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13:21
Boundary-spanning business models in project firms
Wikström, Kim 1 ; Hellström, Magnus 2 ; Westerholm, Thomas 1 ;
Perminova, Olga 1 ; Gustafsson, Magnus 1
1 Åbo Akademi University, PBI Research Institute, Industrial
Management, Turku, Finland; 2 Åbo Akademi University,
Industrial Management, Turku, Finland
Boundary-spanning business models are becoming more
apparent for organizing deliveries in project firms. To
clarify how these business models differ from the traditional
models for solution or EPC (engineering, procurement, and
construction) deliveries, project deliveries of two firms were
analyzed and compared. The empirical data has been collected
in two stages. In the first phase 13 different deliveries where
analyzed through interviews. Further, a sample of 200 project
deliveries were analyzed by quantitative methods revealing two
main types of deliveries which require different approaches or
as we prefer to describe it, two different business models.
One business model type represents deliveries where a supplier
firm is leading the whole delivery (one firm) with a network of
suppliers and can be characterized as a more traditional EPC
approach. The second type involves several firms accompanied
by their respective supplier networks. These firms are mostly
acting as equal partners with different responsibilities in the
delivery. In the second type of deliveries the participating
firms have separate strategies and capabilities, still working
for a common investment objective. This type is particularly
characterized by different types of challenges than traditional
EPC deliveries; a high degree of uncertainty stemming from
the external environment. This type of value creation can be
described as an open system where much of the value emerges
by the interaction among the various firms. Thereby interaction
becomes a central mechanism in these deliveries.
The aim of the paper is to identify in what way the second
type of business models differs from the more traditional
one and thereby to understand how the business models
of these deliveries are formed and managed and what are
their characteristics. The analyses are done by assessing the
challenge in the analyzed projects. The focus is on what the
critical issues are in the span of inter-organizational relations,
who will benefit from the value created in these intertwined
and inter-organizational business models, what are the needed
integration mechanisms, collaboration schemes and changes in
project management capabilities. What specific services seem to
be essential for creating and managing these business models?
The dynamism and need for flexibility among the participating
firms is also investigated and ways to achieve this.
13:22
Projects in practice: towards an understanding of time
perspectives
Dille, Therese; Söderlund, Jonas
BI, Norwegian School of Management, Oslo, Norway
Recent research has demonstrated a growing concern with
what actually happens in projects. Despite recent calls, so
far, little research has been devoted to the analysis of time,
time processes in combination with the project’s institutional
environment. Hence, this paper addresses the interior
workings of a project with special emphasis on the diversity
of time perspectives among the actors involved. Research on
projects has dealt with time in a highly instrumental way,
such as in terms of activity duration, task coordination, and
optimization of throughput time, while seldom discussing
these matters in organization-theoretical terms, for instance
how perspectives on time emerge, evolve and are dealt with
during project execution, how time perspectives are rooted
in various institutional environments and how they merge
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during the process of the project. The chief aim of the paper
is, based on an in-depth study of a complex public project
in the telecom sector, to enhance our understanding of how
perspectives on time in project practice are institutionally
bounded. Analytically, we make use of a ”practice approach”
inspired by recent work in the study of strategy as practice,
i.e. how managers ”do strategy” by returning to managerial
level and the scrutinizing of actual work (e.g. meetings, talking,
form-filling) (Wittington, 1996). In this paper, we focus on
what happens at coordination meetings and how sub-project
managers representing diverse institutional environments ”do
projects”. In that respect, we believe that these coordination
meetings constitute critical instances for the making and
doing of the project. The empirical base is extensive covering
a period of more than one year, during which we observed
coordination meetings on a bi-weekly basis and conducted
numerous interviews with the involved members about their
experience of these meetings. In particular, aim to advance our
understanding of how sub-project managers bring with them
different perspectives on time, how these perspectives influence
the dynamics between long-term and short-term horizons in
project practices and how they are dealt with through ongoing
interaction in project meetings. A set of key activities, labeled
”time-linking activities” in the analysis to show how time
perspectives emerge, why they tend to diverge and converge,
and the respective consequences of the activities implemented.
13:23
On Practices: Linking projects and entrepreneurship
Kuura, Arvi 1 ; Lundin, Rolf A. 2 ; Blackburn, Robert A. 3
1 University of Tartu, Pärnu College, Department of
Entrepreneurship, Pärnu, Estonia; 2 Jönköping University,
Jönköping International Business School, Jönköping, Sweden;
3 Kingston University, Small Business Research Centre,
Kingston, United Kingdom
This article is intended to explore the essential links between
projects (project management) and entrepreneurship and to
indicate potential synergies in practical work and between the
academic research areas.
On practices, implementation (and thus also management)
of projects and entrepreneurial behaviour are both generally
considered to be ’ancient’, but surprisingly, both corresponding
academic areas have developed quite separately. Both
are comparatively young and not yet well established.
Entrepreneurship has been characterized as eclectic, without
conceptual framework etc.; and project management has been
called a ’Cinderella subject’ because of immature (or even
missing) theory and memes like ”if you can move a mouse
you can manage a project” abound. However, both areas
are emerging and promising, and common characterisations
- negative and positive - for one are also valid for another.
Thus, there is (almost) a missing link between the two areas
from an academic point of view. In contrast, there are organic
links in practical work. As projects are to deal with changes
or innovations, and since entrepreneurship and innovation
are also inherently linked, there is (at least indirectly) a link
between projects and entrepreneurship. Another interlocking
dimension is singularism-pluralism. From a ’classical’ point
of view an entrepreneur is the owner and the manager of one
and only enterprise, but in this modern world complex, multilevel
ownership structures are expanding, and scholars speak
about habitual - serial and portfolio - entrepreneurs. A parallel
trend can be seen in the ’project world’ where multi-project
management is proliferating. The main differential is probably
the permanent-temporary dilemma. Entrepreneurship is used
to be based on permanent processes and organisations, but the
average ’life expectancy’ of SMEs is indeed quite short, high
failure rates are common topics in entrepreneurship literature.
So the average life cycles of SMEs could be compared to