Current foci of Nordic approaches to project research

Citation

Lundin, R.A. (2013), "Current foci of Nordic approaches to project research", International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, Vol. 6 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijmpb.2013.35306aaa.002

Current foci of Nordic approaches to project research

Article Type: Guest editorial 1 From: International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, Volume 6, Issue 1

The current special issue has quite a few things in common with two recent special issues in the International Journal of Managing Projects in Business. More specifically, the special issue guest edited by Drouin and Besner (Vol. 5 No. 2) and the one guest edited by Markus Hällgren and Marcus Lindahl (Vol. 5 No. 3). The former focused on project management and its relationships with the organization rather than on the project itself. That special issue mirrors the present concerns of project researchers at the University of Quebec at Montreal in Canada. The latter is focused on the situated practice of project work. That special issue is concerned with project research in large community of scholars interested in the micro-activities of project organizing. The selection presented in this special issue is similar to Drouin and Besner collected from a geographical group of researchers, however from a wide group of research institutions rather than one. Similar to the special issue of Hällgren and Lindahl attention is paid to issues that are important and characteristic for Nordic project research. In contrast, this special issue represents a wider approach to project research from which practice-based research have partly emerged. In this special issue the papers in many respects, represent a geographical area from which a particular interest has arisen from around the Nordic countries – primarily from business schools and technical schools.

The Nordic Academy of Management context

There are many “Academy of Management” conferences around the globe. One in particular is the Nordic Academy of Management which is held every second year. The conference attracts scholars from all of the Nordic countries: Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland, and from all the sub-disciplines of business administration including but not limited to accounting, finance, marketing, organization and entrepreneurship. In 2011 the 21st conference was arranged at Stockholm University and its School of Business. Nordic conferences for business administration researchers have a long history but the current academy set-up is of a later origin. This particular conference had about 350 participants and 300 presentations in 30 tracks, and was held over the course of three days. The conference was buzzing with activity as scholars from all the disciplines met to discuss their research and to socialize.

The primary theme of the 2011 conference was “a practice about practice” reflecting “the Nordic tradition in Business Administration that knowledge in the field of management is closely related to the day-to-day conduct in all aspects of managerial and organizational practices” (the official program book, p. 5). The tracks in 2011 ranged from “Unconventional Views on Entrepreneurship – A Return To Practice? to ”Critical Finance Studies”, and more importantly for this special issue, the project track “Practices in projects – Research Temporary Organizations”.

The project track was initiated by Professor Rolf A. Lundin (Jönköping International Business School, Sweden) and numerous senior researchers helped to convene; Kim Wikström (Åbo Akademi, Finland), Erling S. Andersen (BI, Norway), Runolfur Smari Steintorsson (University of Reykjavik, Iceland), Mats Engwall (Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden), Asbjörn Rolstadås (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway), Pernille Eskerod (University of Southern Denmark, Denmark), Karlos Artto (Aalto University, Finland), Markus Hällgren (Umeå University, Sweden) and Tomas Blomquist (Umeå University, Sweden). In 2011 the project track had most submission (30+) of all tracks at the NFF conference if one does not consider the “open track” (a collection of papers that did not fall into any of the predefined tracks). Although the remarkable number of submissions for the project track is a record one, the project track has been standing strong in comparison to other tracks throughout many years. In our view this indicates the strength of research on projects and temporary organizations within the Nordic countries, that in a somewhat loose interpretation could be collected under the umbrella of “The Scandinavian Approach to Project Management” (in a strict geographical sense Scandinavia does not include Finland and Iceland).

The track’s theme was conceived to reflect contemporary developments and interests in Nordic project research, which could be perceived as a broadening of the Scandinavian approach (Sahlin – Andersson and Söderholm, 2002), or what also have been called the Viking approach to project management (Fangel, 1988). This approach is known for its Social Science based organization research where the people within the organizations are typically in the forefront. The approach often relies on case studies to gain further insights concerning the details of organizing projects. Much of the contributions have contextualized projects within the wider firm and society from a process-related perspective (Kreiner, 1995; Engwall, 2003; Söderholm, 2008). Later contributions have maintained the social sciences perspective to projects where focus have either gone beyond the single isolated project or paid an increasing interest in the micro-practices of project-based organizing (Söderlund, 2010; Hällgren and Söderholm, 2011) (see also the special issue in this journal, Vol. 5 No. 3, 2012).

The purpose of this special issue is to give six examples of studies presented at the Nordic Academy of Management. The contributors are from Finland, Sweden, and Denmark (and a co-author is from Austria), respectively. The papers all have their individual benefits since they were chosen with the quality guideline in mind, but we have deliberately chosen a range of papers that complement each other in organizational context, theoretical depth and methodological approach. Choosing was of course a difficult since there were so many good papers presented at the Nordic Academy meeting. With this collection we hope to give you, dear reader, an understanding of what Nordic project research in general, and the project track at the Nordic Academy of Management in particular, had to offer.

The current examples of Nordic project research

The 30+ papers presented at the conference covered a wide range of themes: project work in public organizations, strategy projects, teaching project matters, service in projects, project governance and management in multi-project environments. In the following we will summarize the papers selected for this special issue.

The establishment of legitimacy: the case of international projects

In her paper Kirsi Aaltonen from Aalto University investigates how legitimacy is constructed in an international project. By developing three in-depth case studies she finds that the project applies different strategies for how they develop legitimacy in relation to the stakeholders in the vicinity of the projects. These strategies include to “conform”, “select” and “manipulate” the external environment, the project network and the process of legitimation. Complexity in any of these “factor classes” as she calls them, makes it harder to establish the legitimacy and get the project accepted by the stakeholders thereof.

The proliferation of project-based, and project-intensive organizations is one of the reasons for why it is interesting, worthwhile and important to understand how projects function. Over time research have come to recognize and understand projects less as isolated organizational entities and more as embedded organizational entities within a general whole (Engwall, 2003).

Sustainable development and project stakeholder management: what standards say

In their paper Pernille Eskerod and Martina Huemann, University of Southern Denmark, and Vienna University of Economics and Business, respectively, further emphasize the interest for the project outside of its isolated activities. The authors take a stakeholder perspective, investigating how stakeholder management and sustainable development principles are reflected in internationally recognized project management standards.

Eskerod and Huemann find that stakeholder issues and sustainable development are treated superficially at the best. To change this, they argue that there has to be a paradigm shift in the underpinning values of the standards and how projects are perceived. The standards are claimed to represent a management-of-stakeholders approach, whereas integrating a management-of-stakeholders approach and a management-for-stakeholders approach would be more appropriate.

With the increasing number of project workers being certified by the major certification bodies this finding caution us to consider the potential long-term effects of standards, that, as demonstrated by Bergman (see below) on a local level will influence, and are influenced by practices on the local level.

How governmental stakeholders influence large projects – the case of nuclear power plant projects

In the paper by Liisa Sallinen, Inkeri Ruuska and Tuomas Ahola, all from Aalto University, more attention is given to stakeholder issues within projects. In the setting of this paper it could be argued that it is particularly important since it focuses upon the construction of nuclear power plants.

In their paper, the authors develop a qualitative case study by using interview data with representatives from the governmental stakeholder and two other companies operating in the nuclear industry. They find that in part contrary to what one would think not all means of influence are restricting, but there is also means that enable and advance nuclear projects. These enabling practices include among others the development of regulations that relate to the project.

Project temporalities: how frogs can become stakeholders

In their paper Kjell Tryggestad, Lise Justesen and Jan Mouritsen from Copenhagen Business School, use an actor-network-analysis methodology to show how stakeholders are not only human or organizational, but can also be found in the animal kingdom and be included in the project organization.

Studying a construction project the authors stumbled upon a case where a frog came in the limelight and changed and delayed the studied project considerably. This paper is interesting because it adds another and more dynamic perspective on the stakeholder issue beyond what is normally considered, and it utilizes a micro sensitive methodology (Actor Network Theory) that allows for an understanding of how small issues within a project can transform stakeholders, stakes and interests.

In the paper the author shows that the frog develops into a non-human stakeholder that changes the stakes of the project and the temporalities within it. The findings suggest that the boundaries of the temporary organization that is usually perceived as somewhat rigid are negotiable but they require a great deal of effort and investment in new project management technologies to be changed.

That is not how we brought you up – how is the strategy of a project formed?

In their paper Elisa Vuori, Sanna Mutka, Pertti Aaltonen and Karlos Artto continue their research on project strategies. They argue that the linear process of implementation and execution of a company’s strategy through a project is somewhat outdated. Instead they suggest that the strategy is emergent and that the project therefore has a major role as the shaper and executor of the parent company’s strategy. They therefore focus upon the emergent parts of the strategy in a system delivery organization.

The analysis is constructed around an in-depth case study and based on interviews with actors within the organization. In the study they found that the in the internal environment top management, the company’s strategy, culture, other current, past and future projects influenced the trajectory of the project and the emergent strategy. In the external environment the customers, competitors, technology, legislation, suppliers, and the economic situation influenced the operations and the strategy. Therefore, the strategy is not necessarily derived internally of the parent organization, it may also be a response to an external factor such as a customer. The authors raise the question whether it is interesting to separate the environments or not when trying to understand the strategy issues, as they argue however, the challenges are quite different and a joint understanding may thus not be entirely beneficial.

Decoupling and standardization in the projectification of a company

With the growing interest for the project within the organization more researchers have come to focus on project portfolios, project strategies and project offices to name but a few. Although recognized early on as one of the drivers very little interest has been devoted to the growth of practices in the project-oriented firm, and how these practices have shaped, and been shaped by the company’s structure, process and employment-based. In their paper, Inger Bergman, Sven Gunnarson and Christine Räisänen at Chalmers, Gothenburg, provides us with such analysis of a major organization.

By an in-depth case study, comprising of forty interviews with ex-employees and consultants in the company Bergman et al. finds that there is two parallel movements; one pushes toward project decoupling in relation to the organization and the other pulls towards standardization of project practices to account for the push effect. These movements echoed the current trends within the standardization movement and were implemented in the scope and focus of the different editions of the company’s book of standards according to five identified phases of development. This study is naturally important since it gives an understanding for contemporary organizational transformation process that an increased number of organizations face in today’s economy.

Some reflections in the selected papers

There are some general themes among the papers. Stakeholder analyses appear to be a popular theme. At least four of the papers refer to that perspective. The selection illustrates that there can be many perspectives on that kind of a topic. The “frog” paper by Justesen et al. illustrates that stakeholders are not necessarily known to the people in charge of a project in advance, but might show up as unexpected events transforming the linearity rule expected in most projects. The article also illustrates that stakeholders at times are in need of a particular spokesmen that takes over the stakeholder’s role. The very first paper on legitimacy – by Aaltonen – also connects to stakeholders in an indirect way. Legitimacy and stakeholders are presumably related as concepts and need to be considered in parallel. Also environmental and sustainability concerns involve stakeholder aspects as illustrated in the article by Eskerod and Huemann. They make a serious point about project management to be a matter of focusing the needs of the stakeholders rather than handling the stakeholders to avoid unexpected traps of not so linear project processes. From a societal point of view, some projects are more “hot” and open for criticism than others. The paper by Sallinen et al. shows how government action is applied in nuclear projects to enable such projects. The last two papers of the selection of papers do not explicitly treat stakeholder perspectives. But still there are relations to observe. One aspect of forming strategy (the article by Vuori et al.) is to consider the set of stakeholders or the evolving set of stakeholders. Even the last article (Bergman et al.) on how the handling of projects develops over time in a project-based company one might conceive of the trajectory of project handling as related to how the set of relevant stakeholders changes over time. There is thus a discernible pattern in the stream of events to be connected to a stakeholder perspective.

In all of the papers in this special issue, there is in fact a reliance on case studies. Even though perspectives on project research has shifted from the singular project to the context of the project, case studies remain to be the dominant way of conducting research in the Nordic tradition. This is by no means unique. Empirically almost all articles related to projects and temporary organizations are using cases for illustration or inspiration. That is true for a special issue of the International Journal of Project Organization & Management (Vol. 2 No. 3, 2010) based on an IRNOP conference held in Berlin and it is often true also for edited books. One special advantage with cases is that they are not only useful in research but can easily also be adapted for teaching purposes since most are rich and in a sense mimic the complexity of real life. Case studies are also useful for connecting to organization theory, not only that organization theory provides inspiration for analyses of cases but also in that development of organization theory finds food for thought in cases concerning projects and temporary organizations. More importantly, from an academic point of view, case-based research may not generalize in a traditional quantitative sense. It does however provide details of how things are accomplished. As part of the general debate in organizational theory regarding whether we, as academics are losing our relevance for both academic and practical purposes, case studies that reflect the nitty-gritty details of organizing are therefore very valuable (Bennis and O’Toole, 2005).

One final comment is that most papers (including editorials) nowadays are written because there is a need for writing built into the academic system. We do believe that the authors in the selection (including ourselves) are more interested in debating the issues raised. The heart of academic research on projects and temporary organizations should be two things:

1. 1.

   Discussion about the merit of findings.

2. 2.

   Usefulness for actors out there. In other words comments on the papers and on this editorial are most welcome.

Enjoy your reading!

Rolf A. Lundin, Markus HällgrenGuest Editors