Professor Rodney Howes, 1943–2005

Strategic IT implementation decisions for major construction projects in Hong Kong are subject to various forces or factors identified in previous research—such as external forces, technological factors and organizational factors. The aim of this research was to examine the relationship (if any) between these families of forces and evaluate their impact, individually and collectively. A complex combination of several families of forces/factors that affect decision making was found to be ‘temporal’ with respect to project teams on major projects in Hong Kong. The research was underpinned by a broad questionnaire survey to establish ‘current practice’ before in‐depth analysis of the forces by means of a case study followed by interviews with industry leaders to confirm the results. It was found that respondents (n = 33) ordered cost, security and confidentiality as the most influential factors affecting IT implementation. A difference was found in the perceptions of ‘hired‐in’ project‐based staff in joint ventures and ‘permanent staff’ of single companies, the former evaluating IT performance more highly but evaluating the strategic use of, and user satisfaction with, IT significantly lower. The major constraint on IT implementation was found to be lack of budget, not cost per se. It is concluded that the temporal factors that apply to implementing innovative IT technology in project teams are relevant to different team members at different stages in the project life cycle and these factors are conditioned by a set of business conditions applying to project‐specific coalition organizations that are different from those that apply to single‐entity organizations.     

Creating intelligent enterprises in the Singapore construction industry to support a knowledge economy

Singapore, as a new economy, aspires to become the IT and business hub of Asia. The aim in the Infocomm 21 plan is to develop Singapore into a vibrant and dynamic global infocomm capital with a thriving e-economy and a pervasive and infocomm-savvy e-society. There is an on-going IT development programme for the construction industry known as the CORENET, which was started in 1993. Several industry projects have been implemented to help the construction-sector companies adopt IT. The IT Barometer 2003 survey is a timely check on the levels of general adoption of IT and specific adoption of IT originating from the CORENET. The response rate of the Singapore survey is 11.1% based on 84 returns from a total of 754 questionnaires mailed out. The key findings on IT adoption are summarised and the potential for construction-sector companies to be intelligent enterprises is evaluated. The outcome of the assessment culminates in six directions for the construction industry in Singapore, as well as worldwide, intending to create intelligent enterprises. They are: (1) to tap the advanced telecommunications infrastructure; (2) to operate within a well-established legal and regulatory framework for electronic transactions; (3) to implement ERP systems for integration of databases and applications; (4) to build business intelligence capabilities and plan investments in information systems; (5) to practise business process re-engineering; and (6) for the SMEs, to focus on people, their IT needs and ability to manage change.     

Enterprise Resource Planning in a large construction firm: implementation analysis

In most large Dutch construction firms, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have replaced non‐integrated information systems with integrated and maintainable software. The implementation of ERP systems in such firms is a difficult task. So far, ERP implementations have yielded more failures than successes. This study tries to understand the factors that lead to the success or failure of ERP in large construction firms by focusing on the fits between the following pairs of elements in ERP implementations: business and IT strategy, maturity of the IT infrastructure and the strategic role of IT, and the implementation method and organizational change. The premise of this study is that for an ERP implementation to be successful these elements must somehow fit together. Empirical research was conducted through a case study of three ERP implementations in different business units of a Dutch‐based construction firm. Implementing different systems within one company is typical of the way large construction firms in the Netherlands have dealt with ERP. The study shows that the success of ERP implementations depends on consistent patterns between: IT strategy and business strategy, IT maturity and the strategic role of IT, and the implementation method and organizational change.     

Escalation of commitment in troubled IT projects: Influence of project risk factors and self-efficacy on the perception of risk and the commitment to a failing project

Past studies have indicated that project managers may be less likely to continue failing IT projects if they are able to perceive project risks accurately. Using the scenario of a failing IT project, a computer simulation-based experiment investigated the influence of individual self-efficacy and project risk factors on the perception of risk. Participants played the role of a project manager and managed a simulated IT project. The results suggest that project managers are likely to underestimate the risks of a project with endogenous risk factors as compared to a project with exogenous risk factors. Results of this study point to a ‘self-efficacy bias’ where project managers with higher self-efficacy may underestimate the risks of a troubled IT project as compared to project managers with lower self-efficacy. Further, risk perception mediated the influence of self-efficacy on the commitment to a failing IT project.     

Reconciling alignment,efficiency, and agility in IT project portfolio management: Recommendations based on a revelatory case study

Current developments put significant pressure on IT project portfolio management (IT PPM), increasingly requiring IT project portfolios to be strategically aligned and efficient yet agile. Accordingly, our aim is to identify IT-PPM-related tensions among the three design goals alignment, efficiency, and agility, and to elaborate a set of design principles that will provide organizations with recommendations for reconciling these goals. We conduct our research trough the theoretical lens of Activity Theory. Our findings are based on a revelatory case study in the financial services sector and are evaluated through focus group discussions and expert interviews.     

Relationships between project governance and information technology governance and their impact on project performance

This research endeavors to address the question of how to enhance project performance through exploring the relationships among information technology (IT) governance, project governance and project performance. The research utilizes an empirical survey methodology. The survey of 533 working professionals in various industries renders 282 usable responses or a response rate of 53.91%. The results suggest that both IT governance and project governance have a positive impact on project performance. Moreover, we found that three dimensions of IT governance (i.e., strategy setting, value delivery, and performance management) are positively associated with project performance while all three dimensions of project governance (i.e., portfolio direction, project sponsorship as well as project effectiveness & efficiency, and disclosure & reporting) are positively associated with project performance. Additionally, the alignment between IT governance and project governance is also found to be positively associated with project performance. These findings provide evidence to project management professionals in regard to IT governance and project governance being part of the operational strategy in facilitating the success of projects. It also demonstrates the importance of the alignment strategy between IT governance and project governance in enhancing project performance.     

Supplier capabilities in large shipbuilding projects

Project-based firms concentrate on their core capabilities outsourcing non-core activities. As project contractors increasingly use external suppliers to complement their own capability base, the importance of supplier selection is emphasized. Supplier choices should rely on accurate knowledge of the suppliers' capabilities. We examine the literature related TO supplier capabilities in collaborative, discontinuous project business. We use a qualitative, embedded single-case strategy in shipbuilding industry to explore the importance of supplier capabilities in one shipyard and examine how consistently the shipyard and its 20 suppliers assess the capabilities of the suppliers. Our results show that the buyer prioritizes technical, operational and business capabilities over relational and developmental capabilities, and that the buyer and its suppliers diverge in their assessments of the suppliers' capabilities, creating potential misunderstandings and false expectations in the buyer–supplier relationships. We complement prior research by adding a new dimension of business capabilities into the supplier's capability base in the field of project business.     

InnoDiff: A project-based model for successful IT innovation diffusion

In spite of the importance of information technology (IT) for many organizations to help manage the enterprise daily transactions, IT project failure rates still remain high and are of great concern. This obliges continued exploration of new process models and organization structures to nurture strong project performance. This paper presents a new generic model for successful implementation of IT projects referred to as InnoDiff. The model uses Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) as a test bed. Furthermore, the paper also presents a case study that demonstrates the detailed application of InnoDiff during the course of executing the Human Resource Management System (HRMS) within the Wide Access Network (WAN) at the National Guard Health Affairs (NGHA) in Saudi Arabia.     

IT project management control and the Control Objectives for IT and related Technology (CobiT) framework

Motivated by scarce academic consideration of project management control frameworks, this article explores usage, value and structure of frameworks with a focus on the popular Control Objectives for IT and related Technology (CobiT) construct. We attempt to add to an empirically validated structure of internal control over IT project management by including CobiT's views on the intended domain of content. Results from the empirical survey indicate that the metrics suggested by CobiT are regarded as feasible and important by project management professionals, and are regularly used in controlling practice. Experience, regularity of significant projects and the size of the hosting organisations, however, seem to be stronger moderators of success rates than the use of a management control system with or without support of CobiT. CobiT's suggestions are of generic nature and in particular useful for programme performance management. The latent dimensions of project quality on process and activity levels were not validated and gaps to other project assessment models were identified.     

How knowledge management impacts performance in projects: An empirical study

This paper develops theory and tests the relationships between knowledge management and various aspects of performance in IT-enabled business projects. The proposed theory posits that knowledge management is instrumental to Project Performance when mediated by a new concept, Knowledge Alignment. The research model is tested on survey data from 212 IT-enabled business projects. Findings show that project managers who achieve Knowledge Alignment among the people and the artefacts from three parts of the project – the IT team, the business change team, and the governance team – can have a significant positive impact on the achievement of business value from the project. Achieving higher levels of Knowledge Alignment is shown to have no significant negative impact on attainment of schedule and budget targets. This is the first statistical study to demonstrate the effect of knowledge management and Knowledge Alignment on the attainment of project management targets and of business value in IT-enabled projects.     

‘But that is a systems solution to me’ – negotiations in IT design

In this paper we argue that it is not self-evident how ‘requirements’ are defined, but that ‘requirements’ are enacted differently by differently situated actors, and that this has consequences in design practices. The purpose of the paper is to explore the consequences of prototyping practices in a local IT design project. The empirical material was gathered through the use of ethnographic methods, and analysed diffractively. Graphical user interface prototypes were tools for formulating business requirements in a business process analysis. Through a reading of a discussion which took place in a work meeting about the prototypes, we discuss how business requirements were enacted. This is discussed in relation to divergent and convergent approaches in IT design. One consequence was a risk that the prototyping process moved too fast to solutions, and another was the risk that the business process analysis method reproduced the dominant story of women's absence in IT design.     

Project planning practices based on enterprise resource planning systems in small and medium enterprises — A case study from the Republic of Macedonia

This paper examines whether Macedonian SMEs plan for the implementation of ERP projects and studies the effect of project planning practices on project success. Four project planning measures were taken into consideration: business case development, scope planning, baseline plan development and risk planning along with three measures of project success; customer satisfaction, perceived quality of the project and success of the implementation process. The study was based on a survey that was conducted on 30 SMEs in the Republic of Macedonia. Data dimensionality was reduced through factor analysis and relationships between the two sets of variables were analyzed by correlation and regression analyses. The findings demonstrated that Macedonian SMEs implemented general project planning practices, even though they did not consider the planning process as a separate phase of the ERP implementation. However, they did not use any particular project planning tools, such as the Gantt chart or WBS. Of the project planning practices that were surveyed, the most practiced were the development of a business case, project scope and baseline plan. The least practiced were risk planning practices. Considering the success of the ERP implementations, this study demonstrated that most of the companies' representatives perceive this undertaking as successful in terms of client satisfaction and perceived quality measures. A higher percentage of respondents found their ERP implementations unsuccessful in terms of implementation process measures, when compared to the previous two success parameters.     

The social interaction of developers and IT operations staff in software development projects

This paper investigates how developers and IT operations staff interact in software development projects. We analyse data from 42 IT professionals from 18 Norwegian firms through the lens of social interaction and project management theory. Our analysis suggests that their social interactions are hampered by a variety of factors. The study contributes to the research by providing an analysis of the elements of social interaction and how they contribute to better outcomes. For practice, we offer an assessment instrument for improving the social interaction in software development projects.     

PPP项目中承诺对商业模式创新绩效的#br# 影响：尽善履约的中介作用

PPP项目商业模式创新很大程度上依赖于社会资本的尽善履约行为,而承诺是触发该行为的关键。通过文献分析将承诺划分为经济性承诺与情感性承诺,将商业模式创新绩效划分为创新效率与创新有效性,在此基础上建立以承诺为前因、尽善履约为中介、PPP项目商业模式创新绩效为结果的概念模型;采用情境模拟结合问卷调查的方式采集到116组有效试验数据,并运用分层回归分析的方法进行实证检验。研究结果表明：①尽善履约行为在承诺与PPP项目商业模式创新绩效之间起到完全中介作用;②承诺对尽善履约行为具有显著正向影响,且经济性承诺的影响要大于情感性承诺;③尽善履约行为对创新绩效具有显著正向影响,且对创新效率的影响要大于创新有效性。在此基础上,为我国政府改善PPP项目商业模式创新绩效提出了3点策略建议。     

主基二元法在建筑工程项目部绩效考核中的运用

建筑工程的差异化很大,项目部管理涉及的方面很广。如何科学有效地对建筑工程项目部进行绩效考核一直是施工企业的难点之一。通过主基二元法绩效考核的实施,不断提高工程项目部的管理水平和员工的工作能力,从而达到施工企业整体管理水平和整体绩效不断提升的可实现性。     

Risk managements' communicative effects influencing IT project success

The central question of this research is if, and how, risk management contributes to the success of IS/IT projects. Risk management is used regularly in IT projects, despite indications in literature that risk management only occasionally contributes to IT project success. Drawing on Habermas we distinguish between instrumental and communicative effects of risk management. Stakeholders from seven ERP implementation projects indicate that in addition to the instrumental effects of risk management, being direct risk mitigating actions by stakeholders, individual risk management activities are able to generate communicative effects. Communicative effects create a commonly shared definition of the situation by influencing stakeholders' perceptions and expectations and by defining the inter-stakeholder project relations. These effects contribute to the effectiveness of instrumental action, and consequently to project success. Stakeholders consider risk identification to be the most influential risk management activity, both in number and in strength of the effects.     

Competitive advantage from ERP projects: Examining the role of key implementation drivers

In this study, we build a conceptual model, which draws upon information systems implementation theory, to investigate the relationship between critical success factors related to the implementation of ERP software and the goal of competitive advantage. We test this model with data from a survey of 217 Australian organisations, using structural equation modelling (SEM). We find that organisations can best achieve competitive advantage by carefully managing: a) training and education, and b) system integration activities. Perhaps unexpectedly, neither well-conducted business process re-engineering nor good project management necessarily lead to competitive advantage. We have extended prior knowledge by providing empirical evidence that some CSFs do influence competitive advantage but that others may not. The results confirm that overall project delivery outcomes can be improved by understanding the influence of factors on both project management performance and post-implementation performance. Some theoretical and managerial consequences of the study's findings and limitations are discussed.     

Project governance mechanisms and the performance of software development projects: Moderating role of requirements risk

Over the years, practitioners and academicians have been perplexed by low efficiency and poor performance in IT projects. Previous studies have uncovered a variety of critical factors, including effective project governance mechanisms that can trigger project performance and curb opportunism. However, an obvious question that emerges is how effective these governance mechanisms are at improving the performance of an IT organization and software development project in the presence of risk factors. Hence, the overarching objective of the current study is the development of a moderation model to investigate the effectiveness of these governance mechanisms in the presence of requirements risk. This paper follows a positivist research philosophy where a quantitative deductive approach has been used to collect the data of 318 respondents from 175 software development firms based in Pakistan. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) through SmartPLS 3 have been used to analyze the hypotheses. The results of the study indicate that contractual and relational governances significantly influence project performance and are useful in reducing opportunism. Moreover, there is evidence that the presence of requirements risk tends to negatively moderate the influence of contractual and relational governances on project performance. The findings will help not only Pakistan's software firms, but also those in developing countries that want to improve performance through effective project governance and risk management.     

Modeling project criticality in IT project portfolios

Today's IT project portfolios (ITPP) contain many projects and varied interdependencies. Depending on a project's criticality to the ITPP, a failure can have massive consequences. However, existing methods usually only assess overall project portfolio risk and do not account for the criticality of single projects and their dependencies. Applying Bayesian network modeling to ITPPs, we bridge this gap and extend the current body of knowledge for the information systems and project management literatures. Our new method analyzes single projects' criticality in a portfolio context by considering both transitive dependencies and different dependency types in an integrated way. Since we demonstrate that single projects' criticality can vary substantially, being aware of which projects are critical is a key success factor for ITPP management. For practitioners, our method provides a straightforward procedure to enhance ITPP risk management.     

营改增后水电工程简易计税项目税金计算研究

营改增全面落地与实施后,大中型水电工程因建设周期较长,导致大量项目跨越营业税和增值税两种主体税。在营业税和增值税两种税制下,项目计价方式存在一定差异,导致税金计算方式有所不同。通过对营改增后适用简易计税项目税金计算方式的研究,得出结论:营改增后水电工程中适用简易计税的项目缴纳税金将有所减少,建设单位在对承包人结算工程款时需要扣减税金差值。