Technologizing Discourse to Standardize Projects in Multi-Project Organizations: Hegemony by Consensus?

Abstract

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

Contingent factors affecting network learning

“…Temporary organizations differ from other forms of company collaboration such as multi-project organizations (Räisänen & Linde, 2004) and joint ventures because they have characteristics such as institutionalized termination and conflicting loyalties and tensions. The term 'temporary organization' is useful not because it represents a unique type of organizational form, but because it highlights two key features related to the interconnections between network members: that such projects are temporally bounded in nature, and form between rather than within more permanent organizational institutions.…”

Interactional perspective on environmental communication in construction projects

“…How environmental information is appropriated and acted upon by the users in construction projects largely depends on the urgency of the communication situation, the local context, the role and status as well as persuasive force of the human mediator, and the appropriateness of the mediating tools used (e.g. Bresnen et al, 2003;Rä isä nen and Linde, 2004).…”

“…meetings, environmental inspections, error reports, which are habitually enacted by members of an organization to realize particular social purposes (e.g. Orlikowski and Yates, 1994;Rä isä nen, 1999 (Fairclough, 2001).…”

Who Has the Power Over Spaces of Innovation? The Role of Technology in ICT-Triggered Change Processes

“…This is a multiproject perspective. PROPS is not only intended as a guide for the project manager, it is also a monitoring and control tool for managers at different levels in the organization (Räisänen and Linde 2004). PROPS describes what to do and when to do it, but not how to do it.…”

“…The designers of the PMM tried to create an ICT solution with limited space for innovation and one of their goals with this product was to create a standard for managing multiproject organizations (Räisänen and Linde 2004). However, when it comes to the implementing organization, the knowledge amongst users as well as management of the final effect of the PMM was notably unclear at the beginning of the implementation, as was the knowledge of the range of adaptations and development to be done before the model could be an effective tool in the organization.…”