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

Abstract

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