0·50). No significant difference was seen in duration of hospital stay (median10 days [IQR 5 to >28] vs 11 days [5 to >28]) or the proportion of patients discharged from hospital alive within 28 days(rate ratio 1·04, 95% CI 0·98–1·10; p=0·19). Among those not on invasive mechanical ventilation at baseline, nosignificant difference was seen in the proportion meeting the composite endpoint of invasive mechanical ventilationor death (risk ratio 0·95, 95% CI 0·87–1·03; p=0·24).Interpretation In patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19, azithromycin did not improve survival or otherprespecified clinical outcomes. Azithromycin use in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 should be restrictedto patients in whom there is a clear antimicrobial indication