Project Management Office: an Opportunity for Organisational Development? Klaus Neundlinger, Jeanny Gucher, Simone Rack

4dimensions Consulting and Research Institute, Vienna

klaus.neundlinger@4dimensions.at

jeanny.gucher@4dimensions.at

simone.rack@4dimensions.at

Abstract The paper presents theoretical reflections arising from consulting processes accomplished by

our institute. In these processes, consultants specialised in project management, by

accompanying the building up of project management offices in different corporations,

succeeded in changing management’s perspective on organisational and strategic

development. Initially, the offices were introduced as executive departments serving to

coordinate and standardise processes and structures regarding the implementation of

projects. Yet, based on insights deriving from social capital theory, actor-network-theory,

knowledge and socioeconomics, the consultants proposed to extend the office’s services to

other areas like the management of performance indicators and transparency,

communication and stakeholder management, education and training, management of

critical and exceptional situations, operative support, knowledge transfer, risk and quality

management. The process was embedded in a series of encounters, seminars and peer-to-

peer training forms that enhanced the exchange between the single project managers. The

organisation attained a strengthening of group cohesion, the establishing of forms of

common reflection and mutual commitments, i.e. an enhancement of the organisation’s

bonding and linking social capital. In addition, the building up of a project management

office allowed for new ways of processing the knowledge originated by project managers via

the contact with customers, enhancing by that the organisation’s bridging capital. The paper

analyses the impact of relational dynamics on the effectiveness of organisations in

implementing their business goals.

Keywords: actor-networks, social capital, project management, organisational development,

relational dynamics, effectiveness of organisations, institutional reflexivity, cooperation

Track: Management

Word Count:

1. Project management and strategic change

1.1. Consulting: conceiving of change from a multiple actors’ perspective In this paper, the question of organisational development will be addressed in its relation to

project management. In order to achieve theoretical insights from experiences and reflections

accomplished in the context of a series of consulting processes, we take up a position that

proposes to analyse the relation between the overarching targets of change processes and the

specific modes of implementing solutions and services in the form of projects. Thus, we

address the problem of the implementation of targets from the perspective of the various

actors involved; be it the corporation as a collective actor, be it the project manager as an

individual actor, or the diverse levels of hierarchies and departments that contribute to the

creation of the value of an organisation.

What makes us believe that the theory of change and organisational development can draw

useful insights from the external view of the consultant in terms of the type of agency that

triggers, facilitates or impedes change processes? The work of the consultant, if it is done

with due accuracy, implies interaction with actors on various levels, hence it acknowledges

that agency in terms of change is not limited to the top levels of management. Rather, it

implies a dynamic, evolving network of institutionalised as well as informal relations. These

are decisive for the appropriate use of given resources, in particular immaterial ones like

knowledge (Moldaschl, 2007), but also trust, reciprocity (Coleman 1990), and the capability

to maintain sustainable relationships with customers, cooperating firms and other

departments.

The external look comprises and takes account of the views of actors on various hierarchical

levels. In this sense, it contextualises the resources, because it attributes them to the actors

that actually dispose of them. If we succeed in transposing this look into a theoretical

standpoint, this can shed light on the way the actors are linked to each other aside from

hierarchical and departmental logics. In other words, what the consultative look on

organisational change may reveal are the multiple modes of relating that underpin any type of

concrete acting—the specific ties of trust and acknowledgment that bind people influencing

the way they cooperate or the limits, aversions or conflicts that separate them impeding a

fruitful cooperation. The resources to be rendered accessible by organisational change are

bound to specific contexts and to determined actors that have to be invited to contribute to the

achievement of a goal, but have to be also given the opportunity to transform the goal itself.

Transposing the external look into a theoretical standpoint means, thus, introducing a new

level of reflexivity into the corporation. In this way, the consultants begin to be part of the

networks they observe, they obtain the status of an actor that extends the internal view by

adding a reflexive quality to the established modes of acting.

Strategy, in this sense, acquires a twofold meaning: it is not only referred to the problem how

adaption to the market, the development of new services, mergers and acquisitions and other

decisions and processes can be best communicated and implemented within the organisation.

Strategic change has also to do with the fact that the formulation of business goals and the

individuation of appropriate resources undergo a series of transformations by passing through

the various networks inside the firm. Thus, it is indispensable to dedicate attention to the

various actors, the networks involved, to the claims and obligations that mould them. One has

to analyse the social capital that constitutes the firm as a field of agency that potentially

enhances the productivity of the corporation, but must be also seen as a context of diverging

individual and group interests and conflicting views. Since we adopt an actor’s perspective,

we define social capital as the result and pre-condition of individual investments in relations

in form of claims and obligations towards other actors in the same or different networks. In

other words, we consider the social capital of an organisation as the stock of trust, reciprocity

and other norms individuals and departments can draw on in their intention to realise

cooperative advantages (Ostrom, Ahn, 2003).

1.2. Actor-networks that relate line to project management Concerning our specific case, in order to capture the specific dynamics of the processes we

have been investigating on, we conceive of (individual and collective) actors as essentially

embedded in networks, adopting by that a point of view that extends the narrow view of

methodological individualism and takes into account the social context of economic action

(Granovetter, 1985). The fact that we relate the question of organisational development to the

issue of project management has led us to establish an actor-network-perspective (Latour,

2005) on the phenomenon of organisational change. As already stated, what appeared

interesting to us with respect to the problem of acting in organisational contexts is not so

much the question how individuals can be hierarchically controlled and motivated to commit

themselves (and contribute something) to a collective target fixed by executives at the highest

levels of the organisation. Instead, we are interested in the way how targets are transformed

and emerge as the outcome of decentralised, yet networked modes of acting. This way of

looking at organisational processes establishes a vision on project management in firms that

stresses its importance as core process of all business activities in project driven

organisations. As project driven organisations we define corporations that generate more than

half of their profits via project-based business.

The question is, thus, if and how the well-known conflict between line management and

project management can be overcome by adopting an actor-network-perspective. Speaking

from a practical perspective, the question is how the diverse departments, such as research

and development (R&D), sales, marketing, finance, controlling, quality etc. can conceive of

themselves as networked, as providers and suppliers for the ever changing core process, the

realisation of business goals in form of projects. Can there be a constructive, a cooperative

way of contributing to these processes, or is it inevitable that the single departments’ logics,

the specific logics of optimising processes without taking into account the interests and needs

of other actors, prevail?

1.3. What does the project manager contribute to change? One concrete example we will refer to in this paper is a consulting process we have been

accomplishing in a corporation that provides technologies in the areas of medical imaging

and patient information systems. From the overarching point of view of the change process,

the major challenge for the firm consists in the fact that growth rates are diminishing in terms

of the scalability of the technological solutions. The number of hospitals and other health care

structures is limited; in addition, these structures are subject to financial restrictions due to

shortfalls in public budgets.

If project managers were seen as figures that are exclusively limited to the implementation of

solutions acquired by the R&D department, the management’s perspective would almost

completely lack to ponder their potentials, the ways they could represent valuable resources

for the corporation. It would hardly recognise the potentials of business development that

reside in the relations and networks characterising the figure of the project manager. In this

sense, it would also lack to grasp the potential contribution to organisational development

deriving from the immaterial resources possessed by the managers. With respect to their

immaterial resources (Moldaschl, 2007), project managers dispose of an invaluable advantage

that, if supported and properly organised, could be transformed into a competitive advantage

for the whole corporation. The general assumption behind this statement is that project

managers often represent the part of the staff that finds itself in the closest position to the

market and to the customer. Being embedded in a network of personal relations that evolve at

the interface between customer and organisation respectively between the market and the

organisation, the project manager potentially opens up the following opportunities for the

firm:

a) He or she can act as a sales agent, because in his/her every day communication with

the customer, he/she learns to know the problems and needs of the latter. If the

relation is based on a common understanding of the problems connected to the

implemented technologies, the project manager has the opportunity to credibly fulfil

the role of a sales agent, offering solutions provided by the own corporation.

b) This opens up a second opportunity: the accumulated knowledge on the customer’s

needs and wishes can be forwarded to and discussed with the sales department in

order to develop new strategies of managing the relations with customers or extending

the scope of the sales representatives.

c) The most important opportunity is to be seen in the fact that the project manager, once

he or she has established a relation of trust and mutual understanding with the

customer, gets involved in (or can offer himself to contribute something to) the

development of processes in the customer’s organisation. This equals to the opening

up of a new field of potential business and counters the phenomenon of shrinking

markets in terms of the scalability of products.

d) Furthermore, the project manager is to be seen as a resource for innovation. In fact,

he/she constantly reflects problems or new situations that occur in the process of the

implementation of technology or other business solutions. On the other hand

experiencing processes taking place in other institutions can be a valuable starting

point for rethinking and innovating processes in the own organisation, but also in the

context of other customer organisations.

e) There is another opportunity to be taken into consideration by the firm, and this is

precisely what the corporation providing solutions for medical imaging and patient

information systems we refer to has been experiencing. Project managers work in a

decentralised way and often suffer from an administrative overload at the expense of a

limited opportunity to dedicate time to the customer. In addition, many of the

bureaucratic work that is accomplished by the project managers could be done more

efficiently by a central office within the organisation. Thus, the opportunity to

standardise processes and reduce the administrative workload for the project

managers could be combined to the establishing of links between them in order to

create a common understanding of the meaning of many aspects concerning project

management. In our case, this opportunity was embraced via the building up of a

project management office as an executive department.

In order to expose all the analytical aspects that are connected to the construction of the

project management office (PMO), we will start with a reflection on the opportunities and

restrictions that condition the single project manager’s agency. In a subsequent step, we will

argue for the hypothesis that project managers, if they are recognised as providers of valuable

immaterial resources, can form a transversal community. In this way, they create actor-

networks and trigger by that organisational development towards a conscious management of

the various relationships inside the firm as well as between the firm and cooperation partners,

customers and competitors. All this should help to sustainably reduce the conflict between

line and project management.

In nowadays firms, value creation should be considered as based on projects, hence on a

rather dynamic way of organising processes and services, while stability should be generated

by the reciprocity and trust to be evolved within the transversal communities. Therefore, at

the end we will briefly discuss the meaning of change in organisations that base their value

creation essentially on projects.

2. The project manager as decentralised actor: opportunities and restrictions

2.1. Establishing actor-networks Project management appears as a resource according to whether the project manager’s agency

is extended by opportunities or limited by restrictions. This is a question that, as already

stated, cannot be answered satisfyingly from a resource or competence based view approach

(Moldaschl 2007). These approaches show the tendency of not sufficiently taking into the

account the way the actions set by the project manager are embedded in the social context.

Yet, the embeddedness of acting determines which conditions or consequences turn out to be

opportunities and which represent restrictions.

In the previous section, we have already listed a series of opportunities that can be grasped by

the project manager implementing technological solutions. His/her proximity to the market

and the customer potentially provides the basis for the development of new products and

services. In the best case, these services comply with the customer’s peculiar needs and do

account for the specificity of the respective context, hence they are to be considered as taylor-

made for the organisation in which the project manager implements the solution. Furthermore,

the project manager has the opportunity to adopt the function of an interface in a twofold

sense:

1) Being an expert that disposes of IT-related know-how, he or she has the competence to

develop processes in the customer’s organisation. Together with the customer, he/she can

detect solutions for the planning and implementation of new processes. Since the project

manager learns to know internal structures and particularities of the customer’s organisation,

he/she can offer to develop services for departments or areas beyond the context he/she is

currently operating in. The project manager’s approach, in this sense, can differ significantly

from that of a sales agent, because he/she can try to arouse interest for new services by

confronting the customer with research questions and problems still to be resolved by the

R&D department.

2) Doing so, he/she may be able to involve the R&D department in his/her relation with the

customer. In this sense, the project manager would act according to an actor-network-logic by

building up new links that influence the way things are reflected on. A specific problem or

research question would then function, in Latour’s (2005) terms, as a mediator that involves

various actors aside from institutional logics and makes them act in a different way. What

could change with respect to the way the R&D department acts is that there could be a shift in

the perspective from a problem-solution-oriented approach to an approach that goes much

more into the specific needs and wishes of the customer. Following this view, one can state

that, by establishing new actor-networks the project manager can succeed in integrating the

customer’s needs into the corporation’s view on topics connected to research and

development.

2.2. Being aware of the own history: the limited transferability of practices While acting, especially when it is accompanied by reflexive forms and communicative

practices, potentially extends the actor’s realm of opportunities, as embedded in specific

contexts it is also bound to restrictions. From the perspective of the corporation as such,

major restrictions derive from external forces, like the market or competitors, institutional

settings or socioeconomic conditions. Increasing pressure due to the internationalisation of

markets and the general phenomenon of shrinking growth rates in developed economies are

restrictions almost all corporations have to face.

In addition, restrictions for acting emerge also from within the organisation itself. Referring

to the topic of this article, one can say that however much project management is conceived

of as the core process of most of the organisations, in many cases departmental interests and

logics prevail and department representatives do not adopt supportive modes of conduct

towards project managers. A major problem for project managers when it comes to the

processing of knowledge, relevant insights and ideas for changing and extending business

inside the firm consists in the fundamental gap between the function of executing the core

process activity (which generates a series of useful insights for the corporation) and the

relatively peripheral position in terms of institutional hierarchy. In this sense, it is the

problem of being or not being heard, of the possible solutions, ideas, contacts being or not

being perceived as opportunities when they do not emerge from a departmental process, but

from experiences in projects. How can this knowledge be fed back to the organisation? Often,

project managers are not sufficiently interconnected in order to form a critical mass that is

able to effectively initiate change processes on the basis of the knowledge and experiences

they accumulate.

Still, there is a more fundamental point about the relation between opportunities and

restrictions. If we conceive of acting as being embedded in social contexts, hence not in the

sense of the atomistic conception endorsed by methodological individualism, the

embeddedness and interconnectedness of acting has to be thought of as depending on specific

evolutions. Acting has its own history, and this is a reason why, in our opinion, a “best

practice” approach to organisational change has a rather limited validity (Moldaschl, 2007). It

is not fruitful to treat the experiences made in a determined organisation as a model to be

imitated by other organisations. On the contrary, any concept of change has to be developed

by specifying the opportunities and restrictions in the respective context. In our work as

consultants, we are particularly aware of this circumstance. Instead of referring to practices

established in other contexts as models to be followed or offering standardised procedures for

the introduction of new departments like the PMO, we try to grasp what are the specific

historical and structural conditions that determine the way projects are carried out.

The first step of this detection of the specific frames for the implementation of strategic aims

is to do a series of interviews with actors on various hierarchical levels. As stated in the first

section, by building up relationships with diverse levels and by learning to know diverse

departmental logics, the mode of acting of the consultant becomes in itself strategic.

Nevertheless, the strategy lying behind this acting is not to sound the interlocutors out in

order to advise the executive board how to impose the own ideas concerning change in a

more effective way. Rather, the consultants behave strategically in the sense that it should be

possible to confront actors at all levels with their own history, with the specific opportunities

and restrictions that contribute to or harm the immaterial assets of the firm. In this way, inter-

and intradepartmental relations, networks, modes of interacting, ways of evolving motivation

by trust and acknowledgement can be reflected on as well as a look on the corporation’s

culture and the structures and processes fixed on the operational level is facilitated.

Figure 2: Model of 4 dimensions of social productivity. The conceptual scheme serves to generate indicators for

the organisation’s social capital. It is a tool for measuring the different forms of investing in relationships and

therefore the different types of social capital (linking, bridging, bonding) that are constitutive of the actor-

networks within the corporation as well as connecting the corporation to other organisations and the market.

The scheme we developed for the analysis of corporate settings is an instrument for

generating qualitative and quantitative data regarding a firm’s social capital. On the basis of a

set of key concepts applied to the topics raised in the interviews, a series of items is

developed that allows executives on the various hierarchical levels as well as project

managers or employees to evaluate 1) the quality of the relationships, 2) the ability to

cooperate and 3) the competence in finding solutions that characterise teams, departments

and the corporation as a whole. This makes it possible to reconstruct evolutionary paths the

company has been pursuing as well as the opportunities that are connected to these peculiar

evolutions, but also the restrictions deriving from them. In the consulting process, the items

are not only used for a qualitative or quantitative account of the individual assessments of the

company’s situation. They are also discussed in seminary and workshop settings in order to

compare the diverse points of view and to derive concrete measures for the enhancement of

the firm’s social capital.

Team Team Team Team

formation of

culture 4,8

participation 5,0

internalised

values 3,7

living structure 4,2

acceptance of

responsibilies 4,9

interaction rules 4,9

acknowledgement 4,5

acceptance of

structure 4,0

handling of

responsibilities 5,0

common

reflection

process

4,4

trust evolution 4,5

development of

structure 3,7

involvement 4,9

adoption of an

autonomous

position

4,6

individual level

of autonomy 4,5

analysis of

needs with

respect to

structure

4,0

culture

interaction

motivation

structure

cultural shift 1,7

social

conformity 2,8

attitude of

expectancy 5,0

cluelessness 3,0

uncertainty 2,3

irritation 2,7

deception 2,8

error frequency 2,6

chaos 3,3

ineffectiveness 2,2

demotivation 2,0

assignment of

guilt 3,2

might is right 2,5

exercising of

power 3,1

inefficiency 3,4

defending

against

accusations

2,5

Figure 3: Example for the quantitative measurement of a team’s social capital in a given situation based on a

process of qualitative data generating. The research involved the application of the conceptual scheme of the 4

dimensions of social productivity, an interview series and the creation of items developed together with

executives and employees of the corporation where the consulting process took place.

3. Organising transversal communities: the project management office experience

3.1. Subject-groups, not subjected groups: project managers In diverse consulting processes like the one already referred to on behalf of the medical

imaging and patient information systems provider, we had the occasion to accompany the

introduction of central project management offices. As mentioned above, the offices were

initially set up as executive departments serving to coordinate and standardise processes and

structures regarding the implementation of projects. The institution of an independent

department on a high level in the hierarchy implied a valorisation of project management

inside the respective corporations. Therefore, we proposed to extend the offices’ services to

other areas like the management of performance indicators and transparency, communication

and stakeholder management, education and training, management of critical and exceptional

situations, operative support, knowledge transfer, risk and quality management and the

management of social productivity (Barnett, 2011).

Figure 4: Scheme of extended services provided by PMO

However, a valorisation of project management via the institution of an own department

should not be confused with the “disciplining” of project management. Such an idea could

create the illusion that the conflict between line and project management is resolvable by

confining the latter to a separate department that functions according to the given hierarchies

and interferes much less with the internal affairs of the other departments. By standardising

processes and structures, one could be tempted to think, project management would end up as

finally tamed shrew. Yet, such a perspective would also impede any possibility to tackle

organisational development precisely from the challenges emerging from project

management. What these concrete challenges are can only be addressed by involving project

managers as an important, rather open network in the corporation with links to many other

departments. This is the reason why we assume that organisational development cannot be

achieved without going deeper into the process of community building amongst the project

managers.

Project standards

* development of PM guidelines, toolkit

* IT support

* restructuring of the master project plan

* maintenance of standardised templates

* definition and further development of PM processes

* regional meetings for coordination of current and future activities

* unifying of accounting practices

* evaluation of portfolio and controlling practices

Project coaching and training

* annual scheduling of the internal training

* standardisation of methods and training for project managers

* certification by the PMI (Project Management International)

* tutorials provided by senior PM's in form of mentoring programms

* specialised support during the project implementation phase

* preparation and moderation of workshops

* coaching in delicate situations

* coaching of project managers

Project assistance

* support regarding the invoicing of internal and external services

* support regarding post-auction sales of external services

* project evaluation and risk assessment

* support for licensing and lump sum cost accounting

* support in sales planning

* preparation of kick-off events for projects

Knowledge Management

* participation in the creation of the corporate training programms

* planing of the resources according to the project structure plan in coordination with the PM

* exchange of knowledge and experiences between PMs

* knowledge data base

* public presentation of successful projects

Services provided by the PMO

In our approach, the process of building up a PMO is always embedded in a series of

encounters, seminars and peer-to-peer training forms that enhance the exchange between the

single project managers. In this process, project managers begin to form a community that is

to be considered a subject-group, not a subjected group (Guattari, 1972). This means that it is

not the external imposition of uniting all project managers in an own department that forms

them as a group, but rather their possibility to autonomously set goals, to exchange

knowledge and contribute to the construction of a common understanding (Ostrom, Ahn,

2003). In the case of the medical imaging provider, the knowledge exchange was fostered by

the creation of a virtual community. A rather successful intranet platform was developed that

allowed project managers to communicate with others on various problems. The platform

was regularly visited and filled with contents by many of them, so that soon also employees

and experts from other department claimed to be admitted to it. In this case, the specific

context allowed for an IT-solution to become an agent of the group-building. Sticking to the

actor-network-perspective and to what we have stated on the specificity of opportunities and

restrictions, we assess that in other firms and contexts the same solution maybe won’t have

the same positive effect. Still, what we dare to hypothesize on the basis of the same

theoretical perspective is that it is not so much the affiliation to a department that generates

group identity, but rather the possibility to get networked, to have the possibility to exchange

knowledge, to share problems, solutions and experiences.

3.2. Transversal community: spreading acknowledgement, trust and learning A second point about the formation of a project (not department) based community is that it

is not built on the claim to achieve unity. Rather, it has to be imagined as a transversal

community (Guattari, 1972). As stated, this sort of community cannot be achieved by simply

focussing on the aspects of rationalisation and standardisation. On the contrary, by modelling

the process of standardising the project implementation mode from the perspective of the

interaction between project managers, the organisation is much more likely to attain a

strengthening of group cohesion, the establishing of forms of common reflection and mutual

commitments, i.e. an enhancement of the organisation’s bonding and linking social capital

(Badura, 2008, 2010; Cohen, Prusak, 2001). This means that, while on the one hand

commitments between colleagues working closely together are intensified, also the

connection between the different hierarchical levels is solidified. Employees have the feeling

that they refer to the same values as their superiors because the latter dedicate a lot of

attention to their problems and support them in their everyday activities. If this attitude

spreads all over the corporation, people feel committed to each other without acting

according to the logics of group closure. There will be less need to evolve strong ties

exclusively towards the colleagues of the own department.

In our example, the building up of a project management office allowed for new ways of

processing the knowledge originated by project managers via the contact with other

departments and, as we have stated above, the customer organisations, enhancing by that the

organisation’s bridging capital (Burt, 2005; Lin, 2001). Networks, in this way, are enabled to

evolve dynamically, as actor-networks that are accessible and permeable for new ideas and

different points of view.

Figure 5: The spreading of acknowledgement, trust and learning fostered by PMO

The circulation and co-creation of knowledge is a crucial point if it comes to the building up

of a transversal community of project based actors, be they the project managers, be they

their colleagues in the various departments like R&D, sales, marketing and so on. Therefore,

as a second step in the building up of the project based transversal community within the

organisation of the medical imaging and patient information systems provider, training for

the project managers was reorganised in form of an internal “academy”. By means of this

training institute, managers from other departments came into contact with the project

managers’ community. With respect to the didactical design of their trainings, they were

given the task to impart their specialised knowledge against the background of the interests

and needs of project managers. On the one hand, this was a way to spread acknowledgement,

appreciation and trust across the diverse departments. Project managers came into touch with

the high quality of the specialised knowledge created in and provided by the members of

other departments. On the other hands, one can say that the specialists from the other

departments were successfully “infected” by the project-virus, because they had to re-design

their specialised knowledge taking account of the specific needs and purposes of project

management.

4. Project based value creation: what changes?

4.1. Which direction is to be taken? The conflict between line management and project management is not only a structural

condition, but also a conflict between different approaches to organisational development. As

we have seen, the building up of a project management office can be mistaken as an illusory

departmentalisation of the core activity, i.e. the value creation by realising projects.

Organisational development would then consist in the perseverating of unchallenged and

taken-for-granted hierarchies and the claim that the existing departments continue pursuing

their internal logics of optimising processes. Yet, the conflict could also be used to reorganise

Shared Service

Center

PMO

R&D

sales

marketing

finance

customer

controlling

quality

engineering

the structures of a firm towards a project-oriented form of acting. For many firms, putting the

project form into the centre of the attention and reorganising all the structures all the

structures around the core activity represents a fundamental challenge and is to be considered

the first step in organisational change.

The building up of a PMO is nothing else than doing this first step in organisational change in

project driven organisations. Attributing a central importance to the everyday work of project

managers by easing the burden of the administrative part of their tasks equals to the implicit

acknowledgement of the other parts of their work. And these other parts are, as we have seen,

essentially based on immaterial resources:

1) Social capital: the possibility to intensify the relation to the customer and the relations

with other departments; the possibility to form a peer-to-peer community (subject-group)

with the other project managers and to initiate a transversal community of practice and

knowledge across the departments;

2) Human capital: the possibility to detect new needs and challenges, to develop new services

and products.

The PMO can take over the function to feed the new ideas, solutions and challenges back to

the organisation. Doing so, it contributes to the redesigning of the operational activities and

takes part in the innovation process.

4.2. What is organisational change if orientation shifts towards projects? The question of what organisational change is if the core business process is put into the

centre of organisational restructuring cannot be detached from the way the head of the PMO

and the consultants supporting the building up of the office as executive department act.

While both of them have a strategic agenda, it is obvious that their positions differ in nature.

The consultant’s position can contribute, as we have stated, to the evolution of an enhanced

institutional reflexivity because it confronts the organisation with views from outside, with

standpoints that emerge apart from the institutional logics.

For the head of the PMO, it is as crucial as it is for the consultant to build up a strategic

position, but he/she is much more involved in the institutional and above all in the

departmental logics. Hence, the PMO head has to build up, on the one hand, a maximum of

bridging social capital. He/she has to deal with all different departments and whether he/she

is able to achieve something depends on the trustworthiness he/she is endowed with by the

others. In this sense, the building up of bridging social capital enables the PMO head to

advance requests towards other department heads or members, extending by that his/her

opportunities to receive relevant information, forward ideas, claims or challenges to the R&D

or the sales department and take part in business development processes. On the other hand,

this trustworthiness can also turn into a restriction, as it creates obligation for the PMO head

in terms of dealing with diverging interests. The more he/she gets to know from other

departments, the more the PMO head gets into the position of a broker, the more he/she is

obliged to account for the different, diverging interests and is, thus, forced to interact by

mediation.

We consider it crucial that the PMO head positions the office as a reflexive institution inside

the firm, i.e. as a provider of valuable knowledge concerning the processes for the other

departments. This would complete the consultant’s view which is limited to offer reflexive

elements and processes from an external position. By behaving in terms of reflexivity, the

PMO can succeed in inverting the roles. The PMO could establish as a provider for

specialised knowledge for the departments. As we have just stated, the specialised knowledge

provided by the PMO concerns the processes that have to be developed according to a

project-oriented logic. There are three areas of interest the PMO can intervene:

a) The PMO can initiate the building up of a data base gathering knowledge on

processes. In this way, it would be possible to foster institutional reflexivity

concerning the way processes are planned and implemented. Still, such a data base

is valuable only if it is regularly updated and if the knowledge accumulated is

communicated in seminars, virtual communities etc. In this sense, the “academy”

and the intranet community established by the medical imaging provider

organisation revealed as appropriate measures for an effective combining of

human and social capital.

b) The PMO can contribute to improve processes in other departments. This

presupposes that the PMO head is accredited with the necessary social capital, i.e.

if he/she is considered trustworthy enough to be heard by the heads of other

departments. In addition, institutional forms of exchange between the PMO and

the other departments have to be found in order to create a balance between the

given hierarchies and the actor-networks emerging from the various interaction

and exchange processes occurring in everyday cooperation.

c) The PMO can contribute to discussing the question how the organisation as a

whole can be developed around the core process of doing business by projects.

Can new business opportunities be created out of single projects? How can the

knowledge emerging from the cooperation in projects be reflected and processed

in the organisation? How can the administrative overload connected to project

realisation be diminished in order to extend the time spent on creating knowledge

together and managing sustainable relationships inside and outside the firm?

d) The PMO can represent a driving force for innovation processes. Information

generated in the interaction with the customers is reflected on and forwarded to

the various departments of the organisations and can therefore provide the basis

for product and process innovation. Project managers are supported in their role as

contributors to innovation in that their specific knowledge regarding the

implementation and application of technologies is processed by the PMO.

5. Conclusion Organisational development needs to be based on a theoretical approach that presupposes

multiple actors. It cannot be based on methodological individualism, but must define and

analyse the opportunities and restrictions of acting in organisational contexts on a

socioeconomic perspective, on the insight that acting is embedded in determined cultures and

social frames. This leads us to the conclusion that organisational change can be analysed

better if we take into consideration actor-networks, i.e. dynamic relations evolving on the

basis of the exchange of knowledge, the forwarding of information, the advancing and

challenging of standpoints etc. This process is shaped and organised by the use of

technologies and by the emergence of virtual communities. Yet, it is also a process of direct

interaction that is based on the incurring of commitments and the advancing of expectations,

of claims. These claims and commitments are exchanged and accumulated in the concrete

relational dynamics between collaborators in projects, projects managers and customers,

members from different departments on the diverse hierarchical levels. As sustainable

relationships are based on trust and reciprocity, the underlying commitments and expectations

form the social capital of a network (Coleman, 1990).

Project managers and decentralised actors can be organised in form of subject-groups. This

means that they are given the opportunity to organise themselves in form of peer-to-peer

activities, but also in form of an intense relationship with customer organisations. Doing so,

they enhance the social capital of a firm and can contribute to the development of new

services based on a close relation to the customer. Intensifying services on the basis of a

relationship of mutual trust and understanding is a crucial mode of value creation under the

conditions of shrinking markets and the diminishing opportunity to sell scalable products.

Since project management is not only based on the dealing with and the reduction of

uncertainty in economic interaction, but also with the shaping of relationships, it can be

conceived of as an important element for organisational development. Instituting a PMO as

executive department can contribute the valorisation of projects and project management in

corporations if the office is endowed with strategic influence. In other words, it depends to

what extent the other departments accept the proposals for improving processes, for

intensifying the exchange etc. across the hierarchical borders imposed by the line

organisation. It depends to what extent firms approve the emerging of actor-networks, of

transversal communities.

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