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Int. J. Applied Systemic Studies, Vol. 4, No. 3, 2012
Project-oriented management: dealing with
contradictions
David Thyssen
Dr. Thyssen Management Consultancy Cologne,
Heidehofweg 6, 50858 Cologne, Germany
E-mail: contact@davidthyssen.com
Michael Gessler*
University Bremen,
Institute Technology and Education,
Am Fallturm 1, 28359 Bremen, Germany
E-mail: mgessler@uni-bremen.de
*Corresponding author
Abstract: More and more modern companies are choosing to organise their
work in temporary and permanent forms at the same time. In doing so, they
have to face contradictions between different modes of organising. Project
management is well established to manage the temporary forms of work, while
line management is used to manage permanent forms. This article introduces
the concept of project-oriented management as a promising, though ambitious
approach for dealing with the inevitable contradictions and dilemmas’ that arise
in those organisations using both ways of organising at the same time. We
present the findings of an empirical case study that revealed 178 obvious and
hidden contradictions between temporary and permanent work inside a projectoriented company. The case study uses the repertory grid technique to uncover
the personal constructs – individual images of reality – of line and project
managers. Our quantitative and qualitative analysis shows that more than 70%
of the contradictions may be explained by two distinctions.
Keywords: project management; project-oriented management; contradiction;
project-oriented organisation; repertory grid.
Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Thyssen, D. and
Gessler, M. (2012) ‘Project-oriented management: dealing with contradictions’,
Int. J. Applied Systemic Studies, Vol. 4, No. 3, pp.206–216.
Biographical notes: David Thyssen received his Master in Adult Education
and Human Resource Development from the University of Cologne and his
PhD in Economic Sciences from the University Bremen. Previously, he was
responsible for human resource and organisational development at an
IT-company near Cologne. Later, he was for several years the Head of the
Project Management Office (PMO) at the same company. Today, he is a
freelance Consultant, specialised on the development of project-oriented
companies.
Copyright © 2012 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
Project-oriented management
207
Michael Gessler is Professor at the University Bremen and member of the
Executive Board at the Institute Technology and Education. He received his
PhD from the Faculty of Philosophy, RWTH Aachen University. Until 2010, he
was a member of the executive board at the GPM German Association for
Project Management and as well a member of the Council of Delegates at the
IPMA International Project Management Association. He is the Editor of the
standard handbook Kompetenzbasiertes Projektmanagement (PM3).
1
Introduction
The research programme ‘Innovative Form of Organising’ (INNFORM) has examined
more than 450 companies and found that the co-existence of different organising models
is the rule and not an exception in ‘modern’ organisations (Pettigrew and Fenton, 2000).
These findings underline the assumptions made based on other studies that the usage of
new forms of organising supplement existing ones rather than replacing them (Kenis
et al., 2009; O’Reilly and Tushman, 2004).
A new form of organising which is spreading more and more is project-oriented
management. Project-oriented management can be understood as the organisational
advancement of classical project management. Some years ago project management was
referred to as a structured method for planning, executing and controlling temporary
work processes. It was used to solve ‘once in a lifetime’ problems. Nowadays, project
management has turned into a strategic concept for organisations as a whole. We call this
approach project-oriented management.
Project-oriented management is quite a new subject of research and has so far not
clearly been separated from the term project management. “So far, organisation design
has been under-explored with respect to understanding project organisations and their
structures” [van Donk and Molloy, (2008), p.129]. The Scandinavian school of project
studies was one of the first to state that modern organisations use temporary and
permanent forms of work at the same time (Anell and Wilson, 2002; Sahlin-Andersson
and Söderholm, 2002). A reason for that may be that project management research has
been viewed from two separate perspectives: “[…] there exist two main theoretical
traditions in project management research. The first tradition with intellectual roots in the
engineering science and applied mathematics […]. The other tradition with its intellectual
roots in the social sciences, such as sociology, organisation theory and psychology,
especially interested in the organisational and behavioural aspects of project
organisation” [Söderlund, (2004), p.185].
Project management focuses on temporary forms of work. Line management focuses
on permanent forms. Project-oriented management, however, considers temporary forms
as well as permanent forms of work. It can therefore reach a new level of structural,
functional and social complexity (Baecker, 1999, 2007). While managing resources,
processes and project portfolios are mainly tasks of the permanent organisation, assuring
project success, dealing with risks and managing the quality are tasks of temporary forms
of organisation that resolve when the singular task is finished (Figure 1).
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D. Thyssen and M. Gessler
Figure 1
Project-oriented organisations: mixed forms
normative management project portfolio strategic management resources
financials
methods
processes
quality
risk
project
program
permanent organisation operative management execution
temporary organisation
Project-oriented organisations still use organisational logic from the beginning of the
20th century (especially ‘ignoring/tabooing’, ‘sequencing’, ‘segmentation’; Section 4) to
address the work problems of the 21st century: it seems that organisational contradictions
arise when they try to integrate project-oriented forms of work organisation into line
organisations (Bledow et al., 2009; Kenis et al., 2009). Therefore, we formulated the
basic hypotheses: using different forms of organising at the same time – especially when
they are equally powered – can be a rich source of conflicts.
2
Research design
The following section describes research questions, theoretical framework and the
repertory grid analysis as research method. Our basic hypothesis and the observation of
project-oriented organisations brought up the following two research questions:
1
Which contradictions exist in project-oriented organisation?
2
How can project-oriented management deal with these arising contradictions?
Before we started the empirical research we faced two challenges. As we wanted to
ensure the adaption of our findings in organisational research theory we had to provide a
‘concept of organisation’ that was capable of structuring the expected contradictions.
Therefore, we developed a theoretical framework based on the historical evolution of
organisational research theory. Secondly, we had to choose a proven method for making
obvious and hidden contradictions visible. We found an appropriate one in the repertory
grid technique (RGT). The following sections give a short overview of the theoretical
framework and the RGT.
2.1 Theoretical framework
Based on a historical analysis of organisation theories we developed a framework to
systematise organisational contradictions (Table 1). Our model aggregates different
understandings of organisations and gives way to a more holistic approach. Organisation
theories examined organisations either from an institutional, a functional or an
instrumental point of view (Kieser and Walgenbach, 2007). The institutional view
focuses on the environment, borders and purposes. The functional view discusses goals,
Project-oriented management
209
division of labour and ways of coordinating work processes. Finally, the instrumental
perspective describes organisations by examining rules, structures and organisational
roles (Bledow et al., 2009).
Table 1
Concept of organisation – based on distinctions
Focus
Dimension
Distinctions
Institutional
Environment
Complicated
Simple
Boundary
Closed
Open
Purpose
Determinate
Goals
Collective
Varying
Functional
Organisation
Individual
Division of labour
Processual
Functional
Coordination
Supervised
Self-directed
Instrumental
Rules
Limiting
Structures
Hierarchical
Liberating
Egalitarian
Roles
People-oriented
Task-oriented
2.2 Repertory grid technique
Even though some contradictions in project-oriented companies may be obvious we
expected several contradictions to be hard to verbalise (Grimm, 1999). We used the
repertory-grid-technique (Kelly, 1986) to meet these concerns. The RGT is an elaborated
research method based on the personal construct theory created by George Armstrong
Kelly. It has its founding in subject-oriented therapies but has entered organisational and
management research as a further field of application in the last years (Fransella et al.,
2004; Rosenberger, 2006). The personal construct theory assumes that individuals
construct and realise the surrounding world by making twofold distinctions, so-called
dualities (Easterby-Smith et al., 2002). The RGT tries to evoke these individual
distinctions and offers a glimpse of the person’s understanding of the world. It is
qualitative instrument for examining subjective theories and offers a chance to uncover
personal constructs even if the participants are not aware of these constructs prior to the
interviews. Questioning a representative cross section of organisation members seems to
be a reasonable way of understanding the social constructions inside an organisation. As
the RGT generates qualitative as well as quantitative data it offers a broad range of
options for logical and statistical analysis (Backhaus et al., 2006; Fromm, 2004; Raeithel,
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D. Thyssen and M. Gessler
1993). The dimensions of the distinctions drawn here may, for example, be examined by
quantitative factor analysis (Fransella et al., 2004).
3
Case study
We selected an organisation (IT sector, nationwide) for our explorative case
study that combined both forms of work at the same time. One part of the staff
(600 full-time-employees’) was operating an IT data centre while the other part
(650 full-time-employees’) was carried out project work. As managers should have to
balance permanent as well as temporary work processes (Sahlin-Andersson and
Söderholm, 2002) we randomly picked 24 managers (12 project managers and 12 line
managers) across all management levels to be interviewed. This involved 27% of the
management in the study. The empirical research took six months, starting with four
explorative expert interviews as a preliminary study. The interviews were held to identify
organisational roles that were especially meaningful in the organisation. After having
analysed those four semi-structured interviews we started the repertory grid interviews
using the software Gridsuite 2.1. Four managers took part in pre-test interviews. The
objective of this pre-test was to verify if the organisational roles chosen were meaningful
to the managers and if the repertory grid interviews were capable of evoking
contradictions. After the pre-test the main 16 interviews (eight line managers, eight
project managers) were conducted. The interviews took between 45 an 120 minutes each
and were held in a triad version (Rosenberger and Freitag, 2009). This version of
repertory grid interviews contains three steps that can be repeated as long as the
participant is able to express new distinctions. In the first step, the participant is asked to
group two out of three elements: ‘group two of these three elements that have something
in common’. This step often happens intuitively. It follows the idea of drawing a
distinction, in the sense of Spencer-Brown’s laws of form (Spencer-Brown, 1969). The
second step is to paraphrase the commonality: ‘What is the communality of these two
elements in opposite of the third?’. In this step, one pole of the distinction is set. The final
step focuses on the distinction between the pair and the singular element: ‘Please express
how the single element is different from the pair!’. The preliminary study pointed to
12 elements that were used in random combinations to evoke distinctions:
•
job as a departmental head today/ideal job as a departmental head
•
job as an expert today/ideal job as an expert
•
job as a project manager today/ideal job as a project manager
•
job as a programme manager today/ideal job as a programme manager
•
job as a people manager today/ideal job as a people manager
•
my job today/ideal my job.
3.1 Findings
The participants were able to express 178 distinctions that seemed to have an impact on
their work as line and project managers. This is an average of 8.9 pairs of constructs. A
principal component analysis (PCA) showed that more than 70% of the variance could be
Project-oriented management
211
explained by two basic factors: the distinctions between temporary and permanent work
(45.2%) and the distinction between management and expert work (27.1%) (Figure 2).
Figure 2
Principal component analysis
1
(45.2 %)
people
manager
department
manager
2
(27.1 %)
expert
project
manager
program
manager
PCA (Varimax), Axes: ‐6.16 to + 6.16
The following table exemplifies how managers expressed their distinctions. Those pairs
of construct are included in this list that correlate significant (p < .05) to component one
(Table 2). A correlation indicates that phrases describe the component best. They offer a
profound insight into the organisation’s language.
Table 2
Pairs of construct loading on component 1
ID
Temporary work (bottom)
Permanent work (top)
129
26
77
3
12
10
150
89
94
109
111
6
24
42
Professional leadership
Full throttle (operative pressure)
Cares for complex technical problems
Project first – company second
Works with people
Leads a temporary team
Only cares for his job
Social leadership
Motivates
Plans things he has never done before
Demands braking the rules for project reasons
Short term-oriented
Professional knowledge
Motivation
Disciplinary leadership
Varies speed (flexible)
Cares for people
Company first – project second
Plans for people
Leads a permanent team
Is looking for compromises
Disciplinary leadership
Sanction
Routine work
Takes responsibility for braking rules
Long term-oriented
Knows the people
Power
We pointed out that one strength of the repertory grid method is the ability to provide
quantitative and qualitative data at the same time. We complemented the statistical
analysis with a content-based analysis. The dimensions of our framework could be
reconstructed within the managers’ feedback by assigning the 178 distinctions to our
212
D. Thyssen and M. Gessler
framework in a blind review. The majority of contradictions can be found in the
functional dimension of organisations (54.4%). The division of labour, contradictions in
the coordination, different aims and contradictory roles all seem to have a strong
influence on managers’ work. The contradictions evoked were subsumed into
21 dualities (Table 3). The qualitative analysis undermines the quantitative findings. The
most important principal component is the distinction between temporary-professional
and permanent-disciplinary leadership.
Table 3
Contradictions in project-oriented organisations
Dimension
Environment
Purpose
Goals
Division of labour
Coordination
Contradictions (p<.05)
Static
Dynamic
Predictable
Unpredictable
Closed
Open
Repetitive
Once in a lifetime
Stabilisation (routine)
Innovation (change)
Consumption
Production
Long term goals
Short term goals
Consistent
Conflicting
Organisational
Situational
Supervised
Self-directed
Qualification
Skill/potential
Result-focussed
Learning-focussed
Power-oriented
Equitable
Function
People
Structure-oriented
Acting politically
Rules
Bounding
Releasing
Structures
Permanent
Temporary
Decision by authority
Decision by negotiation
Functionalist
Specialist
Roles
Disciplinary
Expertise
Temporary
Permanent
3.2 Summary
Two findings can be formulated as a summary of the case study:
•
the use of permanent and temporary forms of organising at the same time causes
contradictions
•
temporality (Ancona et al., 2001) is the most important concept when analysing the
contradictions inside project-oriented companies.
The empirically-proven existence, the verbalisation and the systemisation of
contradictions in project-oriented companies by using well established organisational
theories (functional, institutional and instrumental view) offers a chance to promote
Project-oriented management
213
concrete project-orientated management as an organisational strategy. Any concept of
project-oriented management, as a systematic attempt to deal with organisational
contradictions, has to take these distinctions into consideration.
4
Project-oriented management as organisational strategy
The key innovation of this study is its ability to offer a theoretically-founded and
empirically-proven base for designing project-oriented organisations. Four general ways
of dealing with contradictions are discussed in management research (Fontin, 1997;
Grimm, 1999; Müller-Christ et al., 2007):
1
ignoring (ignoring/tabooing the contradictions)
2
sequencing (sequencing the contradictions in time)
3
segmentation (separating the contradictions in space)
4
balancing (permanent process of negotiating the contradictions).
These strategies increase in complexity from hiding to balance. On the first glance
ignoring contradictions seems to be a simple solution. It does not matter if contradictions
are ignored or even denied. In both cases organisations do not get the chance to debate
them. Contradictions are often seen as personal or structural lack of competence. In
contrast to this strategy, sequencing (in time), segmentation (in space) and balancing are
coping strategies. If contradictions are sequenced they are separated in time. That means
that for a limited period of time the organisation follows one goal while the next period is
determined by the opposite. Sequencing contradictions is a typical way of dealing with
contradictions for individuals. A person cannot for example walk to the left and the right
at the same time when they have reached a crossing and have to decide on one or the
other. Organisations, however have this ability. They consist of more than one individual
and so are able to act in contrary ways. The one part of the organisation can ‘walk to the
left’ while the other part can ‘walk to the right’. Separating actions in space can be named
segmentation strategy. Some researchers even presume that this ability may be one of the
major reasons why organisations exist at all. Groups of people are able to follow contrary
interests at the same time (Simon, 2007).
Sequencing, as well as segmentation, do not neglect the existence of contradiction.
But they tend to reduce the perception and the effects of contradictions since they
separate the conflicting parts. Balancing, in contrast, keeps contradictions present most of
the time. Therefore, it can be seen as the most complex coping strategy. It is a strategy
that forces organisations to permanently negotiate the contrary options as it keeps the
contradiction in the same time, space and power sphere for individuals and the
organisation as a whole. Balancing requires a dynamic understanding and is a permanent
challenge for organisations. Müller-Christ (2007) compares balancing with a mobile. In
this metaphor each component is relevant for the whole system. Power, distances
and external influences directly affect actions and reactions of the system. Intense
negotiations, installation of committees as locations for handling contradictions or the
attempt to compensate for contrary effects can be seen as characteristic forms of
management in organisations that are balancing contradictions.
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D. Thyssen and M. Gessler
As an example Table 4 shows the possibilities for applying those four strategies to
the concept of organisational roles (instrumental view of organisations) by using an
extended understanding of the concept of competence (Gessler, 2010). The organisational
expectations, division of labour and rules culminate in organisational roles for a single
person/manager.
Table 4
Four strategies on how to deal with contradiction in roles
Formal competence
Acting competence
Responsibility
Authority
Ability
Attitude
Ignoring
A consistent job
description,
unexpressed
expectations
No explicit project
roles (projects on
top of line work)
No special skills
required
Stability-oriented
Sequencing
Often changing
roles
Resources taken
from line for the
time of the project
Changing
between
professions
Stability-oriented
Segmentation
Separated career
paths
Resources in
projects or in line
(autonomous project
organisation)
Separated
qualification and
training paths
Stability- or
change-oriented
Boards,
committees
Resource
management
(matrix)
Dealing with
contradictions
Tolerance for
ambiguity
Balancing
This table provides a glance of the possibilities of designing and managing
project-oriented companies. All organisational dimensions can be discussed with regard
to the four possibilities of dealing with the contradictions between temporary and
permanent ways of organising work. Our research points out that the distinction between
temporary and permanent forms of work is the major aspect for project-oriented
management as an organisational strategy. Therefore, we will try to reintegrate the four
ways of dealing with contradictions within the distinction between temporary and
permanent forms of work in our further research.
5
Conclusions
Our estimation of the observed contradictions changed within the research process:
At the beginning the organisational contradictions were seen as a miss. But perhaps
the organisational contradictions facilitate ‘free decision space’ within ‘limited
line organisation’ and are necessary preconditions for innovations. Maybe the project
managers can regulate temporary and innovative work processes not in spite of
organisational contradictions but rather because of organisational contradictions.
Due to its explorative character this research can build a base for further research and
discussions in management practise. By underlining that modern organisations are built
on inevitable contradictions, further research may focus on complex managing strategies
rather than trying to deny or ignore the contradictions. For the first time in research on
temporary organisations, contradictions are verbalised and categorised at a theoretical
level. This offers the opportunity for tapping the potential productivity of contradictions.
Trying to balance both sides of line and project management especially requires
Project-oriented management
215
permanent learning processes and is therefore a driver of innovation within the
organisational system (Debus, 2002; Engeström et al., 2005).
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