A Longitudinal study of organizational capability development process : rendering project portfolio management capability (PPMC)

This dissertation analyzes the heterogeneous development paths of project portfolio management capability (PPMC). Earlier, modern literature has prioritized its focus on the performance-based classification of organizational capabilities, while their development process remained obscure. Consequently, scholarship advocating high performance organizational capabilities (such as a dynamic capability) are in abundance. However, the evidence of development path-affected performance dissimilarities is rather sparse or otherwise remained implicit due to the increasing conceptual differences among the prominent scholarship. Along with the longitudinal process research design of this research, a critical realism-based retroduction approach has enabled the discovery of the capability investigation framework. This capability dimensions, routines, and performance outcome based framework has been further extended to investigate project portfolio management capability (PPMC). This retroductive framework is operationalized to evidence the nine years of capability development path heterogeneity at three entities of a case company. The research case findings explain the effect of underlying mechanisms, which due to their context dependent outcomes, either positively reinforce the existing development paths or lead to an alternative path selection. The case findings also confirm that higher performance is not universally attributable to any specific organizational capability known in the literature. Instead, the actuation of all three identified learning mechanisms (of a learning organization) can develop high performing organizational capabilities. This research concludes that a capability development process endures through an extemporized mixture of refinement, reconfiguration, and transformation activities. As a result, an organizational capability always remains idiosyncratic in its details and, hence, produce diverse performance outcomes. Finally, this PhD research has created a critical realist model to extend the emergent theory of capability path dependence to the other organizational contexts.Tämä tutkimus analysoi projektiportfolion hallintaa koskevan kyvykkyyden moninaisia kehittämisvaihtoehtoja. Aiempi tutkimus on keskittynyt organisaation toimintaa tukevien kyvykkyyksien luokitteluun, mutta kyvykkyyksien kehittymistä on tutkittu vähemmän. Kyvykkyyden kehittymiseen (kuten dynaamiseen kyvykkyyteen) tähtäävä tutkimus keskittyy enimmäkseen organisaation näkökulmaan. Lisäksi kyvykkyyden kehittymistutkimusta vaikeuttaa se, että alan keskeiset tutkijat käyttävät keskenään erilaista terminologiaa. Tämä tutkimus on pitkittäinen ja siinä rakennettiin kriittisen realismin lähestymistavan avulla kyvykkyyden kehittymisen tutkimista varten viitekehys. Kyvykkyyden osatekijöitä, rutiineja ja toiminnan tuloksia kuvaavaa viitekehystä kehitettiin edelleen niin, että sitä voidaan käyttää organisaation projektisalkun hallinnan kyvyn selvittämiseen. Tämän viitekehyksen avulla osoitettiin tapausyrityksen kolmen yksikön kyvykkyyden kehittymispolku yhdeksän vuoden ajalta. Tapaustutkimuksen tulokset selittävät kyvykkyyden kehittymisen mekanismeja, jotka joko vahvistavat organisaation vallitsevia kehittymispolkuja tai johtavat uuden kehittymispolun valintaan. Tapaustutkimukset myös osoittavat, että tehokas toiminta ei ole kirjallisuudessa mainitun yksittäisen organisaation kyvykkyysosatekijän seurausta. Sen sijaan kaikki tunnistetut oppivan organisaation oppimiskeinot kehittävät tehokkaasti toimivan organisaation kyvykkyyksiä. Tämän tutkimuksen johtopäätös on, että kyvykkyyden kehittymisprosessi muodostuu improvisoiduista hienosäätö-, uudelleenkonfigurointi- ja muokkausvaiheista. Niiden tuloksena organisaation kyvykkyys säilyy aina yksityiskohdissaan omaperäisenä ja siten voi tuottaa vaihtelevia tuloksia. Tämä väitöskirja on luonut kriittiseen realismiin perustuvan mallin, jolla laajennetaan uutta kyvykkyyden kehittymispolkuriippuvuuden teoriaa muihin organisaatiokonteksteihin.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Strategic design of culture for digital transformation

Industrial organizations need to take a cultural leap in order to integrate social systems with rapidly evolving digital technologies. Subsequently, aspiration for digital transformation enabled by organizational culture is ubiquitous; however, guidance in the literature on how to refresh the culture in pursuit of digital transformation strategy is underdeveloped. We conducted a diagnostic multi-case study on the organization culture in three globally renowned industrial organizations undergoing digital transformation strategy implementation. Through thematic analysis of qualitative data, we identified cultural artefacts, values in action, and assumptions that industrial organizations should refresh to enable digital transformation. It was found that forerunner industrial organizations’ approach to culture is strategically proactive and thoughtful. Furthermore, their leaders employed culture as a social control system for digital technology adoption. The research findings are summarized as an exploratory framework for the strategic design of culture for the purpose, governance, ecosystem, and organization of sociotechnical systems.© 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Structural challenges to adopt digital transformation in industrial organizations : A multiple case study

Digital Transformation requires significant changes in industrial organization’s setting to remain relevant in this fast-paced environment. This calls for modifications in their organizational structures. The existing organizational structures of industrial organizations are mechanistic, while, digital transformation needs organic and flexible organizational structure. Therefore, the main aim of this study is to identify the main challenges that industrial organizations face in the process of modifying their mechanistic structures into organic structures. To explore these challenges, we conducted multiple case study from three global industrial organizations. We interviewed 41 middle to high-level management personnel. The results of this study highlight six main challenges that industrial organizations need to cope for structural modifications. These challenges are structural rigidity, traditional hierarchy, silos, problems with resource allocations, organizational size and old-fashioned-leadership.© 2022. Published by AHFE Open Access. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

International projects and political risk management by multinational enterprises:insights from multiple emerging markets

Purpose: This study investigates an under-researched yet fundamental question of how a developed country multinational enterprises (DMNE) perceives and manages political risks when undertaking infrastructure projects in the emerging markets (EMs). Design/methodology/approach: The authors use an abduction-based qualitative research approach to analyze six international project operations of a multinational enterprise originating from Finland in five EMs. Findings: The findings suggest that the overall nature of political risks in EMs is not the same, except few political risk factors that are visible in most EMs. Consequently, the applied risk management mechanisms vary between EMs, except with few common mechanisms. The authors develop an integrative analytical framework of political risk management based on the findings. Originality/value: This paper is one of the first studies to identify political risk factors for western MNEs while undertaking international project operations and link them to reduction mechanisms used by them. The authors go beyond the notion of risk being conceptualized at a general level and evaluate 20 specific political risk factors referred to in extant literature. The authors further link these political risk factors with both social exchange and transaction cost theories conceptually as well as empirically. Finally, the authors develop a relatively comprehensive analytical framework of political risk management based on the case projects' findings that combine several strands of literature, including the social exchange theory, transaction cost theory, international market entry, project management and finance literature streams.</p

PORTFOLIO RESOURCE ALLOCATION IN CUSTOMER VALUE DELIVERY PROJECTS: Dynamic Capability and organizational Learning Perspective

Resources characterize the value creation potential of an organization. Management of organizational resource is an outcome of structuring, bundling and leveraging processes. Organizations integrate, enhance and alter their existing resource combination by deploying the dynamic capabilities. Cognitive learning processes of experience accumulation, knowledge articulation and knowledge codification are instrumental for the dynamic capability evolution. Management of resources is imperative to realize the Project Portfolio Management accomplishment as well. However the allocation and balancing of the resources among the project portfolio members is rarely addressed in the literature. With constructivism approach this study emphasizes the project portfolio resource allocation dilemma and its resolution in dynamic capabilities and organizational learning perspective.The research concludes with a pragmatic proposal to develop portfolio resource allocation dynamic capability in the case organization. It was further realized that the observed learning mechanisms in the case organization will underpin the development and strengthen the PPM dynamic capabilities.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

Learning from interorganizational projects

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to consolidate the existing research on interorganizational projects and to explore how organizations learn by closely examining multilevel learning, that is, organizational and interorganizational learning. Design/methodology/approach: This article adopts a single case study approach, examining the Islamabad–Rawalpindi Metro project in Pakistan, with data consisting of interview results and archival data. An inductive approach is used for data analysis. Findings: An empirically grounded learning model was developed based on an interorganizational project following eight lessons: capacity building, personality traits of leadership, working procedures, impeccable planning and implementation, involvement of stakeholders, design compatibility, investigation of underground services, conditions and maintenance of databases, and conceive rational timelines. These lessons learned were classified into three categories: (1) organizational capacity, (2) organizational embeddedness and (3) collective awareness. Originality/value: This paper develops a novel learning model that can deepen our understanding of the practices and processes involved in multilevel learning. This study contributes to and extends the literature on organizational and interorganizational learning by studying an interorganizational setting.acceptedVersionPeer reviewe

Cultural Preparation for Digital Transformation of Industrial Organizations : A Multi-case Exploration of Socio-technical Systems

Digital technology adoption is not new; however, digital transformation in industrial organization is recognized as a contemporary phenomenon. Extant literature, however, offers limited guidance on how the socio-technical system could culturally evolve during the digital transformation. Our limited research focused on the exploration of cultural preparedness in the traditional large-scale organizations with a global footprint. With a multi-case study research design, we collected data from three industrial organizations, and perform data analysis with a grounded theory approach. Our results are a collected set of values, assumptions, and artifacts pertinent to the cultural preparedness of industrial organizations.©2021 Springer. This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Advances in Physical, Social & Occupational Ergonomics. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80713-9_58fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Digital Transformation of Industrial Organizations : Toward an Integrated Framework

This article aims to make a difference by exploring industrial digital transformation in order to identify the key enablers and performance outcomes. We highlight the need for alignment and joint optimization of social and technical systems to effectively capitalize on the digital transformation initiatives. Moreover, we call for urgent attention to the development of leaders, as well as the further identification of supportive digital transformation leadership competencies. Competent leaders assume a central role in correcting outdated and invalid assumptions, conceptualizing new ideas, and reinforcing cultural values. Furthermore, we elaborate the necessity of cultural transformation in industrial organizations for impactful digital transformation. Lastly, our findings confirm the significance of organizational structure in digital transformation and simultaneously warn that too little is happening.© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

International projects and political risk management by multinational enterprises:insights from multiple emerging markets

Abstract Purpose: This study investigates an under-researched yet fundamental question of how a developed country multinational enterprises (DMNE) perceives and manages political risks when undertaking infrastructure projects in the emerging markets (EMs). Design/methodology/approach: The authors use an abduction-based qualitative research approach to analyze six international project operations of a multinational enterprise originating from Finland in five EMs. Findings: The findings suggest that the overall nature of political risks in EMs is not the same, except few political risk factors that are visible in most EMs. Consequently, the applied risk management mechanisms vary between EMs, except with few common mechanisms. The authors develop an integrative analytical framework of political risk management based on the findings. Originality/value: This paper is one of the first studies to identify political risk factors for western MNEs while undertaking international project operations and link them to reduction mechanisms used by them. The authors go beyond the notion of risk being conceptualized at a general level and evaluate 20 specific political risk factors referred to in extant literature. The authors further link these political risk factors with both social exchange and transaction cost theories conceptually as well as empirically. Finally, the authors develop a relatively comprehensive analytical framework of political risk management based on the case projects’ findings that combine several strands of literature, including the social exchange theory, transaction cost theory, international market entry, project management and finance literature streams