Search results

The purpose of this paper is to achieve an understanding of the challenges and preconditions for inter-organizational collaborative project practices in industrial engineering projects. A framework for identifying the challenges and preconditions for inter-organizational collaboration is presented.

The adopted research method is qualitative, and empirical data were collected from the industrial engineering project sector in Finland. The literature related to industrial engineering projects and inter-organizational collaborative project management practices is summarized, informing the qualitative design of the study.

By analyzing empirical data from industrial engineering projects, the challenges for inter-organizational collaboration are identified in each industrial engineering project stage. A framework of preconditions for inter-organizational collaboration is identified, in which investors are advised to pay attention when deciding on the use of collaborative project management methods.

The findings of this study help practitioners deal effectively with mechanisms aimed at fostering and hindering inter-organizational collaborative practices. The identified preconditions for inter-organizational collaboration provide support for decision-making in every phase of an engineering project and can be used as guidelines throughout the process.

Inter-organizational collaborative project management practices have recently been attracting attention in the industrial engineering project setting. This research is an attempt to identify the underlying forces supporting and preventing inter-organizational collaboration in industrial engineering projects. This study offers a framework that can help academics and project management practitioners deal with the challenges affecting inter-organizational collaboration at each project stage and consider preconditions for inter-organizational collaboration in industrial engineering project settings.

Projects are a part of everyday life in industrial firms, playing a relevant role in terms of accomplishing strategic objectives, implementing strategy, and developing competitive advantage. Projects are developed within industrial networks and have a momentum of their own. This paper aims to describe the role of inter‐organizational project networks that are embedded within the firm's network of relationships in the development of competitive advantage.

The role of inter‐organizational projects in developing competitive advantage was analysed in four inter‐organizational projects involving firms from the Portuguese textile and clothing industry.

Based on the industrial network approach, projects are framed within the conceptual model of activities, actors and resources. Considering the four studied cases, the analysis is focused on the impact of project networks on activities, resources and actors involved, as well as on the competitiveness of the firms involved in the studied networks.

This paper contributes to management practice by focusing on the contribution of inter‐organizational projects in the development of competitive advantage. Based on the analysis of four different cases, this paper highlights the potential role of project networks in the relationship network of the firm.

Innovation is constantly present in the construction industry, however, mainly on a single project level. Initiating and implementing inter-organizational innovation in a multi-project context such as in urban development entails large complexity, for example, because of the many interdependent projects and users of innovation. The users’ influence on inter-organizational innovation in a multi-project context has not been fully explored. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to discuss how users influence inter-organizational innovation in multi-project contexts by mapping the receptiveness for change.

A single case study approach was used, where empirical material including semi-structured interviews in combination with meeting observations, document studies and participative workshops were gathered. The rich empirical material, studying inter-organizational innovation in an urban development context, was mapped based on the receptive context for change framework.

A receptive context for change was not present in the studied multi-project context. Communication to develop and implement inter-organizational innovation was not sufficient and the clients’ procurement strategies were to a large extent not developed to facilitate inter-organizational innovation. Findings show differences in users’ possibility and aim to implement inter-organizational innovation.

The mapping of the receptive context to influence inter-organizational innovation widens the knowledge base and provides valuable insights on how inter-organizational innovation may be implemented in the loosely coupled construction industry. Furthermore, the findings broaden the discussion on clients as innovation supporters, and contribute to the debate on clients as innovation supporters, by highlighting the importance of distinguishing between different types of clients.

Management of inter-organizational projects focuses on the collective benefits of a group of organizations on a shared activity for a limited period and the coordination among them. However, how learning is facilitated in the inter-organizational project remains under-developed in the literature.

This research analyses the exploitative learning process in the longest tunnel project on land in the Netherlands realized in a densely populated area. Data were collected through archived documents, in-depth interviews, site visits in the ethnographic research to analyze the actors, the daily practices and social situations in projects.

The empirical findings indicate that exploitative learning is promoted positively between the owner and the contractor and internally within the contractor. The most significant change that the exploitative learning process has led to is the change in mindset toward the collaboration. Project culture is considered to be shaped by exploitative learning in the inter-organizational project. However, there is a gap between the transfer of knowledge from the inter-organizational project to the parent organization.

The findings have implications for understanding learning in the inter-organizational project setting.

This study aims to explore the relationship between network position, various types of inter-organizational conflicts and project performance in the context of megaprojects.

Centrality and structural holes were used to represent network position. A theoretical model was developed, and a structured questionnaire survey was conducted with construction professionals involved in megaprojects. A total of 291 valid responses were obtained, which were analyzed via structural equation modeling.

The results showed that centrality negatively impacts project performance, while structural holes do not significantly impact project performance. Centrality negatively affects task conflicts, but positively affects process conflicts and relationship conflicts. Structural holes positively impact task conflicts, but negatively impact both process conflicts and relationship conflicts. Task conflict and relationship conflict exert constructive and destructive effects on project performance, respectively, while process conflict does not significantly impact project performance. Task conflict and relationship conflict play mediating roles. Task conflict weakens while relationship conflict strengthens the relationship between centrality and project performance. Task conflict strengthens while relationship conflict weakens the relationship between structure hole and project performance.

This study provides a reference for the implementation of network governance, inter-organizational conflict management and project performance management in megaprojects. However, the impact of dynamic changes of inter-organizational conflicts and network position on project performance has not been discussed in the context of megaprojects. Future research may explore the impact of dynamic changes of conflicts and network position on project implementation.

This study increases the current understanding of the impact of network position on project performance. Moreover, a new direction for network governance in the context of megaprojects is provided. This study also verified both the constructive and destructive effects of conflicts and the mediating role they play, thus supplementing the literature on inter-organizational conflict management in the construction field.

The purpose of this paper is to overlook influential factors associated with the collaboration itself, and to explore the effect of these factors on inter-organizational relationship.

This paper analyses two different technology projects requiring inter-organization collaboration for implementing medicine traceability: end-to-end verification system and e-pedigree. Based on a survey where 72 pharmaceutical organizations exposed their perceptions about each technological project, collaboration factors are identified.

This paper shows that pharmaceutical organizations in this study perceived differently the cost and benefits from traceability project. Organizations involved experience neither organizational nor technological proximity, impacting negatively collaboration in the inter-organizational project.

To strengthen collaboration, organization from different levels should consider how close they are each other, and this is at the geographic, organizational and technological level. Geographic proximity is defined as physical closeness, organizational proximity can be understood as the degree to which organizations are similar in interests and structure, and technological proximity concerns the similarity between the systems used to mediate communication and store information.

This paper presents empirical evidence on inter-organizational collaboration for industrial projects (i.e. implementing medicine traceability systems). It demonstrates proximity is a significant factor in producing inter-organizational collaboration success. Indeed, organizations experiencing proximity have a better knowledge of actors involved in the inter-organization project.

The purpose of this paper is to formulate and test a theoretical model to explain inter-organizational cooperation behaviors among suppliers in automotive new product development (NPD) projects. This study aims to investigate the effects of cost and benefit factors on trust and inter-organizational cooperative behaviors among suppliers in automotive NPD projects from the perspective of social exchange theory (SET).

The structural equation modeling method is applied to test the proposed model, which is based on the analysis of survey data from 272 product managers of automotive part suppliers.

Knowledge sharing and coordination effort influence inter-organizational cooperation indirectly through trust. Specially, trust is negatively influenced by coordination effort but positively affected by knowledge sharing. Requirement uncertainty moderates the relationship between cost–benefit factors and trust differently. Specifically, requirement uncertainty increases the negative influence of coordination effort on trust but also strengthens the positive effect of knowledge sharing on trust.

This study provides a relatively comprehensive cost–benefit framework for further understanding the formation mechanism of inter-organizational cooperation among suppliers. It also contributes to SET by incorporating the contextual factor to explain the moderating effect of requirement uncertainty on the relationships between cost–benefit factors and trust in the context of automotive NPD projects.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the effects of inter-organizational conflicts on the project added value in the Chinese construction industry, and also to examine the mediating effect of conflicts on project added value and the moderating effect of conflict management strategies.

A conceptual model was developed, and a structured questionnaire survey was conducted with 667 professionals. The structural equation modeling technique was used to analyze the data.

The results showed that task conflict, relationship conflict and process conflict were influenced by subject characteristics of project participants, bilateral relationship characteristics and project characteristics. Similarly, these three types of conflicts interact with each other. Meanwhile, these three types of conflicts influence the added value in construction projects, which are moderated by conflict management strategies. Under a collaborating strategy, task conflict and process conflict were positively associated with project added value, and relationship conflict was negatively associated with project added value. Under a competing strategy, task conflict, process conflict and relationship conflict were negatively associated with added value in construction projects. Therefore, the constructive and destructive effects of conflicts on project added value under different conflict management strategies are verified in Chinese construction projects.

The variables may not be exhaustive for construction projects and most of them were applied in construction projects for the first time. As a result, their rationality and effectiveness could be further improved. The results implied that inter-organizational conflicts had a constructive effect on project added value and should attract broad attention for future research. Additionally, different driving factors had different influences on these conflicts, and even the driving factors can be divided into different dimensions.

This study provides a better understanding of the relationship between inter-organizational conflicts and added value in construction projects, and a reliable reference for the project manager to effectively deal with these conflicts. In addition, this research reveals the effects of conflicts on project added value and the path of conflicts transformation. This provides a useful reference for project managers to take advantage of the positive effect of task conflict and process conflict, and to avoid the negative effect of relationship conflict.

Very few studies attempted to examine the effects of inter-organizational conflicts on project added value in construction projects. Therefore, this research makes significant theoretical and practical contributions to the existing body of knowledge on the conflict management and project added value. This research provides an empirical evidence to support the viewpoint that different types of conflicts can be mutually transformed. Similarly, this study explains how conflicts present functional and dysfunctional effects in construction projects. Both of them are potential theoretical contributions to the existing body of knowledge.

Inter-organizational innovation is becoming an attractive development form in view of the complexity of many of today’s innovations. However, inter-organizational innovation does not often lead to the desired results. To understand this paradoxical situation, the purpose of this paper is to examine a high-novelty R & D collaboration between multiple organizations with focus on the occurrence of knowledge boundaries and their underlying mechanisms.

The analysis is based on a grounded longitudinal study of an inter-organizational R & D team. Participant observation data, interviews, and document data have been collected over three years.

The study identified six different knowledge boundaries characterized by processes of sensemaking, strategizing, and group identification. These three processes were all rooted in continuous attempts at the individual level to reduce uncertainty, and the findings therefore highlight the unexpected consequences of uncertainty reduction. Uncertainty reduction through sensemaking, strategizing, and group identification may reduce the uncertainty at the individual level but also provoke the emergence of knowledge boundaries at the team level, thereby impeding knowledge exchange. Furthermore, the knowledge integration literature highlights that knowledge boundaries are relational, but the identification of a cognitive boundary indicates that some problems are so complex that a knowledge boundary is delimited to the single individual.

Most research on knowledge boundaries has focussed on the elimination of knowledge boundaries through boundary objects and boundary spanners, but only little attention has been given to the underlying mechanisms of boundary emergence and dynamics. In this paper, it is argued that to efficiently manage knowledge boundaries, an understanding of their underlying mechanisms is needed.

This paper seeks to address the risks for a main contractor firm's project business that arise from subcontractors' inter‐organizational relationships in complex‐ and dynamic‐project networks.

Existing project risk management research neglects the management of such relational risks in networks. This paper discusses this un‐researched area by analyzing triads representing sub‐networks of three actors in a larger network. The empirical study employed several semi‐structured interviews in two global contractor organizations. Critical incidents identified in triadic settings were used to explain the logic of how risks arose from subcontractors' inter‐organizational relationships.

This paper identifies four categories of risk sources characterized by subcontractors' inter‐organizational relationships. The four risk source categories are based on subcontractors' relationships with other subcontractors, the contractor's competitor the contractor's client and non‐business actors (e.g. a local authority or regulatory body).

The empirical study emphasizes the dynamic nature of the risks that business relationships cause in the main contractor's current and future projects and business. Furthermore, the empirical analysis suggests that the risks arising from subcontractors' relationships have an impact on two different layers: the temporary project network layer and the permanent business network layer. The impacts of risk on the temporary project network layer relate to specific sales and delivery projects, whereas the impacts of risk on the permanent business network layer relate often to changes in the network position of the business players.

This paper suggests a novel risk management approach, where risks and opportunities arising from subcontractors' relationships are actively taken into account in subcontractor management.