Owner challenges on major projects: The case of UK government

Many studies agree that owner organisations are important for successful project organising, but they tend to focus on particular aspects of project organising rather than providing a holistic analysis of owners as organisations. Our objective is to collect evidence of the full range of challenges public sector owners face in managing their major projects. After reviewing the literature on owner organisations, we carry out a case survey of 26 major projects to identify the principal challenges using a content analysis of UK National Audit Office Value for Money reports. Our original contribution is that the findings provide the first comprehensive picture of the full range of challenges of project organising faced by owner organisations. These findings push us theoretically to extend the scope of research in project organising to identify an extended core set of dynamic capabilities for project owner organisations to address these challenges

Revisiting the project management knowledge framework: Rebalancing the framework to include transformation projects

Purpose This paper highlights that extant project management (PM) bodies of knowledge have not fully addressed organisational transformation enabled by information systems projects. The purpose of this paper is to examine the transformation context in the PM disciplines. The authors argue that the execution-oriented PM bodies of knowledge are limited, as they place too much emphasis on the delivery outputs by the supplier rather than the achievement of beneficial outcomes by the project owner. Design/methodology/approach As a conceptual paper, this paper reviews extant PM bodies of knowledge, life cycle models, the context of organisational transformation and benefits realisation, and the distinction between a project owner’s and the project supplier’s capabilities. Findings A new PM knowledge framework is provided as an advanced research frame for future works by enhancing Peter Morris’ Management of Projects framework by employing the conceptual lens of Winch’s Three Domains of Project Organising model. Originality/value The advanced model emphasises the necessity of distinguishing a project owner’s and a supplier’s PM capability and knowledge to achieve successful IS-enabled organisational transformation. Through this effort to resolve the fragmentation and specialisation problems in PM disciplines, the model can be used as a theoretical groundwork for the advancement of PM research

MANAGING LEVERS OF ORGANIZATION DESIGN TO ENHANCE SMES’ LONGEVITY: An Agenda for Further Research

SME success is often primarily linked to the personal traits of entrepreneurs and vice versa. In terms of SME failure, most of the literature, research and popular press, seems focused on individual factors, such as those related to the owner/entrepreneur’s profile and behavior, or contextual factors like those associated with relationships between the firm and its own stakeholders, especially on the competitive and financial systems arenas. That said, some scholars have emphasized the relevance of organizational design for SME longevity, though there seems to be little inter-relating of the two sides. This paper examines the relationships between owner/entrepreneur attributes and organization design and infrastructure in an attempt to gain a clearer understand of SME longevity and failure. It examines critical issues in appropriateness and comprehensiveness of organizational design, control and decision-making flexibility and risk perception. It concludes that these linkages are not well understood and may lead to unhelpful misdiagnoses of small business failure. It consequently suggests a research agenda based on a structural analysis and modeling using the system dynamics approach

Project narratives that potentially perform and change the future

This article develops a framework for applying organizational narrative theory to understand project narratives that potentially perform and change the future. Project narratives are temporal but often get repeated throughout the project life cycle to stabilize meaning, and could be about project mission, vision, identity, value creation, and so forth. Project narratives have important implications for organizational identity and image crafting. This article differentiates among different types of project narratives in relation to a project life cycle, providing case studies of project narratives on three major UK rail projects. We then set out the future research agenda into project narrative work

Narrative interactions: How project-based firms respond to Government narratives of innovation

The purpose of this article is to explore the ways project-based firms respond to Government narratives of innovation. We focus on the narratives of innovation articulated by Government as part of industrial policy and the responses thereto by senior managers in project-based firms. Our research setting is a major project-based sector: UK construction. 45 narrative interviews were conducted in addition to the content analysis of the Government reports on construction innovation. We find that project-based firms respond to the Government narrative for the need for innovation to improve performance by developing and enhancing their innovative capabilities and generating their own narratives of innovation. The model developed shows how narrative interaction between the Government and project-based firm levels impact on meaning-making of innovation by (re)articulating collective identities, and shaping innovation strategies

Unleashing growth potential in 'stunted' SMEs: Insights from simulator experiments

The literature recognises the phenomenon of 'dwarf' or 'stunted' small and micro firms (in Italian nanismo aziendale) and that they might represent potential lost opportunities for owners and the local economy. This paper describes the development of a simple 'insight' model to simulate the behaviour of such firms. The model replicates the basic no-growth, cyclical behaviour attributed to them and shows how changes in targets and attitudes towards asset management can change that behaviour to one of stable growth. In this simple form, the model does link behaviours to system structure and could support individual entrepreneurs in understanding the reasons for dwarfism in their firm and the potential for unleashing their growth potential. It could further form the basis for a more detailed model that could support the identification and evaluation of strategic alternatives in individual firms. Copyright © 2006 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd

Strategic Project Organizing

Strategic Project Organizing takes a unique approach to project management that places emphasis on the strategic and organizational aspects of projects and their leadership. Structured around the Three Domains model, it covers all the fundamental project management concepts, whilst guiding the reader through the organizational challenges of enabling positive change. Through the lens of strategic leadership, this text equips students to know how to respond proactively to threats, as well as seize opportunities, in order to advantageously change the socio-economic environment in an organization's favour. The text also helps students to understand the tools and techniques adopted during the process of organizational transformation. All chapters offer review and discussion-based questions to encourage critical thinking; as well as case vignettes and a longer, end-of-chapter case study to help students apply theory to practice. Real life projects featured in the case studies include the Eden Project, the Thames Tideway Tunnel and the Berlin Brandenburg Airport

Owner project capabilities for infrastructure development: A review and development of the “strong owner” concept

Research on the management of major projects is one of the main themes of Peter Morris' work. We address this theme in the context of transportation infrastructure projects and focus in particular on the contribution of the “strong owner” to project performance. After defining the strong owner concept, we will suggest that the theoretical literature on dynamic capabilities can be the source of deeper insight into the strong owner and will thereby develop the concept of owner project capabilities. The paper will then present a framework generated from a review of the existing literature complemented by pilot empirical research which provides the basis for a research agenda on the role of the owner of the infrastructure assets in achieving high performance on transportation infrastructure projects. In discussion, the paper suggests that the framework developed is applicable to a wider variety of major projects and programmes.postprin

Creating the context of project innovation: Narrative interactions

This paper follows the ‘narrative turn’ in organisation studies (Fenton & Langley, 2011; Rhodes & Brown, 2005) and extends it to project management studies. We will do this by exploring interactions between the narratives of innovation as promoted by government and those mobilised in response by senior managers within project-based firms. The paper focuses on understanding how the meaning of innovation is socially constructed through the use of narratives (Bartel & Garud, 2009). Narratives of innovation are consistently promoted by policy makers to meet the targets set by the government. Yet, little is known how firm-level narratives of innovation interact with these government-level narratives. For example, the UK government has advocated Building Information Modelling (BIM) use, but there is evidence of a mismatch between the government narrative and how project-based firms in the construction sector practice BIM (Davies & Harty, 2013)