Outsourcing Operations in Project Management Offices: The Reality of Brazilian Companies

The purpose of this study is to explore the mechanisms that influence decisions regarding outsourcing competencies in the operation of project management offices (PMOs). The exploratory research described here involves the use of a web‐based survey for enterprises in Brazil. In 78 of the survey's valid cases, the PMO is operated using the organization's internal resources. A possible conclusion is that the PMO is unlikely to positively relate to the culture of external services used by the organization and to use outsourcing to operate the PMO.     

Project Management Office Transformations: Direct and Moderating Effects That Enhance Performance and Maturity

This article aims at understanding organizational change through the study of project management office (PMO) transformations. This article suggests that performance resulting from a PMO transformation is moderated by the organizational context, change management, and by changes in coordination mechanisms—control or service orientation. This exploratory study adopted a quantitative methodology involving a sample of 184 PMO changes. It confirms the multifaceted nature of the context involved in a PMO transformation. External events play a key role in triggering change and improving performance. Key findings suggest that increasing the PMO’s supportive role improves project performance, business performance, and project management maturity. Conversely, increasing the PMO’s control role does not improve performance. This study's major contribution is to provide some empirical evidence concerning organizational change management.     

Contextualized Project Management Practice: A Cluster Analysis of Practices and Best Practices

The specificity of project management in different contexts and industries is recognized, but little empirical research encompasses a sufficiently broad range of contexts and project types to precisely identify these specificities. This article adopts such a wide perspective based on a large sample of data from an ongoing empirical investigation of project management practice. Contextual archetypes are identified (i.e., clusters of experienced practitioners that share similar organizational and project contexts). Archetypes of contextualized practice are then investigated through the study of the extent of use of empirically identified toolsets in each cluster. The results empirically confirm some well‐known assumptions about practice but also sharpen the knowledge and understanding of practice in real complex multidimensional contexts. A new concept of “performing‐maturity” emerged from the data. This concept sheds light on the entangled imbrications of maturity, competence, and success. Practices are regressed against performing‐maturity to reveal best contextualized practices.     

A Relational Typology of Project Management Offices

This explorative article develops a relational typology of PMOs based on their roles with stakeholders. A multi‐case study was used to identify the roles of PMOs in multiple‐PMO settings. A three‐dimensional role space allows locating the complex relational profiles that PMOs take on with respect to their stakeholders in practice. Superordinate, subordinate, and coequal roles were identified in a framework of servicing, controlling, and partnering in organizations. While servicing (subordinate role profile) and controlling (superordinate role profile) support organizational effectiveness and exploitation of knowledge, partnering (coequal role profile) creates the slack necessary for potential exploration of new knowledge.     

How project management office leaders facilitate cross‐project learning and continuous improvement

The purpose of this study is to shed light on how project management office (PMO) leaders facilitate cross‐project learning and continuous improvement. Twenty leaders of PMOs were interviewed; findings were validated by two focus groups. The research reveals that PMO leaders facilitate cross‐project improvement by embedding accumulated knowledge from past project experiences into project management routines that are utilized across multiple projects. The research also points to the phenomenon of “red light learning,” where lessons learned sessions can be enculturated as punitive, undermining individual and organizational learning. Recommendations focus on enhancing the social capital of the PMO leader and improving the quality and quantity of reflective practice over the course of the project life cycle.     

工程项目知识管理组织模式研究

知识管理作为一种新型的管理模式与方法,已经被广泛地应用到各个行业中。文章对知识管理组织模式进行了一定程度的探讨,提出了以团队为基础的工程项目知识管理组织,以便在工程项目实施过程中能更有效地进行知识管理。     

装备制造业集群知识管理过程研究

本文首先分析了装备制造业集群知识的基本特征,然后对装备制造业集群的知识的各层次进行分析,并对其内部的知识网络分析,最后建立并分析装备制造业集群内外知识管理过程模型。     

Project interface choice and knowledge creation: Evidence of international science cooperation in Taiwan

To heed the recent calls for more inquiries into the endogenous nature of governance decisions, this study aims to develop a comparative perspective on the performance implication of the project interface design in the context of international scientific cooperation. Using Heckman's two-stage model in a sample of 217 international scientific cooperation projects sponsored by the Taiwanese government, this study shows that project performance characterized by the collective knowledge creation is explained more by team competence and inter-team social capital than by the project interface choice per se. Furthermore, the knowledge co-creation performance is impaired in the presence of project interface misfit, either over- or under-guarding the knowledge exchange in science cooperation. The findings not only yield implications for managing international cooperation in scientific research but offer comparability and equivalency with the organization-level studies characterized by knowledge exchange/creation and governance difficulties.     

Evidence‐Based Scope for Reducing “Fire‐Fighting” in Project Management

This paper reviews the problems of project management as reported by 1,879 individuals employed in the construction, manufacturing, process, and service industries in North‐West Europe over 23 years. Data obtained by a written questionnaire confirms that organizational relationships need the most attention. The data exhibits no trends over the 23 years. It indicates that many of the problems of project management are “institutional”; in other words, they are due to organizational cultures rather than inherent in project work. The evidence supports the view that poor discipline at the front‐end of projects results in too much “fire‐fighting” in project execution to overcome problems that could have been prevented. Prevention of these institutional problems requires action at the level of corporate governance, above the level of project management.     

Situational Project Management for Collaborative Research Projects

Collaborative research projects form a specific project type, aimed at organizing innovation endeavors between industry, academic, and public partners. They've become increasingly widespread and their management is challenged due to ambiguously defined goals and the heterogeneous interests of many partners. We present a situation‐specific approach that enables managers to select established project management knowledge according to changing needs along the project life cycle. Making use of thematic analysis, we develop a graphical framework to describe and analyze project situations. Further we establish situation profiles as a concept to relate each situation to a management method that corresponds with its managerial needs.     

融入知识管理后的工程项目管理

随着知识经济时代的到来,知识管理与工程项目管理联系日益密切。融入知识管理后的工程项目管理呈现了新特点:信息化、柔性化、敏捷化。本文在探讨新特点的同时,进一步提出基于知识管理上的工程项目管理体系框架,对知识管理和工程项目管理的结合应用进行了初步分析。     

How Project Manager–Project Owner Interaction Can Work Within and Influence Project Risk Management

Inherent interest conflicts between a project management team and project owner are often neglected in project risk management. Risk management by the project management team basically focuses on project short‐term survival, or project success toward handover to the customer, while for the project owner, strategic success should be more important. To see how this takes place in and influences real projects, seven large projects were studied, and interaction in project risk management between the project owners and project management team was examined for each project. The study revealed that the main focus in the studied projects was on operational risks, even within the project owner's set of high‐priority risks.     

索赔管理在架大修项目中的研究

对于地铁列车架大修项目中的索赔管理进行研究,着力于建立一套标准的索赔管理模式,其主要包括索赔意识、索赔解决和索赔监督三个方面。明确了在项目管理和索赔的不同阶段应侧重于哪些工作;阐述了索赔团队人员的角色职责、工作流程;总结了面对不同的索赔对象应采取针对性的策略。     

我国软件产业集群治理问题研究

利用集群模式发展软件产业成为世界各国的通行做法。软件产业集群有四种典型治理模式,并且治理模式随集群发展也在不断演进。针对我国软件产业集群治理中存在的问题,应当进行集群整合,优化治理模式,强化内部合作机制,提升服务层次,从而增强集群治理的有效性。     

Building Innovation Excellence of World Class: The Cluster as an Instrument of Spatial Governance in the European Union

European spatial governance is becoming an intriguing mix of ideas from the economic, political and cultural spheres. This article asserts that, in the EU's spatial planning, the cluster is increasingly part of a hybrid spatial politics, here named the ‘cluster gaze’, based on the interplay of innovation‐oriented political rationality and spatial governance. To study this process, the article provides an empirical investigation into selected EU documentation. The investigation is based on two perspectives. First, the cluster is analysed as a mediating instrument to stimulate and rescale transnational market developments in the EU. Second, the cluster is studied as an instrument of spatial management — one that builds on a business managerial ethos and endorses a specific hierarchical spatial imaginary and a cluster evidence base to assess the productivity and efficiency of European clusters. Both of these perspectives pave the way for a European ‘politics of cluster excellence’ that is about the constant sharpening of cluster practices, continuous evaluation and ranking, and the enhancement of cluster performance to rise from the ‘European league’ towards the ‘world class’.     

宁波中小企业集群创新网络治理研究

经过多年的发展,宁波众多中小企业集群已经从简单模仿的块状经济发展到集群创新网络。目前宁波中小企业集群发展面临着缺乏整体规划,群内核心企业缺位,群内外资企业植根性差,产学研关系松散以及群内结点关系链凝固,产业链带动能力不足等突出问题。建议今后宁波产业集群治理应实现公共治理和自发治理的协同,从优化公共政策,整合公共资源,扶持核心企业,完善信用机制建设,强化产学研对接以及营造网络化环境等方面进行加强集群治理。     

再造通信设计企业项目管理流程的研究

作为一种管理创新,项目管理流程再造和组织结构变革是治理通信设计企业组织运营结构的重要一环。项目管理流程再造意味着由传统职能管理到面向流程管理的转变,意味着通信设计企业全新的组织管理模式及运行方式,根据客户需求设定项目管理流程,再根据流程设机构和配置资源,整合项目管理流程步骤,形成项目管理流程体系,可以提高项目管理的效率和质量,是实现项目流程管理科学化、规范化的关键。     

Strategic and Cultural Misalignment: Knowledge Sharing Barriers in Project Networks

This article draws on theories from knowledge and project management to develop an understanding of how knowledge sharing is encouraged and hindered in the context of a multifirm network assembled to execute an innovative shipbuilding project. The empirical data are based on a qualitative case study, collected from in‐depth face‐to‐face interviews in China and Norway, with the key people from a ship owner, shipbuilder, and ship technology supplier. The research indicates three interesting findings: First, differences in organizational culture (not national culture) hamper knowledge sharing. Second, a strategic misalignment made knowledge sharing difficult. Third, protecting knowledge by patenting and secrecy barely influenced the knowledge sharing processes. Based on previous research and lessons learned from case study experience, we suggest a framework to analyze challenges and links in project networks.     

Learning Through Interactions: Improving Project Management Through Communities of Practice

Communities of practice are a possible mechanism for improving knowledge sharing among project managers, both within and between organizations. Based on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, we theorize a model of participation intensity in communities of practice by project managers and explore the use of Web 2.0 technologies to increase this participation. Using structural equation modeling, we test the research model and find that the factors of reputation, enjoyment, and management support impact the participation intensity of project managers in communities of practice. However, we do not find support for the impact of Web 2.0 technologies on participation intensity. This study provides evidence that participation in communities of practice can result in individual benefits for the project manager, as well as in more far‐reaching organizational benefits.