Contextualising capability development: configurations of knowledge governance mechanisms in project-based organizations (original) (raw)
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The governance of knowledge in project-based organizations
International Journal of Project Management, 2012
This research investigates patterns of knowledge governance practices in project-based organizations (PBOs). Five propositions about knowledge governance in PBOs were deductively and empirically tested using qualitative data from 82 interviews. The results were triangulated with those of prior studies. Results indicate that knowledge governance practices in PBOs are impacted by structural and situational factors, such as being a subsidiary or standalone PBO, a PBO striving for excellence or not, as well as some preconditions, such as the executives' competence in project governance. The results show that informal governance mechanisms are more useful than formal when it comes to knowledge creating processes. Governance of informal knowledge creating mechanisms appears to be complex for executives and their preconceptions showed either to be enablers or barriers to productive knowledge governance practices. Executive's competence and preconditions, concerning aspects like human capabilities and attitudes to professional ethos, seems to impact knowledge governance strategies. In subsidiary PBOs knowledge governance provides practitioners with proper assistance to avoid unbeneficial situations of having knowledge silos among loosely coupled islands.
2019
Over the last 20 years, there has been an increase in the study of project-based learning to deploy knowledge management strategies and the concept of organizational capability. We address this topic in the context of infrastructure development projects. Through a review of existing literature complemented by pilot empirical research carried out in MultiWaterWork program, and Gaasperdammer tunnel project in the Netherlands, Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge in China and Crossrail in the UK, research propositions are presented on the relationship among knowledge management, project-based learning, and organizational capabilities. The findings reject the position of knowledge management as a best practice toolkit for immediate use and emphasize that there is no pure copy-paste knowledge learned from one project to another. Learning is proposed as the missing link between project capabilities and knowledge management. The study then focuses on the contribution of sets of project capabiliti...
2013
This exploratory case-based study investigates the development of project management (PM) as an organisational capability in two public sector organisations (PSO) during a period of rapid environmental change. Within the PM literature, the concept of project management capability (PMC) and how it develops over time through organizational learning is still an emerging tradition led to date by mainly European scholars (Lindkvist, Söderlund, Davies, Brady, Hobday, etc.). This investigation locates itself within this emerging tradition and represents a unique empirical opportunity to study the learning processes involved in PMC development in a complex setting that shows these processes in greater relief. In both of the organizations studied, the elevation and enhancement of PMC from a relatively low-level activity to a strategic supporting competence was triggered by radical and rapid change in the external environment during the 2000s. The main process insight is that PMC is found to be developed as a dynamic organisational capability in complex PM settings through organisational complex problem-solving (CPS). The overall outcomes of the study build upon and extend the emerging PMC literature in at least three important respects, with implications for traditional PM research and practice. Firstly, in contrast to the mechanistic view of traditional PM, this study supports an integrated knowledge-based view of ‘projects as process’ and ‘PM as practice’. In this view, a project is seen to be ‘a mode of organising to accomplish a temporary undertaking’ and PMC is seen as a strategic organisational practice in organising complex projects. Secondly, PMC is honed as a practice through goal-directed organisational CPS. This builds upon and extends the work of Popper on the evolutionary growth of knowledge by revealing problemsolving as a two-stage process of differentiation-integration, or disorder-order. In contrast to traditional PM which follows a path from ‘order to order’, the development of PMC as an organisational capability is found to proceed from ‘order to disorder to order’. Thirdly, using the lens of PM as practice, a 'distributed organising' approach is suggested for coordinating the formation of ‘complex knowledge’ under organisational CPS, which is inherently emergent and dynamic. This contrasts with the ‘centralised planning’ approach of traditional PM, which assumes that knowledge is manifest in pre-given plans that are executed with little organisational learning expected beyond the application of prior knowledge. KEYWORDS: Project Management; Dynamic Organisational Capability; Practice; Complex Problem-Solving; Distributed Organising; Disorder; Entropy
Identifying areas of knowledge governance for successful projects
Journal of Civil Engineering and Management, 2012
Projects undertaken in the project-based industry are characterized by multiple stakeholders, uncertainty, and complexity due to the unique nature of each project. These differences also extend to knowledge movement from one project to another. Increased knowledge creation resulting from project implementation is expected to lead to numerous benefits. These benefits encompass reusability of lessons learned, as well as knowledge of strategic, operational, organizational, and managerial aspects of the firm. By adopting a unified knowledge creation framework, firms seek tangible and intangible benefits such as cost reduction, improved productivity, enhanced efficiency, and business growth. A case study was used to identify problem areas of knowledge creation and align corporate and project objectives. Incorporating a comprehensive knowledge creation plan in the organizational memory infrastructure can be a significant stride toward improving overall project management efficiency and in...
Knowledge processes and capabilities in project-based organizations
2012
The beauty of projects lies in their ability to integrate different knowledge bases and expertise in novel ways. Projects, though, are temporary in nature and this has consequences for the organization that uses them as a business strategy to improve its efficiency. Project-based organizations are representative of this organizational form and can either be standalone or subsidiary organizations within a larger corporation. In project-based organizations the majority of products or services are produced through projects for either internal or external customers. Nevertheless, project-based organizations are characterized as loosely coupled systems with independent sub-units resulting in sparse internal knowledge processes and capability development. Real estate organizations are often composite organizations where one part is project-based with a temporary perspective, and the other parts perceive the organization to have a longer term perspective, represented by facility management...
Learning in and from projects: the learning modes and a learning capability model
Production Planning & Control
The notion of 'project delivery' is well embedded in and across the management and organisational sciences literature-generating a narrative that reflects and recognises the instrumental nature of projects and programmes in strategy execution. Project management, as a distinct and well-established body of research enquiry, has increasingly sought to focus our attention on the impacts of complexity, risk and uncertainty in projects; the corollary being a desideratum to strengthen our theoretical understanding of how insight and learning from projects may influence improvements to organisational efficiency. The wider literature suggests that organisational learning remains a challenging proposition, particularly in the context of organisations operating in environments of high complexity. In this paper, we enhance the conversation on organisational learning through a series of case studies, generating evidence of thirteen 'learning modes'. The paper proposes that mature organisations tend to exhibit a greater number of learning modes and that there is a tendency to capture and socialise knowledge with a greater emphasis on the context of the learning situation rather than the learning artefact in isolation. The empirical evidence gathered in this paper forms the basis of a capability model, characterised by the thirteen modes of learning. The model intimates that learning occurs, and is more effective, when knowledge and information are enacted in practice through the learning modes which form a nucleus of the organisational learning capability. The research concludes with a call to action that emphasises the strategic importance to improve learning practices in project orientedorganisations.
An Integrated View of KM: Toward a Project Learning Organization
In the last 20 years, various Knowledge Management (KM) approaches and solutions have been developed, although companies use them only to make corporate knowledge explicit, collected, and organized into large and homogeneous knowledge repositories, groupware or wiki systems, knowledge portals, etc. According to this milieu, practitioners believe that the introduction of such solutions will "mechanically" conduct innovation within the company. In fact, they do not consider the interdependencies among human actions, institutional roles, and technology architecture of KM systems applied within companies. These aspects are taken into account in the two new models proposed in this paper for Project Based Organizations (PBO): (i) a model for the typical process of project life cycle, (ii) a model that allows practitioners to develop successful KM solutions. These tend to integrate organizational strategies and culture, business processes, and technological solutions.
2015
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to extend the learning boundaries of traditional project capability, which follows the linear planning paradigm, in order to include non-linear complex projects that cannot be completely specified and planned in advance, and so require continuous learning over their life cycles. Design/methodology/approach Based on an earlier empirical investigation, where complex-project capability (CPC) is developed through dynamic organizational learning based on non-linear problem solving, the paper examines some of the conceptual and practical implications of this process insight. The focus here is on incomplete pre-given knowledge and emergent knowledge creation during CPC development. Findings Using the three interrelated dimensions of project type, knowledge creation method, and organizational learning approach, the paper reinterprets Karl Popper’s linear problem solving model for learning in traditional projects by introducing the concept of knowledge entropy (disorder) for learning in non-linear complex projects. The latter follows a path from “order to disorder to order” rather than from “order to order” under traditional assumptions. Research limitations/implications By identifying a common learning process at individual, group, and organizational levels, developing CPC can be viewed as a “learning organization”. This multi-level approach facilitates research into distributed organizing for emergent knowledge creation during CPC development. Practical implications In contrast to traditional planned projects with up-front prior knowledge, complex projects are characterized by incomplete knowledge. The challenge of dealing with knowledge uncertainty in complex projects through continuous learning has practical implications for project learning, planning, knowledge management, and leadership. Originality/value The concept of knowledge entropy (disorder) extends the learning boundaries of traditional projects, where little learning is anticipated, by including complex projects with knowledge uncertainty requiring continuous learning. KEYWORDS: Discovery, Organizational Learning, Practice, Problem Solving, Complex-Project Capability, Uncertainty, Knowledge Entropy