Journal of Management Information Systems / Summer 2014, Vol. 31, No. 1, pp. 13–16.
© 2014 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved. Permissions: www.copyright.com
ISSN 0742–1222 (print) / ISSN 1557–928X (online)
DOI: 10.2753/MIS0742-1222310101
Special Section:
IT Project Management
JAMES J. JIANG AND GARY KLEIN, GUEST EDITORS
James J. Jiang is the Fu-Bon Chair Professor, College of Management, National Taiwan
University (NTU), Taiwan. Prior to joining NTU he was a distinguished professor of
information systems at the Australian National University and professor of informa-
tion systems at the University of Central Florida. He earned his Ph.D. in information
systems from the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Jiang’s research interests include IS
project and program management and IT service quality. He has published over 160
academic journal articles related to these subjects. He is an associate editor of Infor-
mation & Management and Journal of the Association for Information Systems and
a senior editor of MIS Quarterly.
gary Klein is the Couger Professor of Information Systems at the University of
Colorado, Colorado Springs. He earned his Ph.D. in management from Purdue Uni-
versity. His research interests include project management, technology transfer, and
mathematical modeling, with over 160 academic publications in these areas. He served
as Director of Education for the American Society for the Advancement of Project
Management, is an active member of the Project Management Institute and the Inter-
national Project Management Association, and is a Fellow of the Decision Sciences
Institute. He serves on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Information
Technology Project Management and Information & Management, as a departmental
editor for the Project Management Journal, as a senior editor of the Journal of the
Association for Information Systems and the Pacific Asia Journal of the Association
for Information Systems, and as an associate editor of MIS Quarterly.
information technology (it) managers in many organizations recognize the value
of project management practices as an effective means to structure tasks to convert
resources to new products, develop services for internal and external clients, and
implement organizational change. The growth of professional associations reflects
the level of emphasis placed on project management by organizations; in particular,
these include the Project Management Institute headquartered in the United States
and the International Project Management Association headquartered in Switzerland.
Together, these organizations have an international membership of over 850,000.
These organizations provide standards of practice regarding the behavioral, technical,
and contextual dimensions of managing projects with a focus on frameworks, tools,
methodologies, and competencies critical to project managers. Each professional
14 JIANG AND KLEIN
society considers the individuals and organizations in both the practice and academic
pursuits of developing better managers of projects. The expected state of rapid change
and demand for orderly control dictates a future demand for projects and the inherent
management of those projects will drive the need for a better understanding of how
to prosecute that work.
In general, research into project management focuses on the development and merit
of techniques to assist the management of projects within organizations. The tools
and management practices are then chosen as appropriate for specific projects based
on the experiences of an organization and the context of the project underway. Such
work results in improvement to methodologies and management practice that indeed
have high value to organizations, but fails to consider the theoretical reasons why the
techniques may prove successful. In fact, though project management is an established
practice, little academic work exists that advances theories of behavior and success
for projects, focusing more on the integrated functions [2]. Part of this may be due
to the multidisciplinary nature of projects that rely heavily on common management
practices but have methods tailored to the specific conditions and constraints of the
application context. Researchers can begin to address this lack of general understanding
by applying qualitative, quantitative, and design science approaches to examine project
management issues and practices from a theoretical perspective, or to contribute by
developing theory that explains behavior and success. We need to paint the discipline
with a broad brush of understanding rather than continuing to provide a paint-by-
numbers canvas. This special issue has two objectives: promote broader perspectives
of project management issues in the information systems (IS) context and consider
different research approaches to IS project management.
A limitation of much of the project management research is treating a project in
isolation. Studies into tools, methods, and management practices focus on the suc-
cess of an individual project, each with well-defined deliverables phased over time
and assigned a particular budget. Most ambiguity is removed from single projects by
establishing output expectations. Ambiguity enters when the project is considered
in a more comprehensive perspective. Completion of one project requires that team
members be returned to their functional positions. Ensuring the continuation of tal-
ent within an organization means that transitions must be effectively managed. Those
delivering project outcomes work to satisfy the conditions and expectations of others
through coordination. Effective coordination processes must be established to direct
project activities and effectively avoid unpleasant surprises, at all stakeholder levels and
across functional boundaries within an organization. Organizations achieve ambitious
and ambiguous outcomes by implementing a series of interdependent projects termed
“programs.” These multiproject implementations may be set up to deliver substantial
change in parts of an organization, across the entire organization, or across more than
one organization. The three papers in this Special Section consider these complexities
of personnel transition, communication, and programs to the IS project orientation.
Line Dubé considers the transitions a project team member makes from a temporary
project environment back to a traditional role in the IT function of an organization.
Applying qualitative research methods, the study reported in “Exploring How IT Pro-
IT PROJECT MANAGEMENT 15
fessionals Experience Role Transitions at the End of Successful Projects” considers
the shock of transition an IS worker experiences upon termination of a project with
their return to a traditional role within the organization. Retaining talented IS workers
proves difficult for many organizations, and the results of this study may be a strong
indication of why individuals will fight or accept the change in roles. Difficulties
arise after the change in environment from the project approach to the day-to-day
organizational activities, incorporating the project output in a working environment,
and the organization’s transition management practices, or lack thereof. The proposi-
tions present an opportunity to examine this important issue in greater detail and offer
insight to IS managers dealing with returning workers.
In “Talk Before It’s Too Late: Reconsidering the Role of Conversation in Information
Systems Project Management,” Stefano Mastrogiacomo, Stephanie Missonier, and
Riccardo Bonazzi go outside traditional coordination theory to propose a structured
design that addresses coordination problems handled during project meetings. They
articulate an elaborate solution using abductive reasoning to combine Clark’s joint
activity theory [1] with project management competency into a coordination process
involving project participants. The process is further built into a tool that is examined
in experiments to determine the potential of the conceptual model. Project managers
reported an increased ability to discover and manage potential coordination problems
with the application of the tool. From a research perspective, the theoretical addition of
variables such as language, time, intention, and decision processes to our understand-
ing of coordination in IS projects opens up novel avenues of study.
Conflict within programs of multiple projects is the topic of “Achieving IT Pro-
gram Goals with Integrative Conflict Management,” by James J. Jiang, Jamie Y.T.
Chang, Houn-Gee Chen, Eric T.G. Wang, and Gary Klein. Key barriers to successful
IT programs reside in the complex relationships among projects and stakeholders of
multiple interdependent projects. The interdependencies create resource limitations,
differing and conflicting needs, emergent conditions affecting processes, and elevated
ambiguity which can lead to conflict among the project teams. Merging considerations
from constructive controversy theory [3] and goal theories yields a conceptual model of
how productive conflict resolution can arrive at a reasoned solution to a problem. The
resulting model considers agreement on the means to achieve delivery of technology-
related business objectives under the unique conditions of programs. A unique, matched
sample that includes three key perspectives of projects and programs confirms that
determination of means to deliver the technology is a critical aspect in promoting goal
commitment and eventually achieving desired business outcomes.
We thank the guest editorial team, whose knowledge and effort were invaluable in
the completion of this Special Section:
Walter Fernandez, The Australian National University
Laurie J. Kirsch, University of Pittsburgh
Carol Saunders, University of Central Florida
Bernard Tan, National University of Singapore
Rodney Turner, Europrojex & Université Lille Nord de France
16 JIANG AND KLEIN
Furthermore, the reviewer team, which provided valuable insight and comments on
the quality of the papers, included:
Mark Haney, Robert Morris University
Ola Henfridsson, Viktoria Institute
Cheng-Suang Heng, National University of Singapore
Jan Holstrom, Aalto University
Mark Keil, Georga State University
Dong-Gil Ko, University of Cincinnati
Loo Geok Pee, Tokyo Institute of Technology
Jan Pries-Heje, Roskilde University
Siew Kien Sia, Nanyang Technological University
Juliana Sutanto, ETH Zurich
Chuan-Hoo Tan, City University of Hong Kong
Yunjie Xu, Fudan University
references
1. Clark, H.H. Using Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
2. Hanisch, B., and Wald, A. A project management research framework integrating multiple
theoretical perspectives and influencing factors. Project Management Journal, 42, 3 (2011),
4–22.
3. Johnson, D.W.; Johnson, R.T.; and Tjosvold, D. Constructive controversy: The value
of intellectual opposition. In M. Deutsch and P.T. Coleman (eds.), The Handbook of Conflict
Resolution: Theory and Practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000, pp. 65–85.
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