Boundary activities and readiness for ... - Projekti-Instituutti
Boundary activities and readiness for ... - Projekti-Instituutti
Boundary activities and readiness for ... - Projekti-Instituutti
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Introduction<br />
managers <strong>and</strong> presented how project managers must constantly “sell” the<br />
project to fight <strong>for</strong> scarce funds, people, materials, <strong>and</strong> ultimately <strong>for</strong> the<br />
project’s very existence. Gaddis further described how project managers<br />
must shield the experts of their project teams from external queries <strong>and</strong><br />
pressures, while allowing them adequate freedom to develop their skills <strong>and</strong><br />
advance their careers. Thus, project management is not only about<br />
managing the project’s internal tasks but also about positioning the project<br />
in the wider organization <strong>and</strong> actively managing the project’s boundaries.<br />
The early studies by Wilemon <strong>and</strong> his colleagues (Wilemon & Cicero, 1970;<br />
Wilemon & Gemmill, 1971) similarly noted how project <strong>and</strong> program<br />
managers have a central position as boundary spanners, linking the<br />
temporary organizations to their surroundings. The current study aims to<br />
explore this boundary spanning task in the context of change programs.<br />
1.2 Focus, motivation <strong>and</strong> context of the research<br />
This study is an in-depth exploration of how change programs emerge in<br />
their organizational context, <strong>and</strong> how the interplay between the change<br />
program <strong>and</strong> its context is managed. The focus is on large-scale change<br />
programs that consist of multiple projects <strong>and</strong> aim at significant changes in<br />
an organization’s structures, processes, <strong>and</strong> conduct. The study examines<br />
the early program phases, from the emergence of the program idea to<br />
program planning <strong>and</strong> preparation. The focus is on the interaction between<br />
the program’s key actors <strong>and</strong> the representatives of the surrounding parent<br />
organization. The dissertation is centered upon the boundary between the<br />
emerging program <strong>and</strong> the parent organization, focusing especially on<br />
boundary <strong>activities</strong> of the core program team that are employed to cross,<br />
build, shape, <strong>and</strong> guard the boundary in order to build a foundation <strong>for</strong><br />
successful program implementation. The research relates to organizational<br />
project management (Andersen, 2008), as opposed to traditional<br />
perspectives that have viewed projects as vehicles <strong>for</strong> delivering wellspecified<br />
assets <strong>and</strong> as isolated closed systems. The study is positioned<br />
within the field of project management research, but it aims to answer the<br />
call <strong>for</strong> multidisciplinary project research (Shenhar & Dvir, 2007a) by also<br />
drawing on organization theory, particularly on the studies of<br />
organizational change <strong>and</strong> organizational boundaries.<br />
The aim of the study is to provide new theoretical <strong>and</strong> empirical insight by<br />
exploring how the relationship between a temporary change program <strong>and</strong><br />
its parent organization is managed during the early program stage. The<br />
study describes <strong>activities</strong> that the key actors of a change program employ<br />
when defining <strong>and</strong> managing the emerging program’s boundary with its<br />
parent organization. Additionally, the findings shed light on how these<br />
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