Editorial

Citation

Walker, D.H.T. (2012), "Editorial", International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, Vol. 5 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijmpb.2012.35305baa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, Volume 5, Issue 2

From the editor

Derek H.T. Walker, School of Property, Construction and Project Management, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, e-mail: derek.walker@rmit.edu.au

About this issue

This second issue for 2012, Volume 5 comprises both regular papers and a special issue “Projects and organisations: adding rungs to the ladder of understanding project management and its relationship with the organisation”, guest edited by Nathalie Drouin and Claude Besner both from the Department of Management and Technology, ESG-UQAM, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is an honour to have these contributions from Quebec, Canada which is such a hive of activity in their centre of PM excellence in research and scholarship. They provide a guest editorial that explains the theme, papers and contributions to PM knowledge that this represents.

The special issue is supplemented by four additional papers comprising two regular papers, a research note and a thesis research note. The first regular paper entitled “Practical difficulties encountered in attempting to implement a partnering approach” by Wenche Aarseth, Bjorn Andersen, Tuomas Ahola, and George Jergeas, is led by two co-authors from Trondheim Norway, with co-authors from Helsinki, Finland and Calgary, Canada. This paper is based on empirical findings from four construction project case studies in Norway and one in Canada. The authors identified practical difficulties in attempting to implement partnering, e.g. lack of shared understanding of key partnering concepts, missing initial effort to establish shared ground rules, communication difficulties in inter-organizational relationships and unclear (perceived) roles and responsibilities. Since these authors did not find partnering models in existing partnering literature that take these practical difficulties into account, they developed a practical model that outlines the phases of a typical partnering effort. This paper contributes to a growing and much needed understanding of relationship-based project procurement systems.

The second regular paper is entitled “Knowledge integration in systems integrator type project-based companies: a systemic view” by Kaj Koskinnen from Tampere University of Technology, Finland. This paper explores how the systems integrator type project-based companies integrate knowledge of different sub-systems. It provides two thematically useful contributions to PM; one related to knowledge management and the second to project management as a systems integration function. This paper’s main contribution is through providing a viable perspective and approach, with which project-based companies acting as systems integrators can ensure that knowledge integration takes place efficiently. He suggests that a systemic view provides a basic approach through which we may advance our understanding of project-based companies’ knowledge integration. Kaj Koskinnen has had an enduring interest in knowledge management and organisational learning and had made several contributions to IJMPiB over the past five years.

We also provide an interesting research note “Supply chain capital in construction industry – coining the term” by Malik Khalfan and Tayyab Maqsood from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australian. This research note arose out of a series of conversations that the authors had with me about a potential research grant proposal that also would attract a suitable PhD candidate. It is a natural extension of research that all three of us have been undertaking over recent years and the paper looked like a sound opportunity to offer the PM community some ideas about where research into relationship-based procurement choices and the impact of knowledge sharing and other forms of social capital may have on how that form of project delivery may take. It also thematically fits in well with the two regular papers in this issue.

This issue also has a thesis research note by Charles MacDonald who recently completed his Doctor of Project Management degree at RMIT University in Melbourne Australia and is co-authored with Derek Walker and Neveen Moussa, his supervisors at RMIT. The paper is entitled “Value for money in project alliances”. The paper follows the regular paper’s theme in relationship-based procurement and reports on Charles’ thesis and presents a summary of an important development in project alliancing practice (providing a framework for ensuring that value for money in project alliances are rigorously demonstrated), and second it adds to the body of knowledge surrounding the motivation and “lived experience” of mature professional doctoral candidates when balancing demanding careers and doctoral level study. The thesis reported upon provides leading edge insights into project alliancing and will be of great interest to both scholars of PM procurement as well as practitioners.

The next two issues for Volume 5 will include specials supplemented by selected regular papers so that readers can gain a bonus from previous volumes by having additional papers to read and absorb, and a have both access to the special themes as well as benefit from contributions of regular papers.

Derek H.T. Walker