Economical information and communication design for multi-national projects

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to inform information and communication design (ICD) for multi-national projects through the presentation of an example that does not rely on expensive expertise in graphic design. Design/methodology/approach – Action research involving participants from five different sectors. Findings – Successful ICD is not necessarily dependent upon costly graphic design of elaborate explanatory methods such as storyboards. Research limitations/implications – The action research involved participants from only five differect sectors. Practical implications – Economical ICD can facilitate development of understanding among multi-sector multi-national project participants. Originality/value – The originality of this research note is that it addresses recent developments in ICD. The value of this research note is that an example is provided of application in a multi-sector multi-national project.

Application of project management to disaster resilience

“…A number of project management variables are identified in the literature. In this study, we rely not only on the project management literature (e.g., Fox and Grösser 2015;Mojtahedi and Oo 2017;Pimchangthong and Boonjing 2017;Prasad et al 2013) but also draw upon findings from the operations management, disaster management, and organizational behavior areas (e.g., Aughey et al 2017;Coombs 2007;de Gooyert et al 2017;Gupta et al 2016) to develop our preliminary model. These variables are grouped within the following categories: external elements of disaster recovery, internal characteristics of disaster project management, community group processes, and disaster resilience.…”

“…Several variables have been identified in the literature and grouped as external elements of disaster recovery: size or scale, goal clarity, resource availability, and stakeholder variance (Aughey et al 2017;Chang et al 2010;Pimchangthong and Boonjing 2017;Prasad et al 2013). Internal characteristics of disaster project management include immediacy, information demands, and uncertainty (Fox and Grösser 2015;Kunz et al 2014;Lei et al 2015). The literature identifies a number of variables related to group processes, including group strength, group continuity, and group capacity (Day et al 2012;Romig 1996).…”

“…A post-disaster scenario can be a chaotic and politically-charged environment in which information might be very complex and ambiguous, and normal information flows could be disrupted (Sagan 1993). Clarity of information (i.e., the extent to which the information can be easily understood), depth of information (i.e., the extent to which the information is complete), and timeliness of information (i.e., the extent to which the information is current and received when needed), as well as the usefulness of the information and its communication, are vital to establishing a shared understanding between the stakeholders involved in the disaster management process (Fox and Grösser 2015). Understanding the challenges associated with disaster recovery and the factors that drive vulnerability to disasters can both be particularly useful in building disaster resilience (National Research Council 2012).…”