Re-thinking the project manager's role and practice : a case study in the context of an IT department

This thesis explores the social construction of the project manager role and its enactment within an organizational context. The research builds on the themes of the Rethinking Project Management agenda in focusing on research that is about, in and for project management practice (Winter et al. 2006b). The complex organization context of project practice is engaged with and themes such as role legitimacy, organizational power, organizational boundaries and the nature of project and organizational time are explored. The importance of the influence of the professional association’s project management model to the construction of the organizational project manager role and enactment is investigated. The research utilizes an empirically focused treatment of structuration theory (Giddens 1984) as a conceptual framework in addressing the social construction of the project managers’ role and its enactment. The research was conducted using a case study approach in which multiple instances of project managers’ practice in a shared IT organizational context were examined from the perspective of interactions across the boundary between the projects and the organization. The case study data was analysed and findings were generated through the iterative engagement with the organizational phenomena, the conceptual framework and the research questions being explored. The conclusions of the research support the Rethinking Project Management agenda and propose a wider and more social consideration of projects and their management that takes into account the social construction of projects, the importance of boundary spanning activities and objects, and the social nature of time as key elements in rethinking the role and practice of project managers

The logic of projects and the ideal of community development: Social good, participation and the ethics of knowing

© 2016, © Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between project-based organizing and the initiatives labelled as “development” by critically engaging with some unchallenged assumptions inherent in the notion of both projects as a means through which social change can be achieved and the wider possibility of delivering social good as an objective of development. Design/methodology/approach – From a phenomenologically informed critical participatory perspective the authors focus on contradictions within the practices of community development (CD) by attending to the interplay between the dominant project form of organizing that frames those practices and the rhetoric of “development”. Findings – Drawing on two CD examples, the authors illustrate and discuss the contradictions and damaging consequences of the developmentalism-projectification double-act. The position is that social good is local and contextual and draws expediently and contingently on the means through which it can be achieved by the collective action of those who co-define and co-create the social good. Social implications – The authors propose that there is a need to open the dialogue with development practitioners, funders, project managers, project workers, and the recipients and stimulate multiple participation. Originality/value – The authors believe the critical participatory approach that the authors have taken to CD project management could be both novel and useful as it refocuses attention to non-performative aspects of CD, arguing for de-naturalization of project organizing logic and encouraging emancipation from dominant epistemic inequalities. With an uncompromising focus on embedded practices, the authors hope to spur further debate on the important issue of CD and the possibilities of creating “social good”