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.

Boundary weaving : the social structure and processes of organizational boundaries

Boundaries are an important field of study because they mediate almost every aspect of organizational life. They are becoming increasingly more important as organizations change more frequently and yet, despite the endemic use of the boundary metaphor in common organizational parlance, they are poorly understood. Organizational boundaries are under-theorized and researchers in related fields often simply assume their existence, without defining them. The literature on organizational boundaries is fragmented with no unifying theoretical basis. As a result, when it is recognized that an organizational boundary is "dysfunctional". there is little recourse to models on which to base remediating action. This research sets out to develop just such a theoretical model and is guided by the general question: "What is the nature of organizational boundaries?" It is argued that organizational boundaries can be conceptualised through elements of both social structure and of social process. Elements of structure include objects, coupling, properties and identity. Social processes include objectification, identification, interaction and emergence. All of these elements are integrated by a core category, or basic social process, called boundary weaving. An organizational boundary is a complex system of objects and emergent properties that are woven together by people as they interact together, objectifying the world around them, identifying with these objects and creating couplings of varying strength and polarity as well as their own fragmented identity. Organizational boundaries are characterised by the multiplicity of interconnections, a particular domain of objects, varying levels of embodiment and patterns of interaction. The theory developed in this research emerged from an exploratory, qualitative research design employing grounded theory methodology. The field data was collected from the training headquarters of the New Zealand Army using semi-structured interviews and follow up observations. The unit of analysis is an organizational boundary. Only one research context was used because of the richness and multiplicity of organizational boundaries that were present. The model arose, grounded in the data collected, through a process of theoretical memoing and constant comparative analysis. Academic literature was used as a source of data to aid theory development and the saturation of some central categories. The final theory is classified as middle range, being substantive rather than formal, and is generalizable across medium to large organizations in low-context societies. The main limitation of the research arose from the breadth of the research with multiple lines of inquiry spanning several academic disciplines, with some relevant areas such as the role of identity and complexity being addressed at a necessarily high level. The organizational boundary theory developed by this research replaces the typology approaches, typical of previous theory on organizational boundaries and reconceptualises the nature of groups in organizations as well as the role of "boundary spanners". It also has implications for any theory that relies on the concept of boundaries, such as general systems theory. The main contribution of this research is the development of a holistic model of organizational boundaries including an explanation of the multiplicity of boundaries . no organization has a single definable boundary. A significant aspect of this contribution is the integration of aspects of complexity theory and identity theory to explain the emergence of higher-order properties of organizational boundaries and of organizational identity. The core category of "boundary weaving". is a powerful new metaphor that significantly reconceptualises the way organizational boundaries may be understood in organizations. It invokes secondary metaphors such as the weaving of an organization's "boundary fabric". and provides managers with other metaphorical perspectives, such as the management of boundary friction, boundary tension, boundary permeability and boundary stability. Opportunities for future research reside in formalising and testing the theory as well as developing analytical tools that would enable managers in organizations to apply the theory in practice.

A model of organizational innovation implementation effectiveness in small to medium firms

The present study aims to validate the current best-practice model of implementation effectiveness in small and mid-size businesses. Data from 135 organizations largely confirm the original model across various types of innovation. In addition, we extended this work by highlighting the importance of human resources in implementation effectiveness and the consequences of innovation effectiveness on future adoption attitudes. We found that the availability of skilled employees was positively related to implementation effectiveness. Furthermore, organizations that perceived a high level of benefits from implemented innovations were likely to have a positive attitude towards future innovation adoption. The implications of our improvements to the original model of implementation effectiveness are discussed.

Facilitating student self-direction in a blended learning environment

Business postgraduate education is rapidly adopting virtual learning environments to facilitate the needs of a time-poor stakeholder community, where part-time students find it difficult to attend face-to-face classes. Creating engaged, flexible learning opportunities in the virtual world is therefore the current challenge for many business academics. However, in the blended learning environment there is also the added pressure of encouraging these students to develop soft managerial or generic skills such as self-reflection. The current paper provides an overview of an action-research activity exploring the experiences of students who were required to acquire the skills of self-reflection within a blended learning unit dominated by on-line learning delivery. We present the responses of students and the changes made to our teaching and learning activities to improve the facilitation of both our face-to-face delivery as well as the on-line learning environment.

Predicting employee intentions to support organizational change : an examination of identification processes during a re-brand

This study examined if organizational identification can account for the mechanisms by which two-change management practices (communication and participation) influence employees’ intentions to support change. The context was a sample of 82 hotel employees in the early stages of a re-brand. Identification with the new hotel fully mediated the relationship between communication and adaptive and proactive intentions to support change, as well as between participation and proactive intentions.

Taking stock of temporary organizational forms : a systematic review and research agenda

This paper brings together the research on temporary organizational forms. Despite a recent surge in publications on this topic, there have been few attempts to integrate knowledge on what we know of such temporary forms of organization. In order to correct this, an integrative framework is proposed around four central themes: time, team, task and context. Within each of these themes, the paper offers an overview of the literature, the gaps in what we know, and what future directions might be taken by scholars hoping to contribute to this important and rapidly growing field.

Using strategic movement to calibrate a neural compass : a spiking network for tracking head direction in rats and robots

The head direction (HD) system in mammals contains neurons that fire to represent the direction the animal is facing in its environment. The ability of these cells to reliably track head direction even after the removal of external sensory cues implies that the HD system is calibrated to function effectively using just internal (proprioceptive and vestibular) inputs. Rat pups and other infant mammals display stereotypical warm-up movements prior to locomotion in novel environments, and similar warm-up movements are seen in adult mammals with certain brain lesion-induced motor impairments. In this study we propose that synaptic learning mechanisms, in conjunction with appropriate movement strategies based on warm-up movements, can calibrate the HD system so that it functions effectively even in darkness. To examine the link between physical embodiment and neural control, and to determine that the system is robust to real-world phenomena, we implemented the synaptic mechanisms in a spiking neural network and tested it on a mobile robot platform. Results show that the combination of the synaptic learning mechanisms and warm-up movements are able to reliably calibrate the HD system so that it accurately tracks real-world head direction, and that calibration breaks down in systematic ways if certain movements are omitted. This work confirms that targeted, embodied behaviour can be used to calibrate neural systems, demonstrates that ‘grounding’ of modeled biological processes in the real world can reveal underlying functional principles (supporting the importance of robotics to biology), and proposes a functional role for stereotypical behaviours seen in infant mammals and those animals with certain motor deficits. We conjecture that these calibration principles may extend to the calibration of other neural systems involved in motion tracking and the representation of space, such as grid cells in entorhinal cortex.

Revealing common attributes of organizational identities using performance measurement systems

Identity is unique, multiple and dynamic. This paper explores common attributes of organisational identities, and examines the role of performance management systems (PMSs) on revealing identity attributes. One of the influential PMSs, the balanced scorecard, is used to illustrate the arguments. A case study of a public-sector organisation suggests that PMSs now place a value on the intangible aspects of organisational life as well as the financial, periodically revealing distinctiveness, relativity, visibility, fluidity and manageability of public-sector identities that sustain their viability. This paper contributes to a multi-disciplinary approach and its practical application, demonstrating an alternative pathway to identity-making using PMSs.

On IT governance structures and their effectiveness in collaborative organizational structures

Organizations today engage in various forms of alliances to manage their existing business processes or to diversify into new processes to sustain their competitive positions. Many of today’s alliances use the IT resources as their backbone. The results of these alliances are collaborative organizational structures with little or no ownership stakes between the parties. The emergence of Web 2.0 tools is having a profound effect on the nature and form of these alliance structures. These alliances heavily depend on and make radical use of the IT resources in a collaborative environment. This situation requires a deeper understanding of the governance of these IT resources to ensure the sustainability of the collaborative organizational structures. This study first suggests the types of IT governance structures required for collaborative organizational structures. Semi-structured interviews with senior executives who operate in such alliances reveal that co-created IT governance structures are necessary. Such structures include co-created IT-steering committees, co-created operational committees, and inter-organizational performance management and communication systems. The findings paved the way for the development of a model for understanding approaches to governing IT and evaluating the effectiveness for such governance mechanisms in today’s IT dependent alliances. This study presents a sustainable IT-related capabilities approach to assessing the effectiveness of suggested IT governance structures for collaborative alliances. The findings indicate a favourable association between organizations IT governance efforts and their ability to sustain their capabilities to leverage their IT resources. These IT-related capabilities also relate to measures business value at the process and firm level. This makes it possible to infer that collaborative organizations’ IT governance efforts contribute to business value.

Organizational rhetoric in the prospectuses of elite private schools: unpacking strategies of persuasion

The way in which private schools use rhetoric in their communications offers important insights into how these organizational sites persuade audiences and leverage marketplace advantage in the context of contemporary educational platforms. Through systemic analysis of rhetorical strategies employed in 65 ‘elite’ school prospectuses in Australia, this paper contributes to understandings of the ways schools’ communications draw on broader cultural politics in order to shape meanings and interactions among organizational actors. We identify six strategies consistently used by schools to this end: identification, juxtapositioning, bolstering or self-promotion, partial reporting, self-expansion, and reframing or reversal. We argue that, in the context of marketization and privatization discourses in twenty-first-century western education, these strategies attempt to subvert potentially threatening discourses, in the process actively reproducing broader economic and social privilege and inequalities.

The relationship between organizational and professional commitment in the case of project workers : implications for project management

The purpose of this article is to investigate the relationship between organizational and professional commitment of project workers. We first present (1) role-conflict theory and exchange theory to establish the multiple dimensions of commitment (affective, continuance, and normative) and (2) social identity theory to support our argument for different foci of commitment—organization and profession. Building on these theoretical lenses, we present the literature review that compares organizational and professional commitment of project workers with respect to the three dimensions of commitment. Adopting a positivist approach and a sample of 141 project workers, we use Pearson’s correlation to identify the relationship between affective organizational and affective professional, continuance organizational and continuance professional, and normative organizational and normative professional commitment. We report significant correlation between affective organizational commitment and affective professional commitment of project workers. The correlations between continuance organizational commitment and continuance professional commitment and normative organizational commitment and normative professional commitment are moderate. We then discuss the implications of these findings for the project management profession.

The relation between organizational and professional commitment in case of project workers : implications for the project management

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between organizational and professional commitment of project workers. We first present (i) role–conflict theory, and exchange theory to establish the multiple dimensions of commitment—affective, continuance, and normative; and (ii). social–identity theory to support our argument for different foci of commitment—organization and profession. Building on these theoretical lenses, we present the literature review that compares organizational and professional commitment of project workers with respect to the 3 dimensions of commitment. Adopting a positivist approach and a sample of 141 project workers, we use Pearson’s correlation to identify the relationship between affective organizational and affective professional, continuance organizational and continuance professional, and normative organizational and normative professional commitment. We report significant correlation between affective organizational commitment and affective professional commitment of project workers. The correlations between continuance organizational commitment, and continuance professional commitment; and normative organizational commitment, and normative professional commitment are moderate. We then discuss the implications of these findings for the project management profession.

Work motivation as a determinant of organizational and professional commitment in case of temporary organizations : theoretical perspectives

The purpose of this paper is to present a theoretical framework to investigate the relationship between work motivation, organizational commitment, and professional commitment in temporary organizations. Through a review of theory, we contend that work motivation has two major patterns- internal motivation (that includes intrinsic, need-based, and self-deterministic theories), and external motivation (that includes cognitive or process-based theories of motivation) through which it has been investigated. We also subsume the nature of employee commitment to be of three types- affective, continuance, and normative. This commitment may either be towards organization or profession. A literature review reveals that the characteristics of the temporary organization - specifically tenure, and task - regulate the relationship between work motivation, and organizational commitment, and professional commitment. Relevant propositions are presented.

IT governance in collaborative organizational structures

Organizations today engage in various forms of alliances to manage their existing business processes or to diversify into new processes to sustain their competitive positions. Many of today’s alliances use the IT resources as their backbone. The results of these alliances are collaborative organizational structures with little or no ownership stakes between the parties. The emergence of Web 2.0 tools is having a profound effect on the nature and form of these alliance structures. These alliances heavily depend on and make radical use of the IT resources in a collaborative environment. This situation requires a deeper understanding of the governance of these IT resources to ensure the sustainability of the collaborative organizational structures. This study reports on the first stage of this initiative. It suggest the types of IT governance structures required for collaborative organizational structures. Semi-structured interviews with senior executives who operate in such alliances reveal that co-created IT governance structures are necessary. Such structures include co-created IT-steering committees, cocreated operational committees, and inter-organizational performance management and communication systems. The findings pave the way for the development of a model for understanding approaches to governing IT and evaluating the effectiveness for such governance mechanisms in today’s IT dependent alliances.