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IT Project Governance: A Process-Oriented Study of Organizational Control and Executive Involvement

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Author Info

  • Mähring, Magnus

    () (Dept. of Business Administration, Stockholm School of Economics)

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    Abstract

    This paper reports on a study of organizational control of IT projects, specifically how control forms and evolves over time and how executives engage in the control task. Viewing executive involvement in its organizational context, the study builds on studies on executive involvement in IT (including top management support), IT project escalation and IS project control, while drawing upon theories on projects, commitment, organizational control and professions. An in-depth, interpretive case study of a large, multi-year IT project in a financial company forms the empirical basis of the study. The study uncovers how characteristics of information systems development work tasks stack the deck against controllers, rendering output control and behavior control largely impracticable. Instead, control is constructed through selection of key people (input control), rituals resembling output and behavior control, reliance on evolving trust and other people's assessments, and through the construction and reconstruction of a project image, which summarizes scope and aims of the project. In contrast to earlier studies, "strong top management support" is found to be an extraordinary measure for extraordinary circumstances, but problematic as prescription for regular organizational practice. Commitment is decoupled from resource allocation, refuting a central assumption of escalation theory.

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    File URL: http://swoba.hhs.se/hastba/papers/hastba2002_015.pdf
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    Bibliographic Info

    Paper provided by Stockholm School of Economics in its series Working Paper Series in Business Administration with number 2002:15.

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    Length: 13 pages
    Date of creation: 31 Jul 2002
    Date of revision:
    Handle: RePEc:hhb:hastba:2002_015

    Note: This paper briefly summarizes the Ph.D. thesis "IT Project Governance" by the same author.
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    Postal: The Economic Research Institute, Stockholm School of Economics, P.O. Box 6501, SE 113 83 Stockholm, Sweden
    Phone: +46-(0)8-736 90 00
    Fax: +46-(0)8-31 01 57
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    Web page: http://www.hhs.se/
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    Related research

    Keywords: IS project control; IT project management; top management support; executive involvement in information technology; organizational control; case study; interpretive research;

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    References

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    1. Lundin, Rolf A. & Söderholm, Anders, 1995. "A theory of the temporary organization," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 437-455, December.
    2. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    3. M. Lynne Markus & Daniel Robey, 1988. "Information Technology and Organizational Change: Causal Structure in Theory and Research," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 34(5), pages 583-598, May.
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