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The purpose of this paper is to address the problem of ensuring that the capabilities are in place to identify when a project can no longer deliver value and to take appropriate action to terminate the project.

Focus groups with project management practitioners were used to collect in-depth qualitative data. This was then supplemented with a questionnaire, which included both closed questions and the opportunity for free text answers.

The problem of getting better at stopping projects is both common and difficult to solve. It has many facets, which include complex people and cultural issues, processes and procedures as well as financial reporting and project governance. In order to improve, therefore, it is useful to address these different facets in a coordinated way using a capability approach with a focus on business value.

The data from practitioners are retrospective, as their actions were not actually observed by the researchers as they were happening. This means that faulty recollection may influence the results but, it also allows for insights from reflection to be incorporated.

An organizational capability approach focusing on all three aspects of capability; people, processes and technology, can help organizations get better at stopping projects. Specific recommendations are provided and analyzed in terms of their respective capability focus.

If performance in terminating projects is improved, it has the potential for significant benefits and cost saving for society in terms of improved government services and the ability to halt projects around new policy initiatives when emerging evidence shows they will not work.

It provides detailed practitioner input on the problem of stopping projects and suggests recommendations for improvement in the context of a structured organizational capability approach with reference to a particular framework, IT-CMF.

This paper aims to explore whether philosophical insights from Plato's dialogue “Parmenides” on the complex and often paradoxical nature of change can illuminate the nature of information retrieval (IR). IR is modelled as a dialectic process involving mutually dependent yet conflicting forces between the subjective and the objective. These forces operate to produce change in the subjective experience of users (becoming informed) through facilitating a relationship with objective documents. Accurately modelling, predicting and enabling this process remains a persistent problem for IR and this paper seeks to examine the extent to which this is because of the nature of change.

The paper is a conceptual analysis and literature review.

The problem of change (what it is, how it happens and how we can know it has happened) is essential to our understanding of information as information normally implies some kind of change in knowledge state. Any process of change, however, on examination of its qualities, appears to necessitate the combination of irreconcilable and conflicting forces. The apparent contradictions within the existence of change as discussed in “Parmenides” also exist in IR on both a theoretical and a technical level.

Change is a central concept for information in general and IR in particular. A deeper understanding of the paradoxical nature of change can provide new insights into IR theory and practice.

The paper presents a new historical philosophical perspective on the nature of change and applies it to current IR problems.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the question of whether the differences between meaning in philosophy and meaning in information retrieval (IR) have implications for the use of philosophy in supporting research in IR.

The approach takes the form of a conceptual analysis and literature review.

There are some differences in the role of meaning in terms of purpose, content and use which should be clarified in order to assist a productive relationship between the philosophy of language and IR.

This provides some new theoretical insights into the philosophical context of IR. It suggests that further productive work on the central concepts within IR could be achieved through the use of a methodology which analyses how exactly these concepts are discussed in other disciplines and the implications of any differences in the way in which they may operate in IR.

The paper suggests a new perspective on the relationship between philosophy and IR by exploring the role of meaning in these respective disciplines and highlighting differences, as well as similarities, with particular reference to the role of information as well as meaning in IR. This contributes to an understanding of two of the central concepts in IR, meaning and information, and the ways in which they are related. There is a history of work in IR and information science (IS) examining dilemmas and the paper builds on this work by relating it to some similar dilemmas in philosophy. Thus it develops the theory and conceptual understanding of IR by suggesting that philosophy could be used as a way of exploring intractable dilemmas in IR.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the extent to which understanding information science (IS) and information retrieval (IR) as disciplines characterised by intractable dilemmas is a useful conceptual framework through reviewing and re‐evaluating an important contribution to the field in light of more recent developments.

This paper reviews the discussion of central dilemmas within IS and IR, through literature review and conceptual analysis. It assesses the extent to which they remain intractable problems or whether improved solutions have been developed and discusses the implications of these ongoing challenges. The main problem addressed is, in Neill's terminology, “the dilemma of the subjective in information organisation and retrieval” which is understood as the problem of how the meaning of documents can be represented to meet the needs of the user.

Many of the dilemmas discussed within IS and IR remain fairly intractable primarily because information and meaning have both subjective and objective qualities which often have a complex relationship. Recent technological developments have, however, altered the nature of some of these dilemmas and also created some new dilemmas for the subject.

Historical perspectives within IR and IS should be used when discussing theoretical and technological developments in the subject. The conceptual framework of dilemmas remains a useful theoretical tool for IS and IR in terms of examining the nature of problems in research and practice.

This paper re‐visits an important theme in IS and IR and provides an updated perspective on some central issues.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the question of whether the often paradoxical and conceptually contradictory discipline of information retrieval (IR) can be understood more clearly when it is analyzed from a dialectical perspective.

Conceptual analysis and literature review.

A dialectical understanding of meaning can assist in clarifying some aspects of the complex nature of current IR theory.

Philosophy has the potential to explore the conflicts and contradictions in IR and should not be used just as a means of synthesis and resolution. The use of the philosophy of meaning should include a broader understanding of the philosophical oppositions which lie behind the nature of meaning.

This paper suggests a new perspective on the role of meaning in IR: the dialectical model.

This monograph contains abstracts from the 2005 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, 6‐7th September 2005