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on Project, Program and Portfolio Management |
| By: | Alexandra Gerbasi (MTS - Management Technologique et Strategique - Grenoble École de Management (GEM)); Dominika Latusek (Department of Management - Kozminski University) |
| Abstract: | Purpose: This article investigates collaboration and coordination practices in the organization whose members come from two countries that differ dramatically in generalized trust: Poland and the United States. Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative field study conducted in Silicon Valley-based American-Polish start-up joint venture. Findings: There are three mechanisms can facilitate collaboration in organizations that differ in generalized trust: frequent interaction that may form a basis for knowledge-based trust, professional cultures that provide common platform for communication, and the presence of intermediaries that possess understanding and ability to communicate of both cultures. Practical implications: The findings can be applied in the context of offshoring projects in knowledge intensive industries. Originality/value: Research presented in this paper investigates collaboration of parties from low-trust and high-trust cultures within one business venture. |
| Keywords: | United States,social capital,cross-cultural management,trust,Interorganizational collaboration,software development,Poland |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01137667&r=ppm |
| By: | Severine Le Loarne (MTS - Management Technologique et Strategique - Grenoble École de Management (GEM)); Adnane Maalaoui (ESG Paris – School of Business) |
| Abstract: | Purpose: This paper focuses on how entrepreneurs anticipate and change their company's business process management after developing a radical innovation. The paper is based on a critical approach to business process modelling (BPM) that posits that—in spite of all the claims, guides, and tools that companies employ to help them modelise their processes—business processes are developed and improved (or at least changed) by individuals who negotiate, anticipate, and compromise to make these changes occur. Thus, BPM is more a matter of "bricolage" (Levi-Strauss) than an established and defined plan. Based on this position, our paper analyses how a business process model emerges in the early phases of a high tech new venture when the entrepreneur lacks a valid template to form a conceptual representation of the firm's business processes. Design/Methodology/Approach: We adopt a perspective based on the concept of bricolage. By analysing and comparing the discourse of 40 entrepreneurs—20 involved in an activity based on a radical innovation and 20 involved in an activity based on a more incremental concept—we are able to answer the two research questions. |
| Keywords: | Discourse Analysis,Bricolage,Strategy as Practice,Entrepreneurship,Business Process Modelling |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01107743&r=ppm |
| By: | Christian Greuel (SRI International); John Murray (SRI International); Cindy Ziker (SRI International); Louise Yarnall (SRI International); Alexander Kernbaum (SRI International) |
| Abstract: | Intelligent virtual environments hold promise for improving learner-directed instruction in context. These systems trace the progress of learners performing tasks and can insert immediate coaching to focus learner attention, link knowledge to activity, and accelerate the shift from abstract to concrete learning. Such technology has been used to improve self-directed learning of hands-on procedures, but also shows promise for higher-order applied fields, such as engineering. To realize this vision, research must address the formidable bottlenecks around content creation and build understanding of the types of reusable content libraries relevant to the subject domains. This presentation describes two projects for interactive training that developed prototypes for automated content creation. A third project is presented that illustrates a suite of learning object libraries to support engineering instruction.The first project, SAVE, uses a 3D browser-based simulation environment not only for hands-on training in equipment maintenance, but also for automating the generation of instructional exercise solutions. SAVE allows a subject matter expert to use the interactive simulation for modeling the correct steps of a procedure, thus providing a rapid way to extract their knowledge. The system collects a trace of the expert’s activity, which becomes the reference against which learner activity is compared in automated assessment. The second project, AR Mentor, delivers augmented reality overlays in head-mounted displays worn by student mechanics while learning to maintain terrestrial vehicles. An automated speech system interacts with the students as they perform equipment adjustments and troubleshoot system faults. To deliver audible step-by-step guidance, a prototype text-to-speech translator was developed to convert steps as written in the technical manual into the voice of a virtual coach. The third project, SiMPLE, developed a library of engineering computation objects to allow learners to construct electromechanical simulations, and provides an intelligent coaching system to allow novice engineers to iteratively refine their design specifications. When a working simulation is achieved, the system is linked to a 3D printer for physical prototype production.The first two projects demonstrate methods of using virtual intelligent technologies to accelerate training content production in hands-on domains: expert model tracing and technical manual translation. The third project provides the tools needed to support engineering instruction: object libraries with embedded computations, as well as scripts for design coaching, design testing, and physical prototyping. Together, these projects illustrate the wide range of available, reusable libraries and the extensive opportunities for automating content creation in many socio-technical fields. |
| Keywords: | Intelligent coaching systems, Augmented reality, Interactive sociotechnical training, Automated educational content creation |
| JEL: | C63 I21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sek:iacpro:4106705&r=ppm |
| By: | Andrea Prat; Claudine Gartenberg; Steven Blader |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates how the success of a management practice depends on the nature of the long-term relationship between the firm and its employees. A large US transportation company is in the process of fitting its trucks with an electronic on-board recorder (EOBR), which provide drivers with information on their driving performance. In this setting, a natural question is whether the optimal managerial practice consists of: (1) Letting each driver know his or her individual performance only; or (2) Also providing drivers with information about their ranking with respect to other drivers. The company is also in the first phase of a multi-year initiative to remake its internal operations. This first phase corresponds to an overhaul of the relational contract with its employees, focusing exclusively on changing values toward a greater emphasis on teamwork and empowerment. The main result of our randomized experiment is that (2) leads to better performance than (1) in a particular site if and only if the site has not yet received the values intervention, and worse performance if it has. The result is consistent with the presence of a conflict between competition-based managerial practices and a cooperation-based relational contract. More broadly, it highlights the role of intangible relational factors in determining the optimal set of managerial practices. |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:feb:natura:00553&r=ppm |
| By: | Petr Jansky (Institute of Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University in Prague, Smetanovo nabrezi 6, 111 01 Prague 1, Czech Republic; CERGE-EI, a joint workplace of Charles University and the Economics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Politickych veznu 7, 111 21 Prague, Czech Republic); Tomas Krehlik (Institute of Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University in Prague, Smetanovo nabrezi 6, 111 01 Prague 1, Czech Republic; CERGE-EI, a joint workplace of Charles University and the Economics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Politickych veznu 7, 111 21 Prague, Czech Republic); Jiri Skuhrovec (Institute of Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University in Prague, Smetanovo nabrezi 6, 111 01 Prague 1, Czech Republic; CERGE-EI, a joint workplace of Charles University and the Economics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Politickych veznu 7, 111 21 Prague, Czech Republic) |
| Abstract: | European Union funds flowing into budgets of public sector organisations of its member states should be additional to their nationally funded expenditures. To investigate this additionality principle systematically, we develop a new empirical method. Our main hypothesis is that some of the EU-funded projects are crowding out national public expenditures. Not being able to reject the hypothesis would be consistent with violating the additionality principle. To test the hypothesis we examine how EU funding translates into actual spending of relatively comparable municipalities of the Czech Republic. We innovatively match the municipal authorities’ budgetary data on EU-funded expenditure projects with their other, nationally funded, expenditures. We find no systemic crowding out of national public expenditures by EU funds at the level of operational programmes in the Czech municipalities’ data, which is consistent with no evidence of violating the additionality principle. Nonetheless, going down to the municipal level enable us to show how the results can pinpoint individual cases of EU fund’s potential mismanagement in Czech municipalities. Overall, we provide the first evaluation of the additionality principle at the level of individual recipients of EU funds and in doing so we develop a methodological approach potentially applicable to other fund recipients. |
| Keywords: | European Union, EU Cohesion policy; EU funds; crowding out; additionality; municipalities |
| Date: | 2016–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fau:wpaper:wp2016_18&r=ppm |