Reinforcing cycles involving inter- and intraorganizational paradoxical tensions when managing large construction projects

In recent years, scholars have shown a growing interest in combining control and flexibility when organizing and managing large construction projects, in contrast with the traditional focus on control. Prior research recognizes that there is a paradoxical tension between control and flexibility, meaning that, while both approaches make sense individually, they appear impossible to combine. Large construction projects are interorganizational, which means that tensions between interorganizational control/flexibility coexist with tensions between intraorganizational direction/empowerment, but the interplay and possible reinforcing cycles involving the two tensions have rarely been investigated in prior research. A multiple case study of four large construction projects with three rounds of interviews show how intraorganizational direction/empowerment can influence interorganizational control/flexibility and vice versa, and demonstrate both vicious and virtuous reinforcing cycles that involve the two types of tensions. Therefore, contributing to the project management and construction management literature, it is argued that employing a systemic approach when studying interorganizational projects is essential. A systemic paradox perspective can reveal interdependencies between tensions at different organizational interfaces, improve the understanding of how individuals in all managerial positions interplay, and explain how reinforcing cycles emerge and develop; this is important to recognize when organizing, staffing and managing large construction projects.     

Balancing knowledge sharing with protecting: The efficacy of formal control in open innovation projects

A key challenge in open innovation (OI) projects relates to the tension of facilitating open knowledge exchange processes while ensuring sufficient protection to avoid knowledge leakage. Although prior research has discussed several solutions to balance sharing with protecting, these practices either tend to lay too much or not enough emphasis on knowledge protection. In this article, we complement current research by examining whether the formal control mechanisms, prespecified behaviors and prespecified outcomes, may serve as more efficacious project management solutions. We investigate their effect on OI project performance and knowledge leakage and compare their influence with that of contracts, using a data set of 106 new product OI projects in high-technology industries. We find that prespecified behaviors influence project performance in the form of an inverted U-shape, while prespecified outcome increases project performance in a linear fashion. Contracts decrease knowledge leakage while having no influence on project performance. Our study contributes to a more elevated understanding of the role of project management in coping better with the inherent sharing-protecting tension in OI.     

Exploring the patterns of convergence and divergence in the development of major infrastructure projects

This paper explores the long-term patterns in the development phase of major infrastructure projects to advance our understanding of underlying temporal unfolding processes and of the possibilities for steering these towards a more resolute and better prepared start of execution. Our inquiry relies on a process perspective, on the concept of project trajectory as a pattern of project participants' and stakeholders' convergence and divergence with respect to conditions enabling the start of execution, and on a theoretical framework aiming to explain the formation of long-term trajectories. This framework is used to study the development trajectories of three major infrastructure projects in North America and to elaborate preliminary accounts of their onset. Results contribute an original conceptual arsenal for tracing and reflecting on the overall project development trajectories, as well as a broader, more dynamic understanding of factors conditioning the pattern, pace and efficacy of convergence towards project execution.     

Technological competence leveraging projects via intermediaries: Viable means to outbound open innovation and mediated capability building?

Aiming at reaping the benefits of open innovation, a growing number of organizations utilizes innovation intermediaries as external facilitators. However, the effectiveness of such intermediaries, especially in outbound open innovation, such as leveraging existing technologies in new market opportunities, remains unclear. We aim to investigate if and how externally conducted technological competence leveraging (TCL) projects provide value to the focal organization. Based on interviews with key personnel and analysis of reports from such projects conducted in the course of several research consortia at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, we find that the projects were successful in identifying new application fields. Further, the externally conducted projects also contributed to the development of TCL-related project capabilities within the focal organization. This research also identifies a number of barriers to short- and long-term success such as lack of a company-internal perspective and project owners without management responsibilities.     

Knowledge management and project-based knowledge in it projects: A model and preliminary empirical results

In this research, we investigate how IT-enabled business projects can be managed to contribute value to the client organization. We take a knowledge view of this issue, and conceptualize knowledge management as a three dimensional concept comprising knowledge stock, enabling environment and knowledge practices. We suggest that knowledge management enables the creation and alignment of three types of project-based knowledge that are critical to achieving desired business outcomes: technical design knowledge, organizational change knowledge and business value knowledges     

Megaprojects as organizational platforms and technology platforms for value creation

Megaprojects are multi-actor and multi-technology constellations that create value for society. Previous research on joint and coordinated activities to create value for multiple actors in megaprojects over system lifecycle is scarce. This study explores how the actors in a megaproject jointly create value. We analyze value creation in megaprojects by theorizing on the research on organizational platforms, which draws together knowledge from research on other types of platforms, ecosystems and networks. In our empirical study, we analyze a city district renewal megaproject, by focusing on the actors' joint activities that contribute to synergetic project processes, solutions and outcomes both tangible and intangible that participating actors find beneficial. We derive five propositions that explain how actors in a megaproject create value through jointly planned and governed design principles, and through value-leveraging activities. Jointly planned and governed design principles include inter-organizational coordinating bodies and joint activities that share ownership and decision-making. In value-leveraging activities, leader actors facilitate megaproject actors' competition and value capture that determine most suitable participants to value-creating activities.     

Enhancing value capture by managing risks of value slippage in and across projects

Project-based firms have to capture value from the projects in which they engage. This can be challenging as firms need to reconcile project goals and organizational goals while attempting to avoid the slippage of value to other actors. Drawing on interviews with architects and clients, this research reveals how architectural firms used the strategies of postponing financial revenues in a project, compensating for loss of financial revenues across projects and rejecting a project to accept or mitigate the slippage of financial value, and to avoid the potential slippage of professional value in projects. With these strategies firms attempt to enhance their overall benefits. The study contributes to the literature on project business by showing how a more nuanced conceptualization of value slippage is particularly helpful to theoretically explain and practically manage the value capture of project-based firms through both single project and project portfolio decisions.     

So many projects,so little result: The self-perpetuating cycle of inter-institutional projects

This study aims to provide an explanation for the lack of implementation of innovation generated through publicly funded research. While previous scholars have categorized organizational cycles as either virtuous or vicious, cycles of inter-institutional projects can have simultaneous benefits for some organizations while causing drawbacks for others. Such a cycle was observed across inter-institutional projects in port logistics, where the primary objective was to implement innovation. During the investigation of ten projects, it became apparent that an excessive emphasis on certain practices at the expense of others, unintentionally resulted in delays in innovation implementation while collaborations continued to thrive. These practices led to a self-perpetuating cycle of inter-institutional projects that rarely resulted in implemented innovations. In contrast to the solutions proposed in existing literature to address organizational cycles, this study suggests that temporary hybridizing competing logics may be the root cause of cycles of inter-institutional projects.     

Fluidity in project management teams across projects

Project management teams are often fluid, changing in composition over projects. Fluidity enables innovative project success, as it allows organizing social capital dynamically across projects. In this study, we argue for an optimum between fluidity and stability. We operationalize project management fluidity as the degree of intactness of the whole team from one project to the next. In a sample of 5370 projects of video game development over ten years using information obtained by web crawling on the internet, we find an inverted-U-shaped relation between intactness and project success, assessed as sales, expert reviews, and consumer reviews. We show that optimal intactness shifts according to project context; higher success occurs at lower levels of intactness when projects require more innovation. Finally, we replicate our findings using intactness of relations between project managers and their operational teams. We discuss the implications for project management, and potential future research.     

Participatory business modelling

How to generate business is at play in most innovation projects today. Not only Internet-based businesses, but also traditional manufacturing companies with conventional product sales are currently challenged to consider alternative business models: service design, project sales, direct sales, etc. In participatory innovation the core assumption is that a broad spectrum of people, including users, can contribute to innovation. But is it possible to open up the process of business model innovation to participation from a wider circle than those marketing managers who typically devise new business schemes? In this article we discuss two participatory approaches to business modelling that move beyond spreadsheets and Post-it^® Notes: one of using tangible objects to redefine business elements, and another of people themselves role-playing how an organisation can create, deliver and capture value. These approaches were developed in companies and educational settings and have proven extraordinarily successful in initiating conversations about how to innovate business in cross-disciplinary and cross-functional groups of participants. Relying on design theory, we study the ‘moves’ that participants make towards a new network configuration; in particular as such conceptual ‘moves’ are likely to be associated with the concrete, physical movements of people and objects. We claim that these approaches prove very engaging because business model innovation needs a focus on redefining the concepts we use and the roles that actors play in relation to each other.     

Organizing for knowledge creation in a strategic interorganizational innovation project

A fundamental challenge for interorganizational innovation projects is employing diverse actors’ knowledge, expertise and perspectives for situation-specific demands of complex innovation. Innovation advancement is dependent on the degree to which knowledge is used and synthesized to address emerging and situation-specific demands of innovation. The goal of this study is to shed light on organizing for joint knowledge creation in a strategic interorganizational innovation project. Based on an inductive analysis of interview data from one strategic interorganizational innovation project, we identified the iterative process, self-organizing working groups and dynamic participation as practices through which the actors involved arranged and enacted their joint efforts, namely, knowledge creation and progress of innovation. This study contributes to research on managing strategic interorganizational projects by suggesting that organizing, which involves structural and informal organizing practices, supports managing strategic interorganizational projects where the diverse actors’ knowledge integration is at the core of the innovation project's goals.     

Exploring collaboration in hospital projects’ front-end phase

Hospital projects, like other major projects, start with the front-end phase, which considerably affects projects’ strategic success. There is an expressed need for more knowledge of the front-end to improve and thus strengthen the odds for strategic success. Hospital projects are complex and challenging to run much due to multiple stakeholders and societal impact. Hospital projects’ stakeholder multiplicity makes collaboration a fundamental activity in the front-end. In this paper, we propose a framework for front-end collaboration in hospital projects constituting the following interdependent categories: contexts, structures, means and catalysts. The categories interact to make collaboration happen and make collaboration work, indicating that the different categories should be considered at different times in the planning process. Successful collaboration may positively affect project outcome and leads to innovation and learning, which are important assets for hospital projects in identifying successful future solutions, hence strengthening the projects’ odds for long-term success.     

Reprint of: From open innovation projects to open innovation project management capabilities: A process-based approach

How do organizations use the experience from projects to build a systematic capability to manage open innovation projects? Drawing upon Project Management and Open Innovation capability-building frameworks, we studied the crusade of an industrial company to create an open innovation capability. In that sense, we applied an Event Structure Analysis (ESA) to evaluate the event network, which evidenced a four-stage process: closed mode, open driver, vanguard project, project-to-organization. Results demonstrate, from causal connections, that the referred capability can be leveraged from the execution of key projects, especially from a vanguard project. Our study contributes to Project Management theory by reveling that previous experiences in both project and organizational levels offer a fertile ground for the emergence of a vanguard project. For the open innovation field, this paper provides a project-oriented approach to the discussion of open innovation's adoption in mature firms.     

国贸中心三期基坑支护工程监测研究

北京地区深基坑开挖监测及理论研究尚显不足。对北京国贸三期深基坑开挖过程中的监测结果进行分析、研究,结果表明：正常情况下,桩锚支护的位移一般不会超过0.1%H;护坡桩钢筋的应力一般仅达钢筋设计强度值的1/10～1/8;锚杆的实际拉力值较小,说明目前支护设计采用的土压力值大于护坡体系实际受到的土压力;各排土钉的拉力均在38 kN以下,远小于按现行规程计算出的土钉的设计拉力值。由此看出,实际钢筋应力、锚杆拉力、土钉拉力均比按目前规程计算理论拉力小。研究结果为类似工程的设计提供参考,也为以后规程的修订提供依据。     

The influence of green building certifications in collaboration and innovation processes

While the paradigm of sustainable development has largely influenced architecture projects worldwide, Green Building Certifications (GBCs) have become the new (increasingly mandatory) standard of project performance. Numerous studies have concentrated on the influence of sustainable development (SD) in the final product: the building. However, more research is still needed in order to understand how GBCs have influenced building processes, particularly collaboration and innovation within architecture projects. In order to fill this gap, this study presents results from 19 interviews with professionals in the built environment and examines three architecture projects conducted in Canada that received a widely popular GBC and were significantly influenced by SD principles during the design and building process. The research applies recent frameworks for exploring stakeholders’ interests on GBCs and the collaboration and innovation practices developed by them. Research results show that processes within these projects are shaped by at least four tensions that can either enhance or hinder collaboration and innovation: strategic–tactical, collaborative–competitive, participative–effective and individual–collective. The study highlights the importance of understanding GBC as a process and not only as a final outcome, and thus, to better manage these tensions so that they contribute to product and process performance.     

From open innovation projects to open innovation project management capabilities: A process-based approach

How do organizations use the experience from projects to build a systematic capability to manage open innovation projects? Drawing upon Project Management and Open Innovation capability-building frameworks, we studied the crusade of an industrial company to create an open innovation capability. In that sense, we applied an Event Structure Analysis (ESA) to evaluate the event network, which evidenced a four-stage process: closed mode, open driver, vanguard project, project-to-organization. Results demonstrate, from causal connections, that the referred capability can be leveraged from the execution of key projects, especially from a vanguard project. Our study contributes to Project Management theory by reveling that previous experiences in both project and organizational levels offer a fertile ground for the emergence of a vanguard project. For the open innovation field, this paper provides a project-oriented approach to the discussion of open innovation's adoption in mature firms.     

Value creation dynamics in a project alliance

Project alliance requires all parties to work together in good faith, share project risks, and make unanimous decisions for the betterment of the project. A key feature of successful implementation of a project alliance is a focus on value creation and value for money. This paper proposes a qualitative system dynamics model to specify and explain dynamics of value creation processes in the context of project alliance. By synthesizing the existing literature and reports on project alliancing, this paper identifies four processes that have a strong influence on the value created in the project alliance context: work progression, rework, redesign and innovation, and rescheduling. In addition, we show how these value creation processes are interrelated and evolve over time. The effectiveness of these processes is influenced by the capability and motivation of the project alliance partners to discover works that do not fully utilize the available resources, and make quick decisions to capture these benefits.     

Collaborative development: Capturing the public value in private real estate development projects in Ho Chi Minh City,Vietnam

This article addresses a relative gap in the literature on real estate development and property rights in transitional economies, particularly on the “shadow” role of private developers in urban management at the local level. The paper argues that the development of high-rise buildings in Vietnam resulted from the national privatization policy shift known as Doi Moi that gave landowners greater rights. These changes in land rights policy are important constitutive elements for institutional functionality of value capture via privatization of land, to become viable and effective. Further, the paper describes how private developers (foreign and domestic) take advantage of vague and indistinct city governance regarding privatization of land, while the property rights of the original users of the land are insufficiently protected. These issues are illuminated and analyzed through the use of three case studies of commercial projects in Ho Chi Minh City. We suggest a further institutionalization of privatization of land and value capture in Vietnam.     

Temporal conditioning and the dynamics of inter-institutional projects

This paper presents an in-depth and processual case study of a major infrastructural innovation project involving diverse private and public-sector organizations. The case study shows how organizing developed recursively in response to diverging temporal requirements, induced by the temporal institutional complexity facing the project. We introduce the idea of temporal conditioning to demonstrate how large-scale temporary organizations dynamically cope with conflicting temporal institutional requirements by making use of three strategies: (1) temporal avoidance, (2) temporal splitting, and (3) temporal matching. With its focus on the emergence of the project, this paper adds to our understanding of the dynamics of organizing in temporary and institutionally pluralistic settings – settings that put greater pressures on our ability to deal with conflicting institutional requirements pertaining to time and timing. Accordingly, we offer a new perspective on the dynamics of large-scale projects and how they respond to a particular kind of institutional complexity.