Interplay of relational and contractual governance in public-private partnerships: The mediating role of relational norms,trust and partners' contribution

Defining the nature of the relationship between contractual and relational governance is critical for understanding how to maintain commitment and coordination between private and public organizations in long-term partnerships. In this study, a theoretical model explains Public-Private Partnership (PPP) project performance as the result of a mediation process. Contractual and relational governance elements operate sequentially with relational elements (relational norms and trust), playing a mediating role between contractual elements, project actors' behaviour and final performance. Based on the analysis of a survey of PPP practitioners in The Netherlands, and using Consistent Partial Least Squares Modeling, the study provides empirical support for these mediating effects. The findings are aligned with the idea that both economic incentives and hierarchical relationships formalized in contract agreements require being internalized in working practices by means of informal and socially based mechanisms. The enabling and compensating mechanisms underlying the mediation role of relational governance elements are discussed. Managers can particularly find in relational norms a leverage point for designing collaborative day-to-day practices aimed at reinforcing trust and long-term contractual obligations.     

The cumulative power of incremental innovation and the role of project sequence management

In innovation and project management studies incremental development projects are perceived as theoreticlly and organisationally uninteresting. By means of a longitudinal study of product improvement projects at an automobile firm, this paper challenges such views and shows how the cumulative impact of the studied sequence resulted in a competitive repositioning of the company's product portfolio during a financially difficult period. Project managers achieved this by transcending the separation between exploration and exploitation projects; they not only adhered to time, cost and quality goals but also tried out new ways of testing and experimenting with controversial technical ideas. The paper analyzes the intensive inter project learning that generated these ambidextrous capabilities and emphasizes that practices at the project-level need to be buttressed by expanded management learning and capability development also at the sequence level.     

Boundary object efficacy: The mediating role of boundary objects on task conflict in global virtual project networks

As project-based industries such as Architecture, Engineering and Construction globalize, workers require strategies for managing conflict in virtual project networks. Our aim in this paper is to explore the efficacy of boundary objects as tools to mediate conflict in culturally-diverse, distributed networks. Based on annotated recordings for eight networks of graduate student engineers, we demonstrate that different interactional patterns between distributed engineers and boundary objects can lead to a reduction in conflict duration. We did not observe higher levels of conflict for global compared to domestic networks, but did discover that, regardless of network diversity, networks that interacted with the boundary objects in certain ways were able to identify and resolve conflicts more quickly. Our findings have important implications for theories of conflict management and boundary object efficacy in addition to practical applications to support conflict management in global virtual project networks.     

The integrative role of the project management office in the front end of innovation

This research addresses management control in the front end of innovation projects. We conceptualize and analyze PMOs more broadly than just as a specialized project-focused organizational unit. Building on theories of management control, organization design, and innovation front end literature, we assess the role of PMO as an integrative arrangement. The empirical material is derived from four companies. The results show a variety of management control mechanisms that can be considered as integrative organizational arrangements. Such organizational arrangements can be considered as an alternative to a non-existent PMO, or to complement a (non-existent) PMO's tasks. The paper also contrasts prior literature by emphasizing the desirability of a highly organic or embedded matrix structure in the organization. Finally, we propose that the development path of the management approach proceeds by first emphasizing diagnostic and boundary systems (with mechanistic management approaches) followed by intensive use of interactive and belief systems (with value-based management approaches). The major contribution of this paper is in the organizational and managerial mechanisms of a firm that is managing multiple innovation projects. This research also expands upon the existing PMO research to include a broader management control approach for managing projects in companies.     

From dynamic capabilities to ERP enabled business improvements: The mediating effect of the implementation project

This study explores whether an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation project mediates the relationship between dynamic pre-adoption capabilities and ERP-enabled business improvements. The results from our field survey of large ERP adopters in Austria suggest that the effects of the two out of three selected dynamic capabilities are dependent on the properties of the underlying organizational transformation project. While external information acquisition and IT governance capabilities are fully mediated by the performance of the ERP implementation project, decision making only directly impacts business capabilities. These results further our understanding about the role of the implementation project for ERP value creation and the different natures of capability relationships. We call for more research on co-presence conditions related to dynamic capabilities and IT transformation project performance.     

Learning in project-based organizations: The role of project teams' social capital for overcoming barriers to learning

It is a major challenge for project-based organizations to learn across project boundaries by making project-level knowledge available to the organization as a whole. This study argues that project teams' social capital is conducive to overcoming barriers to learning in project-based organizations. Based on a large-scale analysis of engineering projects in Germany, the study shows that project teams' social capital, i.e. the intra-organizational social ties of project teams with their colleagues outside the project, compensates for project teams' lack of opportunity, motivation, and ability to make project-learnings available to the organization as a whole. By contributing to overcoming barriers to learning in project-based organizations, social capital represents an important driver of organizational learning about market conditions, products and technologies as well as project management.     

How to build trust in inter-organizational projects: The impact of project staffing and project rewards on the formation of trust,knowledge acquisition and product innovation

The importance of trust in projects that involve multiple project partners is widely acknowledged. This research analyzes both outcomes and antecedents of trust in inter-organizational projects. On the outcome side, the findings show that trust between project team members working on an inter-organizational project positively impacts the acquisition of external knowledge which, in turn, promotes product innovation. With respect to the antecedents of trust data reveal that a stable pool of project team members and objective project reward criteria facilitate the formation of inter-organizational trust.     

The nature and prevalence of inter-organizational project ventures: Evidence from a large scale field study in the Netherlands 2006-2009

There has recently been noted a rapid increase in research attention to projects that involve outside partners. Our knowledge of such inter-organizational projects, however, is limited. This paper reports large scale data from a repeated trend survey amongst 2000 SMEs in 2006 and 2009 that focused on inter-organizational project ventures. Our major findings indicate that the overall prevalence of inter-organizational project ventures remained significant and stable over time, even despite the economic crisis. Moreover, we find that these ventures predominantly solve repetitive rather than unique tasks and are embedded in prior relations between the partnering organizations. These findings provide empirical support for the recent claims that project management should pay more attention to inter-organizational forms of project organization, and suggest that the archetypical view of projects as being unique in every respect should be reconsidered. Both have important implications for project management, especially in the area of project-based learning.