Evolutionary Learning in Strategy-Project Systems: A Pmi Research Monograph - Softcover

Calabrese, Antonio; Eltigani, Adil; Gardiner, Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 162825484X ISBN 13: 9781628254846

Verlag: PROJECT MGMT INST, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

WHAT DOES A SUCCESSFUL KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PRACTITIONER DO? Evolutionary Learning in Strategy-Project Systems explores the gap between the theory and practice of knowledge management in organizations and analyzes how learning happens and how knowledge is created. The authors take a practitioner-driven approach, one that unites organizational strategy with the learning of organizational lessons—the kind of knowledge management that enhances project performance and ultimately business success. Through a survey of the literature and an analysis of original case-study research, Evolutionary Learning in Strategy-Project Systems develops a model of learning capability that proceeds exactly as its title implies, not as a line, but as a cycle—from codifying individual knowledge and putting it into practice within a context that values social relationships and networks. The conclusions offered in this book build on the rethinking of project management literature in today’s world—creating a strategy-project learning model that not only improves current knowledge capabilities, but also develops new ones.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Antonio Calabrese is Associate Professor of “Industrial Plants” and “Industrial Plants Management” at Politecnico di Milano (Italy). He is Faculty member of the School of Management and Director of two masters degree programmes in project management offered by MIP, the graduate School of Business of the university: the MSPME (Master in Strategic Project Management European, for international students) and the MPM (Master in Project Management, for Italian students). Director of the MBA and Executive MBA programmes of the School (2013-2015) and of the Corporate Division (customized programmes for companies, 2010-2013), his main research interests are in project management and industrial engineering. Within project management he is mostly interested in project control, risk management, strategic project management, program and portfolio management, stakeholder management and the effects of cultural differences on the project success. Since 2006 he cooperates with some universities (Shandong University—China, Heriot Watt University—UK, Umea University—Sweden) both in master and PhD programmes. He is member of the Executive Board of IPMA Italy (International Project Management Academy—Italy) since 2008 and is the Editor of the IPMA Italy Journal of Applied Project Management. Reviewer at many congresses and chairman or co-chairman, he is author or co-author of 11 books and more than 70 publications. He consults for large, medium and small private companies in the field of management, project management and industrial engineering.

Dr Adil Eltigani is an active academic with solid professional experience as a consultant in strategy, project management and quality management. He worked as a Research Fellow at the British University in Dubai. Adil worked as a Visiting Academic at the University of Manchester, in the UK. The main research interest focus on the micro-foundations of dynamic capabilities in organisations and also the learning processes in project and programme management context.

Paul Gardiner is a Lecturer in the School of Management and Languages at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK.

Dr Kirkham is a Lecturer in Engineering Project Management. Prior to his appointment at the University of Manchester, he held the post of Lecturer in Quantity Surveying and Construction Management (Liverpool John Moores University, 2004-2008), Research Officer (School of Industrial and Manufacturing Science, Cranfield University, 2002-2004), and Research Assistant (School of Architecture, University of Liverpool, 2001-2002). He obtained a PhD in the application of stochastic methods in whole-life cost modelling at the University of Liverpool in 2002, and a BA in Construction Management in 1998. Dr Kirkham has published widely in the fields of whole life costs, stochastic service life prediction and quantitative techniques in performance measurement, and is co-author of two texts on building/engineering cost modelling. He is scientific secretary of CIB-TG62 Complex Systems and the Built Environment, and co-managing editor of RICS Research Innovation in the Built Environment. In 2005, Dr Kirkham was appointed as Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Liverpool. He is a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and immediate past-chair of the Liverpool Centre Chartered Institute of Building.

Jonas Söderlund is professor in the Department of Leadership and Organizational Behavior at the BI Norwegian Business School. He is educated at IMIE, Linköping University, and Harvard Business School. Söderlund has been a visiting scholar at MIT Sloan School of Management and Cranfield School of Management. He has been a Visiting Professor at l'Ecole Polytechnique in Paris and at LUISS, Rome. Dr Söderlund has published 10 books and more than 50 articles.

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Evolutionary Learning in Strategy-Project Systems

A PMI Research Monograph

By Paul Gardiner, Adil Eltigani, Terence Williams, Richard Kirkham, Lixiong Ou Antonio Calabrese, Jonas Söderlund

Project Management Institute, Inc.

Copyright © 2018 Project Management Institute, Inc.
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-62825-484-6

Contents

Acknowledgments, 
Abbreviations, 
Foreword, 
Chapter 1: Introduction, 
Chapter 2: Literature Review, 
Chapter 3: Pilot Study, 
Chapter 4: Refining the Conceptual Framework, 
Chapter 5: Research Methodology, 
Chapter 6: Results and Data Analysis, 
Chapter 7: Discussion, 
Chapter 8: Conclusions, 
References, 
Appendix 1: Interview Protocols, 
Appendix 2: Full Set of Data Analysis Tables, 
Appendix 3: Data Analysis Cards, 
Glossary, 

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

The origins of this research lie in an event organized by an oil and gas company in the United Arab Emirates, at which one of the authors — Paul Gardiner — was invited to speak about the challenges of project management in the company and how the company could learn to do projects better. The event was a part of the company's strategic focus, which at the time was on knowledge sharing throughout the organization. As an oil and gas company, the company knew very well how to find oil reserves and how to get oil out of the ground. What it realized it was less good at was how to manage the internal strategic projects that were becoming more frequent, more complex, and more important to remaining competitive in the market. The company in question was not alone in this regard. Companies across the world continue to recognize the possibilities of project management as a core capability to extend their market grasp and consolidate their competitive position in a global marketplace.

Although project management is a relatively young discipline in academia and has only recently been recognized by the Privy Council in the United Kingdom as a profession, with the Association of Project Management (APM) receiving its Royal Charter in 2017, the need to manage projects — and hence, the practice of project management — has been an ongoing activity since antiquity. Societies have undertaken projects from time immemorial across different continents, from the Great Wall of China to the Great Pyramids of Giza to Chand Baori in India, to mention just a few.

In all of these great projects, the takeaway message is that projects make the impossible possible; they get the job done, particularly when there is challenging and non-routine work, although often with these ancient projects, the cost in terms of human life was high. Nevertheless, the consistent pattern throughout history is that projects — and project management — have contributed to the great achievements and survival of societies. So, projects were an important innovation long before project management arose as a science and industry. This research is grounded in the philosophical tradition and historical recognition of the value and relevance of project management to the development of sustainable social structures and societies.

In the modern world, all organizations seek to use and develop their project management resource assets effectively (Crawford, Hobbs, & Turner, 2006). The role and function of project management in successful organizations has evolved from simply "doing" projects to "how" to do projects — the birth of project management as a discipline — to doing projects "better," then to selecting "which" projects to do, optimizing "business value" from multiple-project portfolios, and finally to optimizing "customer value," which is a moderating variable for business value. Congruent with this evolution has been a parallel evolution of the organizational landscape and the position of the project organization within that landscape, e.g., from functional to project to matrix structures; from ad hoc occasional projects to semi-projectized organizations to fully projectized organizations; from U-form, to H-form, to M-form; and more recently, to P-form organizations (Holian, 2010; Söderlund & Tell, 2009). Alongside these developments, another area of evolution has been the relentless march toward recognizing complexity in projects and their environments and all the implications that brings, including advances in complex adaptive systems, enterprise risk management (ERM), and organizational resilience.

One of the challenges for project management researchers is that there is still no single theory of project management. As recently as the International Research Network on Organizing by Projects (IRNOP) 2017 conference plenary in Boston, on theory development in project management, there was a lack of unity from the participants on where we are and where we are going. We continue to explain and develop project management theory (Söderlund, 2011). However, there seems to be little doubt when looking at the project management literature that we are at a turning point in project management research. Many old assumptions have had to be questioned and discarded and new thinking has been created to take project management and its practice into the future: a future focused not just on project management but on the relationship between project management and other domains, such as strategy, organization learning, knowledge management, and value creation (Bredillet, 2013, 2015; Bredillet, Thiry, & Deguire, 2005; Canonico, Söderland, De Nito, & Mangia, 2013).

This research draws on several theories explained in Chapter 2 to connect project management to the wider strategy-project system and establish a basis for more holistic and systemic thinking than project management research has traditionally adopted. The overarching aim of this research is to explore and understand the mechanism by which evolutionary learning takes place in the strategy-project system and to examine how this relates to sustainable competitive advantage. The approach used was to study, at a micro-level, multiple "learning episodes" in time, within a unit of analysis called activity configuration, found in the strategy-project system of organizations in several countries.

With this in mind, the specific objectives of the research were to do the following:

1. Study the patterns and mechanisms that characterize the strategy-project system in organizations of various sizes from different countries. This would include identifying learning and dynamic capabilities and processes that shape and implement strategy and help deliver customer value (Easterby-Smith & Prieto, 2008; Nielsen, 2006; Petit & Hobbs, 2012).

2. Investigate at a micro-level the nature of these patterns of influence by studying the results chains that are found in activity configurations in the strategy-project system. This objective acknowledges the temporary-permanent duality of the strategy-project system in which the permanent organization finds sustainable competitive advantage though learning mechanisms that facilitate flexibility and adaptability (Eltigani, Lawlor-Wright, Gardiner, & Gale, 2014; Regnér, 2008; Sage, Dainty, & Brookes, 2010; Scarbrough et al., 2003).

3. Showcase examples of evolutionary learning episodes and look for patterns in the strategy-project system that can help direct further research to investigate important relationships more fully and to...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: PROJECT MGMT INST
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2018
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 162825484X
• ISBN 13: 9781628254846
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 274
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar