| 1. |
|
|
| 2. |
- Bergman, Inger, 1948, et al.
(author)
-
Decoupling and standardization in the projectification of a company
- 2013
-
In: International Journal of Managing Projects in Business. - : Emerald. - 1753-8386 .- 1753-8378. ; 6:1, s. 106-128
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse the change trajectory in a large, global, project‐oriented company, with focus on standardization of project work, and on how the company's structure, processes and employment‐base changed in line with the company's increasing volume of projects. Design/methodology/approach – The stance taken is to define firm‐based projects as temporary organisations embedded in, and coupled to their parent company. Narratives of employees' working history were combined with historical company data. The outcome is a trajectory of the company's history from four different perspectives, shown in parallel with the development of the company's project operations. Findings – The projectification history was found to be connected with two parallel movements: a push towards project decoupling countered by a pull towards standardization of project management practices to tighten the coupling. The direction of the movements was influenced from current project management trends. Research limitations/implications – The model of a projectified company as a loosely‐coupled system provides a novel way of analysing an organisation and its interfaces to its projects. Even though the work focuses on a unique company's projectification history, the intention is to provide a means to better understand the forces impacting the transformation of organisations increasingly using projects as a work‐form. Originality/value – Adding the notion of coupling gives a new dimension to the transformation of project‐oriented companies. The model for analysing projects by means of their patterns of loose and tight coupling provides arguments for the shift in focus from the individual project to the interplay between structure, people and processes in the project‐oriented company.
|
|
| 3. |
|
|
| 4. |
- Björnström, Johan, 1975, et al.
(author)
-
Corporate strategies: for whom and for what?
- 2009
-
In: Performance Improvement in Construction Management (eds. Atkin and Borgbrant). ; , s. 102-114
-
Book chapter (other academic/artistic)
|
|
| 5. |
|
|
| 6. |
|
|
| 7. |
- Björnström, Johan, 1975, et al.
(author)
-
Role of action research in dealing with a traditional process
- 2009
-
In: Performance Improvement in Construction Management. - 9781135998363 ; , s. 102-114
-
Book chapter (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Effective strategic management is becoming an increasingly important issue both for practitioners and management scholars. Not only is the process of formulating and implementing strategies given higher priority, but the role and meaning of strategies are also changing (Price, 2003). In the construction industry, however, relatively few companies seem, as yet, to have established a formal strategy process, even though there is considered to be greater awareness of the importance of effective strategic management to enhance performance and profitability (Junnonen, 1998). In the purportedly conservative construction industry, actors prefer adhering to the ‘business as usual’ mindset, which often results in a drift of strategic meanings and ultimate blurring of the organization’s strategic position (Johnson et al., 2005). Following a number of reports of companies’ failure to implement strategies (see, for example, Allio, 2005; Corboy and O’Corrbui, 1999; Kaplan and Norton, 2001), the attention of practitioners and researchers is now shifting from the formulation process to implementation dilemmas (Aaltonen and Ikavalko, 2002). The already growing body of research into strategy implementation seems to agree that one of the main reasons for failure is ineffective organizational communication caused by a lack of consideration of the social environment at the strategy execution level of the organization (Miniace and Falter, 1996). Yet, what is meant by the term ‘communication’ is not defined, and just a few studies have focused on the discursive and rhetorical aspects of strategy communication (Fairhurst et al., 1997; Johansson, 2003; Müllern and Stein, 1999). These studies typically describe managerial strategic communication as being transactional rather than interactional, monologic rather than dialogic and top-down rather than bottom-up. They also characterize strategic rhetoric at the top level of management as abstract rather than concrete, idealistic rather than realistic and distanced rather than proximal. To our knowledge, no such studies have been carried out in the construction industry. The overall purpose of this chapter is, therefore, to report preliminary results from a longitudinal case study of the strategy work carried out in a large Swedish construction company during a period of organizational change. Our concern here is the ways in which the new strategies are communicated down the chain of command in the company: from top management levels via middle management to project management. We focus on the face-to-face communications used by the different managerial levels to disseminate the corporate strategy and the implications this has on the ways in which the strategies are interpreted and understood. Of particular interest in these interactions are the underlying reasons for the different approaches toward strategy implementation. We hope to contribute some insights into the complexity of communicative processes and practices and argue that organizations need to view discursive processes and practices as an integral part of organizing.
|
|
| 8. |
- Blåsjö, Mona, 1960-
(author)
-
Studenters skrivande i två kunskapsbyggande miljöer
- 2004
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The subject of this study is student writing in its institutional setting, examining students’ texts, professional discourse and educational practices. Fieldwork for the study was conducted at the departments of History and Economics of Stockholm University. The general aim of the study is to increase our understanding of the relationships between student writing, educational settings and professional discourse. The theoretical framework is the sociocultural approach as outlined by Wertsch from Bakhtin and Vygotsky, and applied on writing research by above all Dysthe. The theoretical-methodological attempts are an operationalisation of the concept of dialogicity in different aspects and an application of the concept of mediational means at the linguistic level of text type or speech act.The type of dialogicity and epistemology of a setting is shown to have major influences on students’ writing. The epistemology of economics is defined as rationalistic, and that of history as critical-pluralistic. In economics, linear logical reasoning with clear-cut solutions is a key mediational means, while reasoning with a multitude of perspectives is given precedence in history. Students adjust their texts to the kind of dialogicity in the setting. However, in interviews, some students, mainly in economics, exhibit a resistance to the epistemology and mediational means of their discipline. This resistance seems not to influence their texts, but in all probability the depth of their learning. In addition, the socialisation seems to be a more prolonged process in economics. The reasons may be that the mediational means have a weak connection to students’ previous knowledge and that they are not collectively applied in economics to the same extent as in history.Thus, a pedagogical conclusion is that the important mediational means of a discipline should be collectively applied during study. Moreover, student writing should be considered in relation to students’ previous knowledge, their course of study and their future professional activity.
|
|
| 9. |
- Chan, Paul, et al.
(author)
-
Imagining a Sustainable Future: Shaping Emergent Thinking by Reflecting Through Aesthetic Action
- 2017
-
In: Engineering Project Project Organisation Journal. ; 7:August, s. 83_98-
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The contested nature of knowledge about sustainable development makes it difficult to embed sustainable development in engineering curricula, which tend to have a deterministic approach to understanding theoretical concepts. Such an approach does not align well with the emergent thinking of sustainable development, where thinking about the future requires dealing not only with what is known, but also with what is unknown and at times unknowable. Text-based approaches that privilege explicit and codified knowledge are limited in helping students visualise what a sustainable future might look like. To facilitate such visualisation would require expansion of the repertoire of tools and artefacts beyond text-based materials. In this article, we critically reflect on a series of student-centred 'Open-space' workshops over the past several years aimed at promoting debate and co-production of knowledge around developing sustainable futures using a range of artefacts such as pictorial illustrations, wiki terms, art materials and chill-out music. Attention is paid on critically appraising the role artefacts play in developing knowledge to empower students to collectively reflect on, imagine and visualise sustainable futures.
|
|
| 10. |
|
|
