Eva Maaninen-Olsson

Deviations, ambiguity and uncertainty in a project-intensive organization

This article analyzes deviations in an automation project. The article develops a more holistic view of the project organization, focusing on how deviations are managed. The case study demonstrates that the tools and methods suggested in the literature are rarelyused, and shows the importance of the context of the project in terms of gathering information and sharing knowledge that is required to manage deviations. Furthermore, the case shows that there are a number of deviation-management tactics that are applied to different deviations, dependent on whether they are uncertain and/or ambiguous.

Changing practice through boundary organizing: A case from medical R&D

This article contributes to our understanding of practices in innovating organizations. Previous studies have demonstrated how breakthroughs in knowledge may fail to be translated into practices if they are not aligned with existing practices, or if they cut across established boundaries and power structures. By drawing upon an ethnographic study of a medical R&D department that has been highly successful in developing new medical practices, this article investigates how such challenges can be overcome. To date, much of the literature has focused on coordination across single, well-defined boundaries. We here extend this focus and introduce the notion of ‘boundary organizing’ to analyse highly political and contingent processes of innovation and change within and across different practices. We add to existing literature by highlighting how the handling of multiple boundaries, the indirect effects of boundary work, the negotiation of mutual benefits and interests, and mutual adaptation are key aspects of boundary organizing.

Deviations and the breakdown of project management principles

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of how unexpected events (deviations) are handled and how the limited time available in a project affects the possibilities for refle ...

Permanent and Temporary Work Practices: Knowledge Integration and the Meaning of Boundary Activities

Knowledge integration is a critical topic in current knowledge management research and practice. Research on this topic focuses primarily on how knowledge is integrated within a work setting. A less researched area is knowledge integration between different work groups. The purpose is hence to describe and analyze how knowledge is integrated between different work groups. We present two intensive case studies – one permanent and one temporary (project) work settings – which were studied using a practice-based perspective. A main result of the study is that knowledge integration in the two cases was more complicated than the literature suggests. Both differences and similarities were found between the two cases. Differences were seen in the use of boundary spanning activities and boundary objects, whereas similarities were found in the organizational structures and mechanisms, that is, purposes, rules, and infrastructures, which facilitated the integration of knowledge and/or functioned as obstacles and impediments.

Knowledge integration in a multinational setting : a study of a transnational business project

The purpose of this paper is to study how communication enables knowledge integration within transnational projects. Using longitudinal case study data to explore the theoretical arguments, interes ...

Balancing Boundaries: Everyday Boundary Work in Information Technology Project Management

This study draws upon the project and team literatures to explore how project boundaries are managed across the IT project life-cycle. A longitudinal study of a commercial automation control solutions provider was conducted. Particular emphasis was placed on the interaction between one focal project and its environment. We found that recurrent, situated boundary activities pertaining to temporal, task and team boundaries are of central importance for how a project unfolds. We argue that recent attention to organizational boundary-spanning in information systems research needs to be supplemented with a broader and richer view of the functions and significance of boundary work for IT projects, particularly in multi-project environments.