From project ontologies to communities of virtue

Abstract

Projects, as an organizing principle, can provide exciting contexts for innovative work. Thus far, project management discourse has tended to privilege the vital need to deliver projects 'on time, on budget, and to specification'. In common with the call for papers for this workshop we suggest that perhaps the "instrumental rationality" underpinning this language of characterising project activity may create more problems than it solves. In this paper we suggest that such questions (and language) frame project contexts in a partial way. We argue that such concerns stem from a particular worldview or ontology, which we identify as a 'being' ontology. Here we contrast being and becoming project ontologies, to explore the questions, methods and interventions that each foregrounds. In an attempt to move this dialogue further than simply another contrast of modern and postmodernist accounts of project organising, we go on to consider some possible ethical concomitants of valuing being and becoming ontologies in project contexts.

Knowledge formation and learning in the management of projects: A problem solving perspective

“…Secondly, a MOL approach synthesises the static view of a project as an 'object/being' with the dynamic view of a project as an 'actor/becoming' (Chia, 2013;Engwall, 1998;Linehan and Kavanagh, 2006) by highlighting knowledge formation through problem solving as a dialectical interplay between the static and dynamic kinds of project knowledge. Thirdly, a MOL approach is a contribution to the emerging research tradition that views PM as an organizational practice, where project learning is mutually constituted with PM as practice (Wenger, 2001;Winter et al, 2006).…”

A consideration of reflexive practice within the critical projects movement

“…Whilst the remit and contribution of the RPM was broader than the abovementioned problematics, they are both compatible with the RPM's mission to question self-evident project management knowledge. Indeed, it is noticeable how many recent publications within project management journals have sought to question some of the underlying assumptions associated with PM knowledge, including, inter alia: the rise of social constructivism as an alternative epistemology to positivism (Bellini and Canonico, 2008;Jackson and Klobas, 2008), the shift from 'etic' to 'emic' knowledge (Leybourne, 2007), 'being' to 'becoming' ontologies (Linehan and Kavanagh, 2006;Segercrantz, 2009), Mode 1 to Mode 2 knowledge (Cicmil and Marshall, 2005) and the increasing number of papers focusing on more tacit dimensions of managerial practice (Morris and Jameison, 2005).…”

Managing Interactive Innovation: From Project Management to Process Mobilization

“…Rather discourse brings an object into existence [19] Nevertheless, we often regard these 'objects' in a reified way, treating 'the products of human activity as if they were something other than the human products' [20:106]. In this way, Linehan and Kavanagh [21] argue projects are treated ontologically as 'being' rather than 'becoming', [22]. Being ontologies are representationalist, so that projects are thus defined in terms of structures and plans which can pre-exist any actual activities and which represent how those activities will take place.…”