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on Project, Program and Portfolio Management |
| By: | Muñiz Castillo, M.R.; Gasper, D.R. |
| Abstract: | Development is about people’s lives and their opportunities to use and enlarge their desirable human potentials. This article aims to switch the focus in design, implementation and evaluation of projects, from only an abstracted conception of ‘the project’ and the goods which it is meant to deliver, to a relevant conception of people as agents of change. Participation in a project leads to empowerment when people are self-motivated and involved in valued processes that achieve outcomes valued by them. The article proposes a ‘human autonomy effectiveness’ (HAE) criterion relevant for sustainable human development, that is built on a (relational) conception of autonomy and is relevant throughout the project cycle. Second, it develops an analytical approach to assess a project’s influences on human autonomy, by reference to changes in the determinants (agency powers, access to resources, and structural contexts) and to relevant decision-making during the project, and suggests how to operationalise this in the form of a practical assessment matrix. |
| Keywords: | autonomy;empowerment;human development;project design;project management;project evaluation |
| Date: | 2011–03–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:euriss:519&r=ppm |
| By: | Aoshima, Yaichi; Matsushima, Matsushima; Eto, Manabu |
| Abstract: | Drawing on data obtained from the questionnaire survey for the 242 private R&D projects supported by NEDO (New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization), Japan’s public management organization promoting R&D, this paper explores how the private R&D projects’ dependence on public supports affects their R&D processes and, in turn, projects’ performance and the commercialization of developed technologies. Our analyses show that dependence on government resources gives rise to some ―isolation. of the projects from the other parts of companies that they belong to. Such isolation, mainly derived from projects’ unique positions in ―double dependence. structures, negatively affects R&D performance especially related to commercialization. First, high dependence on public resources prevents project members from interacting with people outside the projects within the company. This precludes the projects to effectively leverage internal resources in overcoming technological problems. Secondly, high dependence weakens governance or control on project’s activities by internal management. This deters development of commercialization technologies and makes it difficult for the projects to acquire legitimacy for further investment towards commercialization. Our findings suggest that both companies and public funding agencies should promote projects to keep intimate relationships with the other parts of their organization for successful R&D leading to commercialization. |
| Date: | 2011–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:iirwps:11-02&r=ppm |
| By: | Ottorino Chillemi (University of Padova); Claudio Mezzetti (University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | We study optimal procurement in the presence of default risk. Contractors differ in the penalty they suffer in case of default, which is private information. If the loss to the procurer from non-completion is high relative to the cost of completion, the optimal mechanism is to assign the project by a fair lottery. The procurer pays the winner enough so that the project is always completed and extracts contractors' surplus by charging them participation fees. When the loss to the procurer from non-completion is low relative to the cost of completion, the project is assigned to the contractor with the highest probability of default; that is, the one with the lowest defaulting penalty. The optimal probability of default is inefficiently low: projects that would be first-best efficient not to complete are completed. |
| Keywords: | procurement, auctions, abnormally low tender, default risk. |
| JEL: | D44 D82 H57 L51 |
| Date: | 2011–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pad:wpaper:0131&r=ppm |
| By: | Bhadranie Thoradeniya (Division of Civil Engineering Technology, Institute of Technology, University of Moratuwa) |
| Abstract: | The general practice adopted in river development projects is to analyze the technical and economic feasibility of a proposal, given certain conditions. However, the social and environmental impacts are usually limited to the project area, mainly focusing on the people affected by the project. Past experiences have shown that this practice leads to stakeholder dissatisfaction, resulting to conflicts among stakeholders sharing the resource. The stakeholders' lack of knowledge about the technical, economic, and environmental dimensions of their resource uses usually hampers their rational decision making process, especially in situations where there are conflicts for scarce resources. To enhance the stakeholders' knowledge about the above dimensions of their resource use, this study applied the 'Educated Trade-off' framework for a proposed development project in the Ma Oya river basin in Sri Lanka. |
| Keywords: | trade-off analysis framework, Sri Lanka |
| Date: | 2010–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eep:tpaper:tp201007t1&r=ppm |
| By: | Domelen, Julie Van |
| Abstract: | The social protection (SP) portfolio includes a number of operations that are focused on improving service delivery across a broad range of social services. These service delivery goals are typically oriented to improving access to and quality of social services, usually as part of broader government reform and decentralization strategies. There is one case of this type of a project in an emergency context, ensuring access to basic services as an important complement to a safety net strategy. There are other complementarities between safety nets and service delivery projects, for example many safety net programs like Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs) rely on the basic functioning of health and education services in the vicinity of program beneficiaries. The cohort includes 12 social service delivery-oriented SP projects representing about 15 percent of the cohort with an average of 2 operations approved per year in the period FY05-09. Despite the relatively lower frequency of this type of SP operation, there was broad regional representation with 5 in AFR, 4 in Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) and one each in Middle East and North Africa (MENA), South Asia Region (SAR) and Europe and Central Asia (ECA). The group is evenly divided between policy-based and investment lending, with six policy-based Development Policy Loan (DPL) and Private Sector Committee (PSC) projects, four specific investment projects, one technical assistance, and one emergency recovery project. The prominence of DPLs underscores the policy type of objectives often found in these projects. The DPLs range from PRSCs and DPLs with broader country focus, like Madagascar and Niger, to DPLs more narrowly focused on social services, as is the case of a series of DPLs in Peru. Investment lending ranges from stabilization of social services in response to crisis in the West Bank and Gaza, to longer-term institutional objectives of decentralizing social service delivery and financing in Serbia and Ethiopia. In terms of institutional objectives, these projects most typically focus on sector institutions and decentralization strategies. There is less of a focus on the community level than on sub-national government roles and responsibilities. |
| Keywords: | Safety Nets and Transfers,Public Sector Expenditure Policy,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Population Policies,Housing&Human Habitats |
| Date: | 2011–02–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:hdnspu:60083&r=ppm |
| By: | Werner Güth (Max Planck Institute of Economics, Strategic Interaction Group); Hartmut Kliemt |
| Abstract: | Unanimous voting as the fundamental procedural source of political legitimacy grants veto power to each individual. We present an axiomatic characterization of a class of bidding processes to spell out the underlying egalitarian values for collective projects of a "productive state". At heart of such procedures is the determination of payments for all possible bid vectors such that equal "profits" according to bids emerge. Along with other intuitive requirements this characterizes procedurally fair bidding rules for advantageous projects of a collectivity. |
| Keywords: | Unanimity in Collective Decision Making, Buchanan, Wicksell |
| JEL: | H4 H61 D62 D63 D71 |
| Date: | 2011–03–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2011-016&r=ppm |