Search results

In an empirical study learning opportunities were identified. Learning opportunities are enablers or disablers for the achievement of shared understanding.

Actors were interviewed about their communication process. The learning history method was used to analyze and structure the data. From the learning histories learning opportunities were derived. Finally, the learning opportunities were categorized.

Learning opportunities were found on three levels: the actor, project and company level. They were also joined in six themes. Combining these two patterns showed that learning opportunities are interrelated.

The case study done was retrospective for the actors involved. Therefore, only conclusions could be drawn on the achievement of shared understanding. To be able to say more about the creation of shared understanding, following a NPD project real time would be desirable, in future research.

This study shows the importance for managers of looking across boundaries. Only solving problems integrally within the organization will help to solve problems successfully. Knowing the learning opportunities of a NPD project finished, will help them to improve future projects. The explicit use of storytelling during a NPD project may help to create a learning organization with shared understanding between the actors.

Previous research showed, shared understanding is important, to be able to manage the integration of different knowledge domains. However, these studies do not describe learning opportunities for the achievement of shared understanding, which was done in this study.

Exploitation of project opportunities may bring more benefits than stipulated in the initial business case, and even stakeholder benefits that nobody thought of at the project initiation. The purpose of this paper is to suggest a new research area for megaprojects, i.e. the phenomenon of project opportunity exploitation as a means to increase the project benefits.

This is a single case study of an infrastructure megaproject, i.e. the construction and operation of a 50+ years old American bridge. Data cover information regarding 60+ years old historical documents, newspaper articles, interviews and video-recordings.

The findings of this paper are as follows: exploiting all opportunities created by the project and increasing project benefits require involvement from many categories of stakeholders; stakeholders get more involved in exploiting the opportunities created by the project when they are proud of the project; for some of the project-related opportunities, it might take a long time before they can be exploited (and related benefits achieved); and celebrating achievements of the project stimulate stakeholders to exploit opportunities created by the project and contribute to further project benefits.

Only few interviews were conducted. Interviewees were biased as all were very proud of the bridge. This is a single case study of a “rare species”, not representing most megaprojects.

To enhance project opportunity exploitation and increased benefits, the project owner (team) must continuously communicate about the project, also after project execution.

This study contributes to a gap within the literature on the phenomenon “project opportunity exploitation”. This is a very rich case study and of a “rare species”.

This study aims to explore how to identify and manage opportunities successfully in a large multi-organizational infrastructure project. Large projects struggle with exploiting and capturing opportunities because of the lack of practices that support active and continuous opportunity management over the project lifecycle in inter-organizational project networks.

This study provides empirical evidence of a successful opportunity management process based on an investigation of an infrastructure alliance project. The adopted research approach is an inductive case study.

By analyzing an infrastructure alliance project, this paper identifies key activities of opportunity management and furthermore, discusses the enablers of active and continuous opportunity management.

This study supports practitioners by providing knowledge about the possibilities and activities that could be deployed during the project lifecycle to improve opportunity management process and about the enablers – factors that facilitate alliance partners’ capabilities to manage opportunities.

There is limited empirical research on the practices of opportunity management that support continuous, active opportunity management in inter-organizational project contexts, although multidisciplinary project networks have possibilities for taking advantage of opportunities that emerge over the project lifecycle.

The purpose of this paper is to address the limitations of conventional risk matrix based tools such that both positive and negative connotation of uncertainty could be captured within a unified framework that is capable of modeling the direction and strength of causal relationships across uncertainties and prioritizing project uncertainties as both threats and opportunities.

Theoretically grounded in the frameworks of Bayesian belief networks (BBNs) and interpretive structural modeling (ISM), this paper develops a structured process for assessing uncertainties in projects. The proposed process is demonstrated by a real application in the construction industry.

Project uncertainties must be prioritized on the basis of their network-wide propagation impact within a network setting of interacting threats and opportunities. Prioritization schemes neglecting interdependencies across project uncertainties might result in selecting sub-optimal strategies. Selection of strategies should focus on both identifying common cause uncertainty triggers and establishing the strength of interdependency between interconnected uncertainties.

This paper introduces a novel approach that integrates both facets of project uncertainties within a project uncertainty network so that decision makers can prioritize uncertainty factors considering the trade-off between threats and opportunities as well as their interactions. The ISM based development of the network structure helps in identifying common cause uncertainty triggers whereas the modeling of a BBN makes it possible to visualize the propagation impact of uncertainties within a network setting. Further, the proposed approach utilizes risk matrix data for project managers to be able to adopt this approach in practice. The proposed process can be used by practitioners while developing uncertainty management strategies, preparing risk management plans and formulating their contract strategy.

This research addresses the lack of project management research into social procurement by exploring the risks and opportunities of social procurement from a cross-sector collaboration perspective.

A content analysis of five focus groups conducted with thirty-five stakeholders involved in the implementation of a unique social procurement initiative on a major Australian construction project is reported.

Results show little collective understanding among project stakeholders for what social procurement policies can achieve, a focus on downside risk rather than upside opportunity and perceptions of distributive injustice about the way new social procurement risks are being managed. Also highlighted is the tension between the collaborative intent of social procurement requirements and the dynamic, fragmented and temporary project-based construction industry into which they are being introduced. Ironically, this can lead to opportunistic behaviours to the detriment of the vulnerable people these policies are meant to help.

The paper concludes by presenting a new conceptual framework of project risk and opportunity management from a social procurement perspective. Deficiencies in the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) are also highlighted around an expanded project management role in meeting these new project management requirements.

Social procurement is becoming increasingly popular in many countries as a collaborative mechanism to ensure construction and infrastructure projects contribute positively to the communities in which they are built. This research addresses the lack of project management research into social procurement by exploring the risks and opportunities of social procurement from a cross-sector collaboration perspective.

This study aims to highlight the challenges and opportunities of using GitHub as a data source in both research and programming education.

This study provides general overview of the challenges and opportunities faced while conducting empirical research using GitHub as a data source. The challenges and opportunities are framed using the input–process–output model of open-source software.

GitHub data accessed from the application programming interface (API) can have several limitations, which can be overcome by Web scraping and using external data repositories such as GHArchive and GHTorrent. There are also several idiosyncrasies about GitHub that researchers need to be aware of to be able to use the data effectively, which can represent an opportunity for research. The challenges and opportunities are summarized for the licenses, community, development process and product of free/libra and open-source software communities hosted on GitHub.

This study provides a summary of GitHub-related challenges and opportunities that researchers can leverage to improve their empirical research. Furthermore, this summary can be a valuable resource for instructors that plan to use GitHub as a data source in their data-focused programming courses.

The purpose of this paper is to present a framework to devise a system for ranking of traditional project delivery methods, regarding their suitability, against the varying levels of mega project attributes.

The proposed system employs input and output interfaces and a granular (fuzzy rule base) component for estimating the subjective levels of risks, opportunities, and constraints and then mapping them to a decision matrix. A questionnaire has been designed (using the SurveyGizmo® platform) to collect the perceptions of the various project stakeholders and use them. A total of 127 stakeholders completed the survey form in full.

The survey data were used to calibrate the fuzzy logic model of the granular component. The envisioned system computes, for each possible delivery method, an index that reflects the suitability (of the corresponding delivery method) on an ordinal scale.

The devised decision support system is likely to lessen the dependency of “accurate decision” on “the experience of the decision-makers.” It will also enable ranking the various project delivery methods based on the various project and stakeholder attributes that are likely to affect the project risks, opportunities and constraints.

The purpose of this paper is to identify issues in the long-term development of project workers, their career paths, their contribution to organizational success and their need for equity of opportunity. The long-term development of project workers, their career paths and their contribution to organizational success is explored.

A qualitative research design using semi-structured interviews was employed to gain an understanding of social and human issues related to careers in project management (PM). By researching the lived experiences and feelings of those pursuing a career in PM the aim was to gain insight into the career journeys and experiences of practicing project managers.

Those who choose to pursue a career in PM have the personal characteristics and sufficiently high levels of self-efficacy to deal effectively with the uncertainty inherent in the nature of projects and of project-based employment.

Participants were drawn from current project practitioners. As a result, the views of those who have worked on projects and chosen not to continue their career in the area have not been gathered.

Predictions are that there will be a continuing demand for project managers with the capabilities required to deliver successful projects. The challenge for organizations is to create an environment that will encourage greater numbers of people to embrace the uncertainty of project. The findings reported provide insight into how organizations might attract, develop and retain the project expertise they require for success.

This research provides further understanding into the lived experience of project managers, with a focus on those who have unexpectedly found themselves pursuing a career in PM.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the corporate sustainability culture of contracting firms, particularly in the Midwest. Many of the local firms operate nationally. The local corporate culture influences their regional offices. Other than convenience, the firms are selected from Midwest since their headquarters are situated in Midwest region and comprises of more number of employees than their other regional offices. This helped the research to approach more contractors for better survey and interview responses. The paper documents the study on existing management and construction practices these contractors adopt on sustainability and examines how their sustainability efforts influence the firms’ performances.

This research utilized surveys and interviews as the primary means of data collection. The data were collected from survey and interviews with selected companies operating in the Midwest region of the USA. One of the companies also operates offices across the country. Data from the interviews and surveys were analyzed using statistical analysis system software application. χ² analysis, particularly the frequency procedures using the Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel (CMH) method was the primary analysis method used to study the relationships between different factors. The CMH method compares the association between and within two groups and permits adjustments of the control variables.

The findings of this paper include the results from various Midwest commercial building contractors. The results on different aspects of sustainable practices and their success rates among the contractors are determined and discussed, and future scope of improvements are mentioned at the conclusion of this paper.

In summary, sustainable business practices are beneficial to society and favorable for the construction business. Embracing sustainable business practices has a positive impact on firm strategic performance for commercial building contractors through employee satisfaction, project opportunities, and market advantage. Sustainable business practices extend into the lives of individuals involved which exceedingly impacts society. The construction industry has advanced sustainability efforts, but there is a long way to go on the journey to being better stewards of the environment and resources.

A rival theory became apparent during the investigation that a new building consolidating all local company employees could have an impact on firm strategic performance. Third, this paper is confounded by a great recession that made project opportunities and revenue considerations analysis problematic. Some information regarding these aspects were helpful; however, expanding this paper during a more stable and typical economic period could provide additional insight.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate four research and innovation projects, namely, from the perspective of innovation for sustainable development, with a particular focus on digital tools for sales and manufacturing, minimising waste in the textile and apparel value chain and identifying possibilities for further sustainable development in the apparel and textile industry.

The foundation of this study is of the four research and innovation projects, which all focus on minimising waste in textile value chains, to support local manufacturing of apparel products and propose product offers that cater to more diverse needs. The main method used is action research. These projects are analysed from the perspective of innovation for sustainable development and the sustainable development goals developed by the United Nations.

The findings indicate that the projects have the potential to support further innovation for sustainable business models and support sustainable development in textile and apparel value networks, with a particular focus on minimising material waste and thus minimising energy use.

The value of the paper is that it shows how methods and technologies for digital sales and manufacturing and for circular value networks can contribute to business models that support sustainable development in the textile and apparel industry.