A project-management model is a powerful, but little researched, discursive tool in the 'new' bureaucratization process of multi-project organizations. It is a means of creating hegemony by consensus and can be seen as an example of the process of technologization of discourse. Through this process, discourse technologists redesign organizational discourses and work processes, turning them into representations of consensual praxis. This article traces this redesign process in a major telecom organization and shows how the 'new' practices are disseminated within the organization. Key words. actornetworks; critical discourse analysis; discursive practices; postbureaucracy; power distribution; project-management models This article explores the management of organizational control in postbureaucracy, concentrating on the ways in which textual discursive practices are 're-engineered' by experts (discourse technologists) to create a hegemonic management of a new work order in multi-project organizations. Discourses are inherently ideological and socializing forces. They are not only ways of talking about and representing the world, but are ways by which social meanings are constructed and through which they are negotiated and transformed (e.g. Foucault

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse the change trajectory in a large, global, project‐oriented company, with focus on standardization of project work, and on how the company's structure, processes and employment‐base changed in line with the company's increasing volume of projects.Design/methodology/approachThe stance taken is to define firm‐based projects as temporary organisations embedded in, and coupled to their parent company. Narratives of employees' working history were combined with historical company data. The outcome is a trajectory of the company's history from four different perspectives, shown in parallel with the development of the company's project operations.FindingsThe projectification history was found to be connected with two parallel movements: a push towards project decoupling countered by a pull towards standardization of project management practices to tighten the coupling. The direction of the movements was influenced from current project management trends.Research limitations/implicationsThe model of a projectified company as a loosely‐coupled system provides a novel way of analysing an organisation and its interfaces to its projects. Even though the work focuses on a unique company's projectification history, the intention is to provide a means to better understand the forces impacting the transformation of organisations increasingly using projects as a work‐form.Originality/valueAdding the notion of coupling gives a new dimension to the transformation of project‐oriented companies. The model for analysing projects by means of their patterns of loose and tight coupling provides arguments for the shift in focus from the individual project to the interplay between structure, people and processes in the project‐oriented company.

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In the project-management literature, projects have often been conceptualized as mere implementation sites of organizational strategy. However, such rationalization seldom draws on empirical evidence of strategy as it unfolds at the micro-level and at the interfaces between projects and the organization. Drawing on rich case-study data, this article explores strategy as-it-is-practiced in a large project-based organization. Using a Strategy-as-Practice lens to identify key patterns of strategizing actions, we found that project mind-sets and skillsets afforded project actors legitimacy to act as strategists on all organizational levels. Project actualities therefore broadly shape strategy in the organization, and play a much larger role in organizational strategizing than typically portrayed in the literature. The findings are used to suggest new perspectives regarding who are strategist and what strategy is in project-based organizations, and outline new directions for a revitalized research agenda on strategy in the project-management field.

No abstract

Notice: Changes introduced as a result of publishing processes such as copy-editing and formatting may not be reflected in this document. For a definitive version of this work, please refer to the published source. Please note that access to the published version might require a subscription. Chalmers Publication Library (CPL) offers the possibility of retrieving research publications produced at Chalmers University of Technology. It covers all types of publications: articles, dissertations, licentiate theses, masters theses, conference papers, reports etc. Since 2006 it is the official tool for Chalmers official publication statistics. To ensure that Chalmers research results are disseminated as widely as possible, an Open Access Policy has been adopted. The CPL service is administrated and maintained by Chalmers Library.

Purpose-Using an activity theory lens, the interrelationships between project practice and environmental management is examined. The focus is on tensions that occur between human agents and material objects within a motive-directed, historically situated activity system, namely that of managing environmental issues in projects. Design/methodology/approach-Case studies of two large infrastructure projects were conducted 2003-2004 and 2008. The studies comprised on-site observations, text analyses, 20 semi-structured interviews and one group interview. Time was spent on the construction site to become familiarised with the context and the practices of the project community. Fifteen weekly environmental site inspections were monitored and photo-documented. Findings-The findings show how new and emergent environmental management practices and routines were inherently contradictory to the situated and established culture within the projects. In fact project practices seemed to amplify the contradictions between environmental management and project management rather than mitigating them. As a result project members and organisation members strove toward different goals and foci. It is argued that management needs to create arenas where members from the two units can align practices and merge routines. Practical implications-Aligning the permanent structures of the organisation with the temporary organising of practices and operational activities in projects is a challenge for the construction industry. A prevalent lack of fit between the organisation and its projects causes contradictions which negatively affect the way in which long-term environmental strategies and goals are understood and implemented in the project settings. Originality/value-The system theoretical lens adopted in this study enables a holistic interpretation of complex and dynamic activities and the linking of the micro, the individual, to the macro, the organisational structure. By indicating some inherent and emergent contradictions between project practice and corporate environmental management, this paper contributes to an emergent field of research that focus on social practice in construction.