Integrating sustainability into Project Management practices: the perspective of professional institutions

This is paper is based on a work in progress research project, therefore results and conclusions are preliminary.Synopsis: ‘Sustainability’ in its broadest meaning has acquired a great importance in modern society, and consequently influences almost every aspect of social life. This paper analyses the transformation that the project management profession is undergoing towards the integration of sustainability into its core values and practices.Research design: This research uses qualitative data from a mix of semi-structured interviews and archival evidence – professional bodies of knowledge,codes of ethics, newsletters, websites, social media platforms, blogs, onlinedatabases, and international standards – with the intention of answering thefollowing research question: ‘what is the influence of professional associationswith regard to the institutionalizing of sustainability practices into projectmanagement (PM) tools and techniques?’Main findings: There are different players which influence, in different ways, thePM profession. Our analysis reveals that the nature of these actors is veryheterogeneous, and the influence of the professional world of PM on theinstitutionalization of sustainable project management is manifested in thedifferent actions carried on by the entities we highlighted above. Therefore, theshift towards SPM is the result of the combination of each actor’s individualstrategy (Muzio, Brock, & Suddaby, 2013).Research implications: The analysis of sustainable project management (SPM) isaimed at contributing to the PM academic literature, describing thetransformation of PM practices, and to the practitioner literature, engaging withPM professional associations on the way they introduce the set of new practices

Apprendimento a distanza e sincronicità: come progettare un mondo virtuale

L’apprendimento tramite i mezzi di comunicazione telematici è un argomento molto attuale. Strumenti utilizzati per questo tipo di apprendimento sono diventati molto popolari, basti pensare agli ambienti Computer Mediated Communication, agli strumenti del web 2.0, agli ambienti virtuali 3D (come ad esempio Second Life). Nel considerare questi strumenti, è necessario però notare che questi ultimi presentano sia punti di forza (es. fare cose che non sarebbero possibili nella realtà) che di debolezza. Un problema collegato con l’apprendimento a distanza, esige alcune considerazioni: la “sincronicità”. La sincronicità nei mondi virtuali infatti limita la flessibilità che altre modalità di comunicazione a distanza permettono. In questo lavoro viene presentato, con l’approccio della “design theory” uno studio su come sviluppare piattaforme per i mondi virtuali 3D che affronta la problematica della sincronicità utilizzando la teoria della “Media Synchronicity”.L’apprendimento tramite i mezzi di comunicazione telematici è un argomento molto attuale. Strumenti utilizzati per questo tipo di apprendimento sono diventati molto popolari, basti pensare agli ambienti Computer Mediated Communication, agli strumenti del web 2.0, agli ambienti virtuali 3D (come ad esempio Second Life). Nel considerare questi strumenti, è necessario però notare che questi ultimi presentano sia punti di forza (es. fare cose che non sarebbero possibili nella realtà) che di debolezza. Un problema collegato con l’apprendimento a distanza, esige alcune considerazioni: la “sincronicità”. La sincronicità nei mondi virtuali infatti limita la flessibilità che altre modalità di comunicazione a distanza permettono. In questo lavoro viene presentato, con l’approccio della “design theory” uno studio su come sviluppare piattaforme per i mondi virtuali 3D che affronta la problematica della sincronicità utilizzando la teoria della “Media Synchronicity”.Uninvited Submission

The institutionalization of project management: an analysis of the actors, strategies and paths that lead to the professionalization of a new discipline

Modern economy, especially over the last 20 years, and the continuous development of new technologies brought to the modification of society and the way people work. As a result, a number of new professional figures emerged and embarked on what has been historically termed a professional project. The focus of this thesis is on one of those new expert occupations: project management (PM). As new expert occupation, being hampered by multiple players with contrasting interests, it is forced to develop its professional projects in a new way differently from old and traditional, professions. Professionalization is then seen as the spatially and temporally contingent outcome of the negotiations between different actors (i.e.: professional associations, big corporations, State, universities), each with their own objectives, interests, resources, and capabilities. The used methodology is a qualitative case study made up of semi-structured interviews and archival data (retrieved trough websites, journals and newspapers) with all above mentioned actors. Thus, the methodological unit of analysis is Italian PM field. Setting the Italian field as a unit of analysis, I resorted to different archival data to demonstrate in a first moment how, around the discipline of PM, there is a growing interest and then I drew a comparison between the two main existing professional strategies. The strategies focus, on the one hand, on the struggle to compete in the private and public sectors, and, on the other hand, between national and international level. Thus this thesis is the first detailed and comprehensive study in the field of PM within the Italian context. To analyze the development of the PM professional project, I looked mainly at the three main PM professional associations that are active in this field: PMI, IPMA, and ISIPM. The result shows that the development of PM in Italy is following a new pattern of professionalization with distinctive characteristics either respect to traditional professions that to the new ones

The institutionalization of project management: an analysis of the actors, strategies and paths that lead to the professionalization of a new discipline

Modern economy, especially over the last 20 years, and the continuous development of new technologies brought to the modification of society and the way people work. As a result, a number of new professional figures emerged and embarked on what has been historically termed a professional project. The focus of this thesis is on one of those new expert occupations: project management (PM). As new expert occupation, being hampered by multiple players with contrasting interests, it is forced to develop its professional projects in a new way differently from old and traditional, professions. Professionalization is then seen as the spatially and temporally contingent outcome of the negotiations between different actors (i.e.: professional associations, big corporations, State, universities), each with their own objectives, interests, resources, and capabilities. The used methodology is a qualitative case study made up of semi-structured interviews and archival data (retrieved trough websites, journals and newspapers) with all above mentioned actors. Thus, the methodological unit of analysis is Italian PM field. Setting the Italian field as a unit of analysis, I resorted to different archival data to demonstrate in a first moment how, around the discipline of PM, there is a growing interest and then I drew a comparison between the two main existing professional strategies. The strategies focus, on the one hand, on the struggle to compete in the private and public sectors, and, on the other hand, between national and international level. Thus this thesis is the first detailed and comprehensive study in the field of PM within the Italian context. To analyze the development of the PM professional project, I looked mainly at the three main PM professional associations that are active in this field: PMI, IPMA, and ISIPM. The result shows that the development of PM in Italy is following a new pattern of professionalization with distinctive characteristics either respect to traditional professions that to the new ones

Institutional Work & Individual Competence: The role of interactions in creating maintaining and disrupting institutions.

This work is a research proposal on microfoundations of neo-institutional theory. This proposal suggests to analyze, through the lens of neo-institutional theory, the role of individual competences in creating, maintaining, and disrupting institutions. Individuals exercise influence on the type of processes and operations that the organization carries on [1]. When these influences enable organizational innovation through the introduction of new practices, the underpinning mechanisms assume importance as premises for organizational design. In this study we propose to analyze a case of successful design and implementation of a service platform in the Italian public sector, supporting the interaction among Public Administrations (PA), Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) and citizens. This platform has been successfully adopted through software re-use projects in more than 140 local PAs in the Toscana Region, resulting in an interesting case-study to understand the influence of individual competence and their interactions in fostering innovation.This work is a research proposal on microfoundations of neo-institutional theory. This proposal suggests to analyze, through the lens of neo-institutional theory, the role of individual competences in creating, maintaining, and disrupting institutions. Individuals exercise influence on the type of processes and operations that the organization carries on [1]. When these influences enable organizational innovation through the introduction of new practices, the underpinning mechanisms assume importance as premises for organizational design. In this study we propose to analyze a case of successful design and implementation of a service platform in the Italian public sector, supporting the interaction among Public Administrations (PA), Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) and citizens. This platform has been successfully adopted through software re-use projects in more than 140 local PAs in the Toscana Region, resulting in an interesting case-study to understand the influence of individual competence and their interactions in fostering innovation.Uninvited Submission

Narrowing Organizational Information Complexity

The aim of this work is to provide a new view of Information Technology as an instrument of reducing wrong environmental interpretation in decision process. Uncertainty is an aspect of organizational decision making with which organizations must live and that influences firm performance. In fact the presence of uncertainty, that environmental complexity brings on management decision, affects decision process and underlines the problem of getting and analyzing environmental information. To solve this problem, that’s to control environmental complexity, we see DSS, as an help managers to synthesize internal and external information and to reduce their information needs. Comparing firms that implement Decision Support System we believe that they can give a strong help in reducing perceived complexity in decision process, thus enabling firm reduce variance of expected results of a decision. At this stage of the work, we focus only on the preliminary steps explaining our model but this is not tested yet, for this reason this work is configured as a working-paperThe aim of this work is to provide a new view of Information Technology as an instrument of reducing wrong environmental interpretation in decision process. Uncertainty is an aspect of organizational decision making with which organizations must live and that influences firm performance. In fact the presence of uncertainty, that environmental complexity brings on management decision, affects decision process and underlines the problem of getting and analyzing environmental information. To solve this problem, that’s to control environmental complexity, we see DSS, as an help managers to synthesize internal and external information and to reduce their information needs. Comparing firms that implement Decision Support System we believe that they can give a strong help in reducing perceived complexity in decision process, thus enabling firm reduce variance of expected results of a decision. At this stage of the work, we focus only on the preliminary steps explaining our model but this is not tested yet, for this reason this work is configured as a working-paperUninvited Submission

The Paradoxical Profession: Project Management and the Contradictory Nature of Sustainable Project Objectives

© 2021 Project Management Institute, Inc. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)Professions are undergoing a significant change in how they integrate environmental and social objectives into their core values. This article examines the situation in which those working in the project management profession are expected to work under contradictory sustainability constraints. In this article, we investigate the tensions project managers experience when addressing sustainable objectives. Results show that when tensions arise over sustainable objectives (temporality of objectives, organizational barriers, and lack of control), they are addressed only when anchored to an economic one in the form of a business case for sustainability. We also find that when matching traditional project objectives with sustainable ones is not possible, practitioners enact a set of reactions characterized as ‘greenwashing,’, ‘it can’t be one person’, ‘no space for sustainability in my job’, ‘other actors involved’, or ‘pushing back’, depending on the specific project context.Peer reviewe

Digital artifacts development and evolution: who has the control/supremacy? A story of UNIX developmental trajectories read from institutional theory perspective

Uninvited Submission

Organizations are going to the Cloud: which competences for the IT Manager?

Cloud Computing (CC) is emerging as a new trend for managing IT resources within organizations. It also raises a broad range of issues from technically-oriented to organization-oriented related to cloud evolution and migration. It invites consideration of new models of governance for systems, service and organization. In order to take advantage from the opportunities offered by this technology, IT governance processes must be updated and aligned with the requirements emerging from CC adoption. As a consequence of this phenomenon, from the perspective of resources and organizational capabilities, CC requires a rethinking of the individual competences of IT managers to fill the gaps related to cloud adoption. In this paper we address the issue of identifying this gap by analyzing the impact of CC on both the activities of IT managers and the competence areas characterizing their professional profile. The results of this study provides guidelines for the development of training programs for IT managers. Furthermore the final discussion contribute to the debate on contingency relationships between CC configurations, individual competences, absorptive capacity and organizational capabilities.Cloud Computing (CC) is emerging as a new trend for managing IT resources within organizations. It also raises a broad range of issues from technically-oriented to organization-oriented related to cloud evolution and migration. It invites consideration of new models of governance for systems, service and organization. In order to take advantage from the opportunities offered by this technology, IT governance processes must be updated and aligned with the requirements emerging from CC adoption. As a consequence of this phenomenon, from the perspective of resources and organizational capabilities, CC requires a rethinking of the individual competences of IT managers to fill the gaps related to cloud adoption. In this paper we address the issue of identifying this gap by analyzing the impact of CC on both the activities of IT managers and the competence areas characterizing their professional profile. The results of this study provides guidelines for the development of training programs for IT managers. Furthermore the final discussion contribute to the debate on contingency relationships between CC configurations, individual competences, absorptive capacity and organizational capabilities.Uninvited Submission

Search phase and the openness effects in MNEs

In this work we focus on the search phase that precedes the knowledge transfer process. We argue that it is important to closely analyze this phase as, the common understanding of problem developed in this phase has a significant im-pact on the stages that follow. In this analysis we focus on two key factors: open-ness and the richness of media of communication that foster the openness within Multinational Corporation (MNC) environment. Furthermore, we also try to ex-plore the degree of knowledge transfer due to an open environment. Openness is a change that can be induced at the MNE level by the Headquarter (HQ), the effects of this change are behavioral in nature and can be observed at the subsidiary level in the type of media of communication usedIn this work we focus on the search phase that precedes the knowledge transfer process. We argue that it is important to closely analyze this phase as, the common understanding of problem developed in this phase has a significant im-pact on the stages that follow. In this analysis we focus on two key factors: open-ness and the richness of media of communication that foster the openness within Multinational Corporation (MNC) environment. Furthermore, we also try to ex-plore the degree of knowledge transfer due to an open environment. Openness is a change that can be induced at the MNE level by the Headquarter (HQ), the effects of this change are behavioral in nature and can be observed at the subsidiary level in the type of media of communication usedMonograph's chapter