Developing soft skills to manage user expectations in IT projects: Knowledge reuse among IT project managers

This research explores information technology (IT) project managers' reuse of knowledge associated with soft skills when managing user expectations. Through interviews with IT project managers, several themes emerged: novelty of problems, conditions within the organization, types of available knowledge, and methods for reusing knowledge. Within this study, we discovered the need for additional research on how social norms and organizational conditions encourage or inhibit knowledge reuse. Furthermore, we identified a difference in the usefulness of knowledge captured in formal repositories according to levels of project management experience. The findings confirm, extend, and illuminate the current research associated with knowledge reuse in IT project management.     

Shared human capital in project management: A systematic review of the literature

From the viewpoint of project success, the importance of human capital in projects cannot be overemphasized. Despite this, previous studies have only explored some segments of human capital in projects (e.g., commitment or trust). The aim of this study is to gather studies on the concept of human capital in project management and create an aggregating concept of recent studies. We report and discuss the findings from a systematic review of the research literature. This article focuses particularly on shared human capital (common meanings on the interfaces of the individual and team), and we conclude that the constructive elements of shared human capital are values, tacit knowledge, and social support.     

Team leader experience in improvement teams: A social networks perspective

In this research, we disentangle the relationship between several key aspects of a team leader's experience and the likelihood of improvement project success. Using the lens of socio-technical systems, we argue that the effect of team leader experience derives from the social system as well as the technical system. The aspects of team leader experience we examine include team leader social capital (a part of the social system) and team leader experience leading projects of the same type (a part of the technical system).We examine four different, yet related, dimensions of a team leader's social capital, which we motivate based on the social networks literature. One dimension, team leader familiarity, suggests that social capital is created when team leaders have experience working with current team members on prior improvement projects, and that such social capital increases the likelihood of improvement project success. We develop three additional dimensions, using social network analysis (SNA), to capture the idea that the improvement team leader's social capital extends beyond the current team to include everyone the leader has previously worked with on improvement projects. Contrasting our SNA-based dimensions with team leader familiarity enables us to better understand the impact of a team leader's social capital both inside and beyond the team. We also examine the effect of a team leader's experience leading prior projects of the same type, and consider the extent to which organizational experience may moderate the impact of both team leader social capital and same-type project experience.Based on analysis of archival data of six sigma projects spanning six years from a Fortune 500 consumer products manufacturer, we find that two of our SNA-based dimensions of team leader social capital, as well as experience leading projects of the same type, increase the likelihood of project success. In addition, we show that organizational experience moderates the relationship between team leader same-type project experience and project success. However, this is not the case for the relationship between the dimensions of team leader social capital and project success. These results provide insights regarding how dimensions of team leader experience and organizational experience collectively impact the operational performance of improvement teams.     

建设项目管理者心理资本、合作行为对项目管理绩效影响机制的实证研究

为考察项目管理者良好的心理素质及积极的合作行为对项目管理绩效的影响作用,本文以心理资本表征心理素质,以积极心理学和组织行为学等相关理论作为研究框架,提出心理资本、合作行为对项目管理绩效影响机制的相关假设。通过收集建筑业项目管理人员的406个问卷调查样本,运用结构方程建模的方法对该影响机制展开了实证研究。研究结果表明：建设项目管理者的心理资本与项目管理绩效显著正相关,其中“乐观”和“韧性”的两个心理资本维度影响程度最高;合作行为作为自变量同样与项目管理绩效显著正相关,而作为部分中介变量对项目管理绩效的作用则会受到心理资本的影响。因此,增强建设项目管理者的心理素质,能促其合作行为的发生,进而能有效地提升项目管理绩效,达到预期的建设项目目标。     

Effect of Knowledge Leadership on Knowledge Sharing in Engineering Project Design Teams: The Role of Social Capital

Knowledge sharing is a precondition for engineering project design teams to achieve an efficient design; however, designers are not always willing to share knowledge with other team members. To improve knowledge sharing, this article investigates the effect of knowledge leadership on knowledge sharing in engineering project design teams by examining the role of social capital. Our results show a significant indirect effect of knowledge leadership on knowledge sharing through the mediating role of social capital. Therefore, effective knowledge sharing depends on knowledge leaders to develop a share vision, and promote a trustworthy and collaborative environment for designers.     

风险投资公司的评价研究:从项目的角度

基于目前风险投资市场上优秀项目占主导地位这一现状,从项目的角度,以充分识别自身优劣势为基础,建立一个包含风险投资公司背景、人才及管理支撑、资金支持、市场支持4个一级指标,15个二级指标的集合,运用模糊综合评价法,最终帮助项目筛选得到一个能优势互补的风险投资公司。通过案例分析证明,所提出的指标体系能较好地反映项目的需求,该方法对解决项目与风险投资公司之间匹配问题有较大实践意义。     

Rallying the Troops or Beating the Horses? How Project‐Related Demands Can Lead to Either High‐Performance or Abusive Supervision

In today's high‐pressure work environment, project managers are often forced to “do more with less.” We argue that this imperative can lead project managers to engage in either high‐performance or abusive supervision behaviors. To understand this process, we develop a model and associated propositions linking a project manager's cognitive appraisal of project‐related demands to high‐performance work practices versus abusive supervision behaviors—both of which impact three project outcomes: stakeholder relationships, people‐related project success factors, and employee well‐being. We propose that the choice between high‐performance work practices and abusive supervision behaviors is moderated by a project manager's personal resources (psychological capital, emotional intelligence, and dark triad personality).     

工程项目融资资本结构最优化模型

从财务杠杠利益与财务风险均衡的角度，探讨了工程项目融资环境下权益资本和债务资本之间的动态调整关系，并指出项目融资最优资本结构是在适度财务风险的条件下，使得综合加权平均资本成本最低，同时使其预期的项目权益资本收益率最高的资本结构。以此为基础，建立了项目融资资本结构的最优化模型。     

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.     

Does Executive Sponsorship Matter for Realizing Project Management Value?

Executive sponsorship is critical to project success; however, the impact of the sponsorship role on project management value and sustainability is not known. Using correlation analysis we examine survey responses from 91 U.S. executives. Formalizing and providing training on the sponsorship role and responsibilities are both significantly related to senior management's perception of the sustainability of project management value. Unexpectedly, no significant relationship exists between the prevalence of the sponsorship role and project management value outcomes. These results extend our understanding of the importance of the sponsorship role and provide practical guidance for those seeking to improve the sustainability of project management value.     

From Every Direction—How Personality Traits and Dimensions of Project Managers Can Conceptually Affect Project Success

Based on extensive literature review, this theoretical paper adds to the “soft skill” research stream by enlarging the scope of personality dimensions and their subsequent effects on project success and, second, considers dimensions heretofore not explored within the project management body of knowledge. We posit that a project manager's extent of communication apprehension, degree of innovativeness, level of self‐monitoring, conflict management style, degree of change orientation and Myers‐Briggs (MBTI) personality type can affect project outcomes. Additionally, we conjecture that organizational dynamics such as structure, incentive systems, and organizational project management maturity can moderate the relationship between these personality dimensions and project success.     

基于层次分析法的风险投资项目评价与决策

层次分析法应用多目标评价决策，是一种十分有效的定性分析与定量分析有机结合的方法，对于风险投资项目而言，其评价决策也是一个多目标，多层次，结构复杂，因素众多的大系统，因而运用层次分析法进行此类项目的评价与决策是合适的，文中对如何应用层次分析法分析风险投资项目的评价决策进行了说明与探讨。     

Coproducing healthcare: individual-level impacts of engaging citizens to develop recommendations for reducing diagnostic error

ABSTRACT

Coproduction has received considerable attention from scholars and practitioners in recent years. While theory and some research suggest that coproduction can have individual-level effects on participating lay actors, few studies have tested such hypothesized effects. This study seeks to add to the evidence base for collective coproduction. Using data from a randomized and controlled research project, it examines whether collective coproduction affects participants’ issue awareness, perceived empowerment, trust in service professionals, and support for coproduction. The results provide empirical evidence that collective coproduction can significantly increase issue awareness, empowerment, and trust. The results for support of coproduction are mixed.     

浅谈地下综合管廊PPP项目实施关键点与运营管理

在进行市政基础建设的过程中,地下综合管廊建设是其中的关键点。为了缓解当前建设的财政压力,引入PPP项目是非常重要的。这种运营管理模式下,政府和社会资本共同合作,能够满足城市建设对于资金的需求。论文将针对PPP项目实施的关键点以及运营管理的具体情况进行分析,并提出一定的建议。     

浅析建设单位设计阶段工程造价控制管理

设计阶段是工程造价有效控制工程造价的关键,因此要有效地控制工程造价,必须坚决把造价控制的重点转移到建设前期的设计阶段来,因为没有设计阶段的造价控制,就不会有真正意义上的造价控制,没有设计方面的节约资金,就难有真正意义上的节约资金。本文分析了建设单位在设计阶段工程造价控制管理中存在问题,提出了解决问题的措施。     

工程限额设计与控制工程投资的关系

建设项目投资控制,就是在投资决策阶段、设计阶段、发包阶段、施工阶段、竣工决算阶段,把建设项目投资的实际发生额控制在批准的投资限额以内,并随时纠正发生的投资偏差。由此保证项目投资管理目标的实现,以求在建设项目中能合理使用人力、物力、财力,取得较好的投资效益和社会效益。限额设计是工程设计质量、水平、效益的综合体现,而控制投资是工程效益形成的重要环节,文章对限额设计及工程投资控制相关知识进行了论述。     

Design implications for task-specific search utilities for retrieval and re-engineering of code

The importance of information retrieval systems is unquestionable in the modern society and both individuals as well as enterprises recognise the benefits of being able to find information effectively. Current code-focused information retrieval systems such as Google Code Search, Codeplex or Koders produce results based on specific keywords. However, these systems do not take into account developers’ context such as development language, technology framework, goal of the project, project complexity and developer’s domain expertise. They also impose additional cognitive burden on users in switching between different interfaces and clicking through to find the relevant code. Hence, they are not used by software developers. In this paper, we discuss how software engineers interact with information and general-purpose information retrieval systems (e.g. Google, Yahoo!) and investigate to what extent domain-specific search and recommendation utilities can be developed in order to support their work-related activities. In order to investigate this, we conducted a user study and found that software engineers followed many identifiable and repeatable work tasks and behaviours. These behaviours can be used to develop implicit relevance feedback-based systems based on the observed retention actions. Moreover, we discuss the implications for the development of task-specific search and collaborative recommendation utilities embedded with the Google standard search engine and Microsoft IntelliSense for retrieval and re-engineering of code. Based on implicit relevance feedback, we have implemented a prototype of the proposed collaborative recommendation system, which was evaluated in a controlled environment simulating the real-world situation of professional software engineers. The evaluation has achieved promising initial results on the precision and recall performance of the system.     

Social Context,Management, and Organizational Performance: When human capital and social capital serve as substitutes

Do internal (administrative human capital) and external (social capital) resources work to reinforce the effects of each other? Work from multiple disciplines has approached this question, and we advance this literature with a theory of social and administrative resources as potential substitutes for each other in the production of public education outcomes. We argue that social capital benefits some groups more than others and that it interacts with management to improve performance. We therefore expect the benefits associated with social capital to be non-uniform across community groups. Using education as our area of study, we find that social capital offers the most direct and unconditional benefits to white students but that management can use human capital resources to compensate disadvantaged students who may lack support and resources outside of the classroom. We do not find support for the expectation that social capital and human administrative capital reinforce the benefits of each other, but we find evidence that the two resource types are substitutable. This implies that management may substitute human capital resources when social capital is low to benefit public program performance.     

Impact of organizational and project factors on acceptance and usage of project management software and perceived project success

This study surveyed 497 participants to determine the factors that affect project professionals' acceptance of project management software and the perceived impact of software usage on their performance. The study finds that greater information quality and higher project complexity are the dominant factors explaining higher levels of system utilization, that greater system functionality and ease of use have a significant positive relationship with increased software usage, and that a strong positive relationship exists between higher usage of project management software and perceived project managers' improved performance. Inconsistent with prior research, more training was not found to be associated with project management software usage. The study explains more than 40% of the variation in project management software acceptance and adds project management software usage to project success factors by empirically confirming for the first time that project management software enhances project professionals' perceived performance and provides a positive impact on the results of their projects. The study provides practical implications for project professionals, their organizations, senior management, decision makers, software developers, and vendors. These findings support the call for further research that investigates the diffusion of information technologies in the project management field and their impact on project success and competitive position.     

Creating supply chain relational capital: The impact of formal and informal socialization processes

Establishing closer social ties between buying and supplying organizations is increasingly cited as a critical differentiator of high and low performers in global supply chains. While the creation of relational capital within an organization is a relatively well identified concept in organizational research, comparatively little research exists on the inter-organizational socialization processes that create relational value in supply chains. In our research, we extend theoretical models of group social conduits into this context, and develop a model that posits the impact of formal and informal socialization processes on the creation of relational capital between buyers and suppliers. Results from our study of 111 manufacturing organizations in the United Kingdom suggest that informal socialization processes are important in the creation of relational capital, which in turn can lead to improved supplier relationship outcomes. Formal bridging socialization conduits appear to play a lesser role in deriving these benefits.