EMERGING ECOMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES AND THEIR USAGE IN PROJECTBASED ORGANIZATIONS

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EMERGING E-COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES AND THEIR
USAGE IN PROJECT-BASED ORGANIZATIONS

• Mats Engsbo Maqsood Sandhu
• Department of Management and Organization
• Swedish School of Economics (HANKEN)
• Vaasa, Finland

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Background of paper

• Project-based organizations (PBO) and traditional
  organizations (TO)
• The use of key electronic communications for the
  development of business activities
• Point of departure
• Due to the differences in organizational forms
  (PBO TO), the communications needs differ, and,
  thus, the use of e-communication tools differ

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Research focus

• Literature basis/review
• Project management literature
• Electronic communication
• Adoption of ICT
• Research question
• How are project-based organizations using
  e-communication in the form of available
  technologies, and how does this usage differ from
  traditional organizations?

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Paper structure - overview
Traditional (Business) Organizations Production
Management ? Coordination and control all
activities in order to make a product
Project-based Organizations Project Management
? Planning and coordination of project from
inception to completion i) Uniqueness ii)
Complexity iii) Discontinuity

• Project-based Organizations
• Temporary Arrangement
• Emphasis on goals
• Dynamic
• Flexible
• Non-hierarchic organization
• Decentralized decision making
• Adhocratic

• Traditional Organizations
• Continuous Operations
• Emphasis on working processes
• Stable
• Inflexible
• Hierarchic organization
• Centralized decision making
• Bureaucratic

• Knowledge storage and retrieval
• The nature of projects problematic

• Traditional Organizations
• Intra-organizational collaboration and
  coordination

• Project-based Organizations
• Intra-organizational as well as
  interorganizational collaboration

From e-mail to EDM (Electronic Document
Management) and project planning
systems Communication asynchronous vs
synchronous, functional vs. collaborative
Generic, time-, firm-specific Adoption
barriers Individual, firm or network
Adoption vs use decision vs
post-implementation
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Data collection

• Data collected from two surveys
• 1. industrialized construction total population
  survey among providers of prefabricated small
  houses (SWE/FINMNC-SME)
• 2. project-based organizations focus group
  survey (FINMNC-SME)
• Questions on e-communication ? presence and use
  of tools/system
• design/planning (3D modeling), internal
  communication networks/tools, EDM systems,
  e-procurement and communication platforms
• Number of firms in each survey
• Traditional organizations 21 Finnish firms (55)
  16 Swedish firms (41) (CEO/CIO) ? customers
  individual or developers
• Project-based organizations nine organizations
  (18) (GM or Project Manager) ? customers large
  firms

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Findings

• Project-based Org. General
• project teams belong to larger organizations ?
  access to more tools

• Traditional Organization Intranet
• according to firm size ? larger firms implement
  more frequently
• Extension to Extranets 24

• Project-based Org. Intranet
• larger organizations?

• Traditional Organization 3D Visual
• 3D visualization ? more common in Finland than
  Sweden Vertex

• Project-based Org. Design
• 3D strong, two smallest firm not using

• Traditional Organization Scheduling
• simple or home-made software.

• Traditional Organization E-procurem.
• advanced use low
• 48 fax/phone, 38 e-mail, EDI in three firms but
  with 30 of total proc.

• Project-based Org. Document Man.
• essential to the project work process
• across boundaries

• Traditional Organization CRM
• Further 26 of firms in process of implementing
  software/databases

• Project-based Org. CRM
• register complaints and analyze performance

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Discussions

• The difference in communication between TO and
  PBO
• PBO more emphasis on interorganizational
  communication
• Inter-organizational communication requirements
  (multiple stakeholders, different systems,
  security issues etc.)
• Differences in time-frame, complexity and
  knowledge reapplicability
• IT complexity of project teams as they have
  access to the whole organizations IT, more
  change-oriented
• SME vs. MNCs distances inside the organizations
• LIMITATIONS OF RESEARCH
• Small sample barriers not developed two surveys
  with similar questions

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Thank you!

• Question and comments?