Editorial

Citation

Walker, D.H.T. (2013), "Editorial", International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, Vol. 6 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijmpb.2013.35306baa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, Volume 6, Issue 2

About this issue

This second issue for 2013, Volume 6 comprises nine papers and a book review. There are six papers in the special issue section, one regular paper and two thesis research notes (TRNs). The special issue is guest edited by Professor Paolo Canonico, Professor Jonas Söderlund, Professor Ernesto De Nito and Professor Gianluigi Mangia who provide an editorial paper to introduce and review six selected papers from the 5th International Forum on Knowledge Asset Dynamics (Matera, Italy in 2010) Conference that have been further revised and enhanced through a double blind review process. Other papers were also considered arising from their SI call for papers in 2011. These SI papers provide leading edge PM theory and practice on from a knowledge management (KM) perspective. Their editorial follows in which they explain the context of this special issue section and introduce the papers.

We also include a regular paper that fits into the theme from Kaj Koskinen entitled “Observation’s role in technically complex project implementation: the social autopoietic system view”. It presents essential theoretical information by reviewing the concepts of a systemic view and autopoiesis. The notion of communication is described focusing on Niklas Luhmann’s theory on communication in social autopoietic systems. An illustration of the concept of technical complexity in projects follows. Notions of problem and problem solving are then highlighted. The main content of this paper provides descriptions of the concepts of observation and distinction making focusing particularly on the Spencer Brown’s ideas of these concepts. Finally, the paper deals with the notion of importance of shared understanding.

Two TRNs follow providing us with insights on current doctoral work being undertaken in Sweden and the UK. The first TRN is entitled “Organising project-based companies – management, control and execution of project-based industrial operations” by Anna Jerbrant from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden. Her thesis dissertation represents a profound theoretical ambition to complement the literature on project-based organisations with an empirically-based understanding inspired by organising theory, for both the research and practical execution of multi-project management from a project-as-practice perspective. This research expands the conceptual view on the balance between structuring mechanisms and the ability to handle the ever-present uncertainty in PBOs.

The second TRN is entitled “Ambidexterity in managing business projects – an intellectual capital perspective” is authored by Neil Turner and Harvey Maylor from Cranfield University and Juani Swart from the University of Bath. All authors are from the UK. This TRN showed that, at the working level, project ambidexterity is a more complex concept than the existing high-level theorisations would suggest. The key findings of the research reported upon were that the resources used to enable ambidexterity (human, social and project capital) were interwoven with each other and also with the processes of exploitation and exploration. Two configurations of ambidexterity (“distributed” and “point”) were identified, together with five managerial practices that underpin the attainment of project-level ambidexterity. These were investigated using “parallel-coding” of the data to gain greater insight.

A book review is then presented by Derek Walker on a fascinating book that chronicles and critically describes the way that the Heathrow Terminal 5 project unfolded over several decades. This is a book that many readers would find particularly interesting as it discusses many PM relevant issues.

We also draw readers’ attention to an upcoming special issue promoted at the end of this issue and on the IJMPiB web site, “Ethics in project management” is to be guest edited by Professor Ralf Müller and submissions are requested by July 1, 2013.

December 30, 2012

Derek H.T. Walker, School of Property, Construction and Project Management, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, e-mail: derek.walker@rmit.edu.au