Search results

The purpose of the paper is to propose a framework for researching the possibilities for project manager identities: the multiple ways there are of being a performer, as a manager, in the world of projects.

The author's line of enquiry was to seek evidence of project manager identity within real‐life stories told by practitioners, the author's perspective being: that identity is produced through action, that action and identity are framed by social narratives, and that identities and the strategies that create and support them are therefore evident in project stories.

Two examples are discussed; they validate the proposed research framework, demonstrating how storytellers use their projects as vehicles for the performance of their personal professional “project manager identity”.

The form of the stories is crucial to what their analysis can reveal about identities. The personal stories (narrating the storyteller's own experience) must be, in essence, complete, told by individuals addressing situations that challenge them.

The primary purpose of this research is to inform personal learning and educational programmes. An enriched understanding of what it means to be a professional in the project world can enhance the awareness of individuals learning to perform roles, and making choices in this field.

The analysis of stories has been used previously as a research methodology to critique projects and power structures. This paper makes proposals to extend the use of such analysis into the realm of personal identity and its construction.

The role of dialogue has recently been identified as being important in generating impact in organisations, but the purposeful use of narrative or story-based approaches to effect organisational change and service improvement is still relatively innovative. The purpose of this paper is to document and examine two projects in health and social care settings which aim to generate organisational development and service improvement.

The paper evaluates and compares two case studies of story-based organisational development and service improvement projects in the UK. This involved developing an appropriate evaluation framework and assessing the impacts in each case using semi-structured interviews and thematic content analysis.

This paper reports the diversity of impacts and outcomes that were generated by the projects. Specifically, it is argued that there is a strong indication that story-based projects best achieve their objectives when clearly linked to key organisational strategic drivers or pathways, as evidenced by robust evaluation.

This paper recommends that researchers and practitioners, working with story-based methods, design credible and robust evaluative practices, in order to evidence how their work supports organisations to meet current sector challenges. The paper recommends a flexible evaluation framework for evaluating story-based projects in the workplace.

This paper offers new evidence and insight into the impacts and outcomes of using story-based approaches, and a new evaluation framework for these sorts of projects.

Storytelling is regarded as a fundamental way for humans to communicate with each other, no matter whether in the form of folklore, myths or war stories. Storytelling is applied in management and organisational practices in order to achieve specific purposes. Management activities within projects are similar to managing organisations with high complexity. Storytelling can then be applied in the construction project environment to achieve specific management purposes. This paper aims to explore the potential roles of storytelling in the construction industry through analysing its applications in other sectors, and to align the applications of storytelling to construction projects.

Through an in‐depth literature review of the nature of stories and storytelling, and their roles in management and organisational practices, this study determines how stories can contribute to the effective sharing of knowledge in the construction project environment. Cases of storytelling applications in construction projects are also presented, with the aim of showing the uniqueness of storytelling.

Storytelling is a potential approach for managing construction project knowledge through the features of stories and storytelling by preserving, transferring, and learning from current or past experiences of both construction projects and firms.

The findings illustrate gaps in the current knowledge and pave the path for future research in this particular area.

The research examines promising implementations of stories and storytelling in the construction industry through examination of the literature.

The purpose of this paper is to glean leadership lessons of megaproject managers through the life stories of four purposefully selected managers from two contemporary and two landmark megaprojects.

A narrative inquiry approach applying thematic analysis is used to capture lessons learnt from these stories with a focus on leading megaprojects. Narrative analysis has been used in organization studies and this paper is an attempt to use it in project management research.

Common strategies used by all four megaproject managers to be successful include: selecting the right people and building their capability; building trust with stakeholders; dealing with institutional power and politics effectively; and having the courage to innovate. There were also some differences in the approaches used by these managers due the times in which these projects were implemented.

The use of narrative inquiry is new to project management literature. As the life stories were not presented in the same way it was difficult to analyze them in the same manner, and further data had to be collected. This could have been avoided if it were feasible to collect narratives directly from the megaproject managers. This is being planned in future research emerging from this paper.

This study helps megaproject managers to exhibit leadership attributes that would be required to execute such large complex projects that have wide implications for the society, economy and the environment.

Megaprojects are often considered major displacements that cause social and geophysical issues that affect the environment. Lessons learnt from these stories could be useful to avoid such issues. The stories analyzed showed the human side of the megaproject managers toward people related, health and societal issues.

Narrative inquiry is new to project management literature. In the past, project management literature has focused on extracting lessons learnt from historical and classical projects, but lessons from life stories of project managers have not been used for the same purpose.

The purpose of this paper is to determine how the soft competencies of an information technology (IT) project manager, specifically optimism and stress, can affect project success.

The research was exploratory. Experienced IT project managers were requested to relate a “structured” story regarding a significant, personal experience relating to optimism or stress and how this affected the project outcome. In total, eight stories were captured on the optimism theme and five on stress. Themes from these stories were identified.

Qualitative analysis of the stories identified several project managers' optimism themes that strongly influenced IT project success. In addition, it was concluded that IT project success was both positively and negatively influenced by stress. To improve their chances of project success, it was concluded that IT project managers should have a positive but realistic degree of optimism based on a well‐accepted project plan. Whilst the project team should expect and embrace stress during the project, this should be carefully managed.

Six important project management practical activities were deduced from the analysis which could assist project managers and their teams to better handle optimism and stress. These activities, when applied effectively, could lead to improved project outcomes.

This study aims to examine the roles of stories in the innovation process.

An integrative literature review was used to identify and analyze studies that examined stories of innovation in various organizational settings. The conceptual framework of the review was based on three perspectives of organizational culture: integration, differentiation, and fragmentation.

A typology of the roles of stories of innovation was synthesized from a review of the literature. The major roles in the typology included fostering a culture of innovation, managing product planning and project teams, facilitating idea generation and problem solving, and analyzing failed innovations. These roles were congruent with multiple perspective of organizational culture, including integration, differentiation, and fragmentation.

Additional research should be conducted to further explore and confirm the study's exploratory typology as a possible extension to the role of organizational narrative in the process of innovation.

The study's conceptual typology can presently serve as a useful learning tool for HRD practitioners to facilitate an organization's understanding of the innovation process.

The study presents a new approach to analyzing the roles of stories in innovation with perspectives of organizational culture and provides an initial base for further research that might extend understanding of the types of roles narratives play in innovation.

The article aims at analyzing narratives discourses to project dialogic storying as relevant in a mode of narrative research in English language education.

As an English language teacher and researcher, the author adopts narrative analysis as the research method for doctoral study, so this article delves into narrative research methods, especially in the context of English language education. The author found various existing notions on narrative research from Clandinin and Connelly (2000) and Barkhuizen et al. (2014), who contend that narrative is a mode of processing experiences and events in the form of a story. The author corroborated various notions on narrative research in English language education as an argument that narratives can be a strong data source in English language educational research. Since it has been a research focus for English language educators, the author explored seven dissertations that were submitted to a Nepalese university in 2017, 2018 and 2019.

The article aims at analyzing narratives discourses to project dialogic storying as relevant in a mode of narrative research in English language education. While examining the dissertations, the author found that the subjective and ideological exploration of narratives is in practice; however, they need further in-depth analysis under a specific framing. The author argues that the concept of dialogic storying can be strong narrative research in English language education.

It has examined prospective applications of the dialogic storying process using dissertations submitted to a University in Nepal. In terms of conceptual discussions on narratives and narrative analysis, it is more interpretive.

It provides an initial framing to get into narrative research in English language education. It allows academics to go further into subjective and ideological inquiries in order to discuss more categorical elements in narrative research.

It is a more thematic and interpretive discussion so it discusses existing and appropriate practices in narrative research methods to defend the dialogic storying approach. It has not counter argued the existing knowledge; however, it provides insights to clarify dialogic storying as a research approach.

In spite of changes in the way people with learning disabilities are perceived, issues of sexuality and personal relationships remain particularly problematic for them. Living Safer Sexual Lives1 was a three‐year Australian action research project which sought to address how people with learning disabilities view these issues. During the first stage of the project, 25 people with learning disabilities told their life stories, with a focus on sexuality and human relationships, to experienced qualitative researchers. In the second stage of the project, these stories were used to provide people with learning disabilities, families and service providers with workshops and resources designed to help people with learning disabilities to live safer sexual lives.

Examines how the idea and practice of the learning organization (or company) has made swift and rapid progress in the UK, and as a label, it is one that many organizations aspire to. States that it would seem that many of the aspirants are having a hard time trying to convince others of the validity of learning organizations. Argues that the visions commonly associated with the learning organization may just reflect a particular way of talking or a story about the world which is not sufficiently shared by others to prompt joint action. Goes on to examine the way learning may occur in organizations through ways of talking or story‐telling within nets of collective action. Utilizes a story about normal work in an organization to show how ongoing relationships contribute to a diverse pattern of learning within the organization. Finally, argues that if organization leaders are really serious about making the learning organization vision a reality, they will have to work a lot harder and be a lot cleverer to make their voices heard and listened to ‐ they will have to become better story‐tellers.