Tina Karrbom Gustavsson

Managing project portfolios : balancing flexibility and structure by improvising

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to situate project portfolio management practice and explore its improvisational nature. The overall aim is to deepen the knowledge of what project portfolio ...

Boundary action in construction projects: new collaborative project practices

Purpose – Traditional construction project practice has been based on rigid and impermeable boundaries that have made communication, cooperation and integration a major challenge. However, new coll ...

Goal seeking and goal oriented projects – trajectories of the temporary organisation

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the theory development of “temporaryorganizing.”Design/methodology/approach– The paper advances the theory of the temporary organization byapp ...

Task lists as infrastructure: an empirical study of multi-project work

Multi-project work is fragmented and unpredictable making project professionals continuously facing the risk of experienced control being reduced. In such work settings, there is an increased need for (temporary) sense making structures. In this article, the concept of infrastructure (Bowker and Star, 2002) is applied to multi-project work. The findings, which are based on 43 interviews with multi-project professionals, reveals that task lists are important infrastructures created for supporting sense making, control and prioritising. The task lists reduces ambiguity and uncertainty and thus bridge the gap between organisational demands and individual resources providing room for improvised action.

Challenges when implementing BIM for industry change

Abstract Public clients have been identified as drivers of architectural, engineering and construction (AEC) industry change through their implementation of building information modelling (BIM). Yet, little is known of this implementation process and the associated challenges. This study aims to increase the understanding of what intra- and inter-organizational challenges that arise when a large Swedish public infrastructure client implements BIM to change the work practices of the actors in the Swedish AEC industry. The IT business value model allows for understanding the public client’s implementation of BIM as an IT-supported change process and for understanding the associated intra- and inter-organizational challenges. The findings show nine categories of intra- and inter-organizational challenges related to, for example, demanding BIM in procurement and creating incentives for BIM implementation. The findings show that intra-organizational challenges related to a top-down implementation of BIM, while inter-organizational challenges related to a bottom-up implementation. The impact of these challenges on the public client’s ability to drive AEC industry change by implementing BIM is discussed. The findings contribute with the client perspective to studies on BIM implementation and with an increased understanding of the challenges associated with implementing IT-supported change processes.

New Boundary Spanners: Emerging Management Roles in Collaborative Construction Projects☆

Project management roles and functions, which are standardized and clearly defined in literature, vary in practice. This study explores project management roles and functions in collaborative const ...

Guiding in the City of Tomorrow: Materializing the Future Through Future and Present Components

This paper explores an intrinsic case of a guided tour of a future city: Stockholm Royal Seaport. Whereas guided city tours usually aim at educating and enlightening those guided about the past and present of the place visited – building the truth claim by relating what is said in the tour to the physical environment of the tour – the case described in this paper offers the opportunity to explore how the urban future is made material to those guided. The study shows that the guides actions materialized the urban future in two ways: by using future components of the future and by using present components of the future. Based on this analysis, we conclude that both these ways function as ways of confirming the present.

Categorising on-site problems: A supply chain management perspective on construction projects

Purpose - This study aims to identify and categorise common on-site problems from a supply chain management (SCM) perspective and to trace the origin of these problems in the construction project p ...

Liminal roles in construction project practice: exploring change through the roles of partnering manager, building logistic specialist and BIM coordinator

Abstract Industries have to adapt to changes in external environment. This adaption includes the development of new professional roles that challenge established structures, roles and communities of practice. In order to better understand the unfolding of construction project practice in an increasingly changeful world new professional roles are explored as liminal roles. The studied professional roles are partnering manager, building logistic specialist and BIM coordinator. Liminality is used as framework to understand descriptions of liminal experiences when negotiating boundary interfaces in construction project practice. Findings are both theoretical and practical and suggest that new professional roles practice multi-liminal work and acknowledge tensions that pose challenges for liminal roles to act as change agents.