The guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK Guide) : applicability and contribution to project success in Australia

The PMBOK Guide is one of the most influential publications concerning the knowledge of the project manangement. Moreover, the pervasion of this guide seems to be set to increase as the basis of accreditation - in conjunction with the increasing global trend toward obtaining project management professional status. However, despite the influence and strengthening profile of this guide, reports continue to be published that detail numerous project failures in a wide range of different industries. The PMBOK Guide comprises mainly declarative (know-what) and procedural (know-how) information. In this sense, the guide is largely normative and provides a very good example of the limitations of this approach as highlighted by proponents of a move to the genuine application of positibe theory in project management.----- The aim of this paper is to determine the applicability of the guide in Australia and to determine the extent to which project success can be attributed to the guide. Project Managers from a variety of organisations were surveyed. This postal survey yielded 48 replies. Descriptive statistics was used to assess the incidence and effectivieness of all the processes in the guide. The results indicate that there were no processes that could be considered as peripheral or as a candidate for elimination from the guide. More specifically, all the processes were identified as either a key routine process or a key selective process and positively related to the level of project success. However, the results also indicated that other major factors pertaining to causal knowledge (know-why) are, at least, equally important determinants of project success. It is concluded that declarative, procedural and causal knowledge are all valuable, and given the preponderance of the first two types of knowledge, there seems to be an urgent need to now ensure an equal quest for causal knowledge. In terms of developing causal knowledge, a good starting point would appear to be both positive theory from production and economics.

Does psychological stress mediate social deprivation in tooth loss?

It is unclear which theoretical dimension of psychological stress affects health status. We hypothesized that both distress and coping mediate the relationship between socio-economic position and tooth loss. Cross-sectional data from 2915 middle-aged adults evaluated retention of < 20 teeth, behaviors, psychological stress, and sociodemographic characteristics. Principal components analysis of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) extracted 'distress' (a = 0.85) and 'coping' (a =0.83) factors, consistent with theory. Hierarchical entry of explanatory variables into age- and sex-adjusted logistic regression models estimated odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals [95% CI] for retention of < 20 teeth. Analysis of the separate contributions of distress and coping revealed a significant main effect of coping (OR = 0.7 [95% CI = 0.7-0.8]), but no effect for distress (OR = 1.0 [95% CI = 0.9-1.1]) or for the interaction of coping and distress. Behavior and psychological stress only modestly attenuated socio-economic inequality in retention of < 20 teeth, providing evidence to support a mediating role of coping.