<p>In this changing world, companies have had to learn how to formulate and implement their strategies through projects and organizational structures in order to successfully face threats and opportunities. However, the management of multiple projects is not easy and due to this complexity, a new type of organization has emerged, called Multiproject organization. Depending to its characteristics, this new organization can be classified in project oriented (POO) or project based (PBO) (Arvidsson, 2009).</p><p>Before to execute a project, the organization needs to evaluate its resources and decide if should buy the project through contractors or make it with its own resources (Müller and Turner, 2005). A Project Based Organization (PBO) which manages multiple projects at the same time through contractors requires to keep a good monitoring and controlling project performance, and to create the best project governance structure.</p><p>About these subjects, there have been journals and books published since an academic perspective; but, not all of them have described these topics in a real organization. The aim of this research is to learn how these concepts are applied in a real project based organization, as well as the problems that can be faced and how they have solved them.</p><p>The purpose of this thesis is to show how a PBO deals with the governance of its contracts, considering how the PBO estimates the cost of the project, how it deals controlling the contractors and their projects, as well as how it minimizes the transaction‟s (i.e. the project‟s) economic and administrative costs. Based in the purpose of the study, the research question is: “How do project minimize transactions costs in supplier engagements in delivery projects in the Swedish construction industry? the construction of a railway in the north of Sweden and due to it has 130 major contracts, can be considered as a multi-project organization. The Unit of Analysis used is the transaction cost in supplier involvement in project. A single case study was chosen to present and analyze the information from the organization. It was analyzed qualitative data collected through semi-structured interviews which were applied inside and outside the company, in order to make a triangulation of the data collected.</p><p>The findings explained that the railway company analyzed, achieved to minimize its based organizations (PBOs)” In order to answer, it was selected an organization created for transaction costs on supplier‟s investments during the delivery project phase due to right selection of types of contracts, as well as those process and systems implemented in all the project offices. These process and systems helped it to detect on time potential problems as well as take decisions and covered: the selection of suppliers through the bidding process, the negotiation of contracts, the monitoring, controlling and reporting performance, the closure of the project and the last payments for contractors. The PBO tried to keep a good communication with contractors and at the same time, it developed a team work feeling in which both parts supported each other. It could be observed that : the  it is possible to achieve successfully the organization‟s objectives and minimize the transactions costs during the execution through essential factors as a careful and detailed planning, team work with all the areas involved, communication and hardworking.</p>

Background: Today companies operate in a market that increasingly is becoming global, and where technological development is advancing ever faster. Global competition, shorter product life cycles and constant reorganization of business puts increasing demands on companies and projects that are under their control. As a result of this trend more and more organizations in different industries are working on a project basis. Objective: To identify and address the strengths and weaknesses of project based organizations. Boundaries: Three business units within different companies will be analyzed in order to deduct a conclusion to the research question. Method: A qualitative method has been used. The empirical material was analyzed based on theory. Results: A project based organization promotes higher flexibility in comparison to a functional organization. The organizational structure of a project based organization provides employees with interesting tasks and the possibility to work in and learn from cross functional teams. Although this has a negative impact on ones work life balance. A key weakness is the organizational integration, which includes: knowledge management, implementation of strategies and focus beyond projects, resource coordination and human resource management. Proposal for further research: An in-depth study on how project based organizations promote innovation.

In this changing world, companies have had to learn how to formulate and implement their strategies through projects and organizational structures in order to successfully face threats and opportunities. However, the management of multiple projects is not easy and due to this complexity, a new type of organization has emerged, called Multiproject organization. Depending to its characteristics, this new organization can be classified in project oriented (POO) or project based (PBO) (Arvidsson, 2009). Before to execute a project, the organization needs to evaluate its resources and decide if should buy the project through contractors or make it with its own resources (Müller and Turner, 2005). A Project Based Organization (PBO) which manages multiple projects at the same time through contractors requires to keep a good monitoring and controlling project performance, and to create the best project governance structure. About these subjects, there have been journals and books published since an academic perspective; but, not all of them have described these topics in a real organization. The aim of this research is to learn how these concepts are applied in a real project based organization, as well as the problems that can be faced and how they have solved them. The purpose of this thesis is to show how a PBO deals with the governance of its contracts, considering how the PBO estimates the cost of the project, how it deals controlling the contractors and their projects, as well as how it minimizes the transaction‟s (i.e. the project‟s) economic and administrative costs. Based in the purpose of the study, the research question is: “How do project minimize transactions costs in supplier engagements in delivery projects in the Swedish construction industry? the construction of a railway in the north of Sweden and due to it has 130 major contracts, can be considered as a multi-project organization. The Unit of Analysis used is the transaction cost in supplier involvement in project. A single case study was chosen to present and analyze the information from the organization. It was analyzed qualitative data collected through semi-structured interviews which were applied inside and outside the company, in order to make a triangulation of the data collected. The findings explained that the railway company analyzed, achieved to minimize its based organizations (PBOs)” In order to answer, it was selected an organization created for transaction costs on supplier‟s investments during the delivery project phase due to right selection of types of contracts, as well as those process and systems implemented in all the project offices. These process and systems helped it to detect on time potential problems as well as take decisions and covered: the selection of suppliers through the bidding process, the negotiation of contracts, the monitoring, controlling and reporting performance, the closure of the project and the last payments for contractors. The PBO tried to keep a good communication with contractors and at the same time, it developed a team work feeling in which both parts supported each other. It could be observed that : the  it is possible to achieve successfully the organization‟s objectives and minimize the transactions costs during the execution through essential factors as a careful and detailed planning, team work with all the areas involved, communication and hardworking.

Globally, the fast-changing business environment requires a period for people to learn and accept new information and knowledge which comes more quickly than ever before. E-learning systems, as by-products of information technology are popular today especially in those international organizations with subsidiaries in many countries around the world. As typical project-based organizations, some market research companies in China have also adopted e-learning systems already for some years to meet the requirements of global learning and knowledge sharing. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore the role of an e-learning system in a Chinese market research company in Shanghai. By examining the literature on learning, e-learning and project-based organizations, the research gap of e-learning in the context of project-based organizations has been defined. Through conducting semi-structured interviews in a Chinese market research company, the results demonstrate the current role of an e-learning system as an additional learning channel for individuals. This has not, however, brought significant changes from an organizational perspective due to many factors such as limited interactions between headquarters and local offices, language and cultural barriers, lack of top management support, and issue of time constraints. In order to encourage the use of an e-learning system, the Chinese offices need to build a supportive learning environment internally such as providing a Chinese version, establishing the communication platform, leaving some flexible time for employees to learn and also to link the learning results to individual performance. Moreover, the headquarters also needs to try to motivate the local (Chinese) employees to be more involved in the e-learning processes such as launching, maintaining and giving feedback to improve the effectiveness and also to push forward the impacts of e-learning from an individual level to team or organizational levels.

Project networks are gaining importance for many project based organizations nowadays. Project based organizations carry non-routine and complex tasks by temporarily employing various specialists, allow more flexibility and are ideally suited for managing complexity and dynamic external environment. For managing a project based organization it is not only essential to have good know-how about the tasks involved but also to have good knowledge of potential project members and project partners. This leads to an increased interdependency among projects and focuses on the importance of project networks. In order to initiate a project a PBO mobilizes its network to bring potential project participants together. Film making represents the pure form of project based organization since companies in this industry are formed in order to pursue specific project outcomes and are dismantled once project is completed. Organizations in the movie industry are highly dependent on project networks mobilization to carry out their project tasks. Since the mechanism of such mobilization process still remains unclear the main focus of this research is on how networks are mobilized in project based organization such as film making during the pre-production stage to carry out a specific project. For the purposes of the research primary data was obtained as a result of semi-structured interviews with ten people involved in the film industry in Sweden. A mixture of specific and open-ended questions allowed receiving practical insight of film initiation process and narrating industry participants’ experiences on network mobilization for a film project. During the study several factors were revealed that contribute to network mobilization process during the pre-production stage of film making as well as main activities of film making pre-production stage were discovered. The model was develop that combines the factors and pre-production stage activities to see which factors drive network mobilization for realizing each activity in this stage. The developed model permitted to analyze in details each factor and to reveal the degree of its influence on the pre-production stage in general. Results of the study show that network mobilization process is explained by several discovered factors and almost all of them help to mobilize the network to carry out each of the four activities in the pre-production stage to making a film. The study concludes that since the identified factors contribute to network mobilization for realization of almost all of the activities in the pre-production stage of a movie project then they contribute to general network mobilization process in the preproduction stage for carrying out a movie project. The discovered factors facilitate the network mobilization process and help producers to attach potential participants to their projects.

The study aimed to discuss the impact of project-based learning on primary fifth graders with regards to inclination of self-regulation learning readiness and critical thinking disposition. The study adopted the Solomon four-group design with study objects taken from fifth graders from specific primary school in Kaohsiung. A total of 4 classes were randomly sampled with 2 classes being the experimental groups and 2 classes being the control group. The experimental group was applied with the six steps from WebQuest(Dodge & March,1995) as Scaffolding project-based learning in ¡§Taiwanese traditional Arts and Culture,¡¨ where the control group is excluded. After conducting 24 classes of experimental teaching for 6 weeks with 4 classes per week, t-test and two-way ANOVA were applied to understand the enhancement effect of self-regulation learning readiness and critical thinking disposition on fifth graders accepting project-based learning. The study further comprehend the impact of implementation of project-based learning for the self-regulation learning readiness and critical thinking disposition of primary school fifth graders with low, intermediate and high academic achievement. The research results are listed as follow: I. Under ¡§Unprecedented conditions,¡¨ the project-based learning program facilitates self-regulation learning readiness of primary fifth graders. II. The implementation of project-based learning can improve self-regulation learning readiness of primary school fifth graders with intermediate and high academic achievement. Students with high academic achievement show higher statistical significance than students with intermediate and low academic achievement with regards to improvement on self-regulation learning readiness. Students with intermediate achievement with regards to progress in self-regulation learning readiness do not show significance higher than students with low academic achievement. III. Project-based learning facilitates improvement on the critical thinking disposition of primary fifth graders. IV. Project-based learning can improve the critical thinking disposition of primary fifth graders with high academic achievement. The students with high academic achievement show higher significance than students with intermediate and low academic achievement with regards to enhancement of critical thinking disposition. Students with intermediate academic achievement do not show significance higher than students with low academic achievement with regards to progress in critical thinking disposition. The following recommendations are proposed according to the study results for curriculum teaching and future study: I. Implement the advantages of WebQuest to design project-based learning and to increase the number of classes. II. Students with different level of capacity will undergo different layers of project-based learning, which will be implemented to teaching with theory of cooperative learning. III. Researches undergo long-term follow-up or gradual removal of the scaffolding may be used to increase qualitative data collection and analysis.

Background: How to facilitate the knowledge transfer between projects is a field that has obtained a lot of attention in research. Despite this wide attention, many organizations still experience difficulties to efficiently transfer knowledge between their projects and thus the problems still remain, which appears contradictory. Previous research has had a tendency to assume that all knowledge can be articulated and codified, which has resulted in that solutions to these problems often have been directed towards the side in the transfer that creates the supply of knowledge. However, limited research has taken the receiver of the knowledge into consideration when analyzing these difficulties, who is considered to be equally influential to motivate a transfer. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of the challenges concerning the knowledge transfer from past to future projects, by exploring the importance of incorporating the receiver’s perspective in the analysis of knowledge transfer practices. Methodology: This study has applied a qualitative research methodology where the empirical data has been obtained through an interview-study with nine onsite interviews in two different firms, ABB and SIEMENS. Furthermore, documents were studied in order to compliment and increase the understanding of the information provided in the interviews. Conclusions: By incorporating the receiver in the analysis we can conclude that the practices applied are not efficient in actually transferring the complete knowledge. Herewith, socialization becomes vital as a complement to these practices in order to also transfer the ‘hidden’ explicit knowledge as well as tacit knowledge that the receiver is in need of. The findings thus demonstrate the importance of taking the nature of knowledge into account when investigating the challenges with current knowledge transfer practices.

This dissertation consists of three articles that explore the effect of professional development (PD) on teachers‘ understanding and implementation of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) project based learning (PBL), and the effect of STEM PBL on students‘ mathematics achievement. Teachers in three high schools participated in the research activities. They attended sustained PDs provided by one STEM center based in a Southwestern university, and were required to implement STEM PBLs once every six-weeks for three years (2008 through 2010). The first article employed a mixed-method case study to explore the relation between the quality of the teachers‘ in-class STEM PBL implementations, understanding of the PBL in STEM education, and attendance in the STEM PBL activities. Quantitative findings indicate that attendance in the PD activities was significantly correlated with the quality of the in-class PBL implementation in 2010, yet not in 2011. Moreover, qualitative findings show that the teachers viewed the STEM PBL pedagogy as a means to promote student interest in mathematics, cultivate the interdisciplinary research culture in K-12 classrooms, and help improve students‘ content understanding. The second article investigated the effect of STEM PBL, especially on Hispanic and at-risk students‘ mathematics achievement. The participants were 528 students in the three STEM PBL high schools and 2,688 students in non-STEM PBL schools in the same region. Latent growth modeling was used to analyze the repeated measures across years. STEM PBL instruction positively influenced Hispanic students‘ achievement in mathematics, but not at-risk students. The third study investigated whether participating in STEM PBL activities affected students who had varied performance levels, and to what extent students‘ individual factors influenced their mathematics achievement. The participants were 836 high school students in the three schools. The findings from the hierarchical linear modeling showed that low performing students showed statistically significantly higher growth rates on mathematics scores than high and middle performing students, over the three years. In addition, student‘s ethnicity and economic status were good predictors of academic achievement. This dissertation is the first to reveal the effect of STEM PBL on student academic achievement relating to inservice teacher PD by employing the sophisticated research methodology.

Project work has gained a prominent place in research for its significant educational potential (Blumenfeld et al., 1991; Fallik et al., 2008). Teachers, however, have not been providing project work with a prominent place in the elementary classroom (Blumenfeld et al., 1991; Fallik et al., 2008; Rogers et al., 2010; Tse, Lam, Lam, & Loh, 2005). To encourage and support teachers in practicing Project-Based Learning (PBL), we need to understand what motivates teachers to enact PBL, the challenges they face in doing so, and ways to support teachers in overcoming these challenges. To examine teachers’ lived experiences in enacting student-centered project work, the current study used the method of participatory action research (PAR). This method included the active participation of a teacher (Megan) and me (the principal researcher) in the design, enactment, and reflection upon a constructivist, whole-class project in an eastern Ontario Grade 5 classroom. The study was structured around two research questions: (1) what did we perceive as challenges and benefits of organizing and enacting a student-centered project, and (2) how did we perceive that our collaboration in organizing, enacting, and reflecting upon this project impacted our thinking and practices with regard to project work? Megan’s and my reflections were collected over the course of the project through two semi-structured interviews, diary writings, a pre-structured planning journal, and three semi-structured discussions. Megan and I perceived project work as beneficial to students’ engagement and learning. Enacting the project was challenging, as we lacked the management and organizational skills to enact project work efficiently, and we possessed a strong desire to control the direction of the project. Megan and I were further challenged by students’ lack of skills and comfort with the project’s demands and the lack of school support and time we needed for the project. Collaboratively experiencing and reflecting upon the project demonstrated how essential these challenges were in increasing Megan’s and my comfort, appreciation, understanding, and skills in enacting project work. Based on these findings, the study encourages teachers to collaboratively design, experience, and reflect upon project work in the context of their classrooms. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2012-04-09 16:30:00.451

Innovation is an imperative in all industry sectors. For those such as construction, which are not considered high-tech and which operate as one-off projects, the uptake and diffusion of new innovations into ongoing practice across projects pose particular problems. The nature of these problems faced at a project level needs to be better understood. This thesis is an exploration of innovation implementation in the context of Project-Based Engineering (PBE). It is an empirical investigation of how new planning technologies are implemented in major infrastructure construction projects and the barriers that prevent such implementations from being effective. The findings of this investigation are used to develop and evaluate a new model of innovation implementation in this context. The research design is centred on the immersion of a participant-observer in seven live construction projects over a period of 3.5 years. Each project studied was implementing the same innovation: 4D CAD modelling (3D design model + the construction schedule). A wide cross-section of data was gathered in the field including direct observations, documents and other work products from participation, email and other correspondence associated with the 4D CAD implementations, and formal and informal discussions with project-participants. These data were analysed using content analysis software to find patterns. The research was iterative and involved three phases. The initial phase was a pilot study of implementation in practice using the data from one project. It produced rich descriptions of what transpired and a critical comparison with accounts from the literature. This led to a series of propositions about the influence of project-participant perceptions that were synthesised into a new theoretical model: the initial Perception-Influence model (P-I1 model). The middle research phase then developed this model iteratively using a more-focused data collection and content analysis across four construction project organisations. This was done to provide supporting evidence for the theoretical constructs in the P-I1 model as well as to refine them and add new ones. The outcomes of the middle phase were the P-I2 and P-I3 models. The final research phase analysed the data from the last two project organisations in terms of the P-I model framework with a view to evaluating the model’s theoretical significance and practical applications. The P-I model shows that negative perceptions of value, benefit and usability can cause an innovation implementation to be ineffective as a result of discontinued use or neglect. It provides a map for the progression of an implementation using the perceptions and actions of project-participants as primary constructs. The model proposes that each perception is formed by a number of contributing factors or secondary constructs synthesised from implementation research and user acceptance literature, for example, an opinion or concern about how much an innovation costs (i.e. transaction costs). It also proposes that each perception has both a positive and negative associated action. The constructs that make up the P-I model are grounded in the empirical data. This is because the actions, opinions and concerns of project-participants observed in live projects are evident in project documentation such as emails. These two sources (i.e. observations and project documentation) provide data sets that were used to triangulate inferences about the perceptions of project-participants and the outcome of each 4D CAD implementation (i.e. effective or otherwise). This aspect of the research was not only important for the recommendation of potential applications for the P-I model but also during its conception, development and evaluation. The P-I model is a new and important perspective for both implementation research and PBE practitioners. It helps satisfy the calls for studies of innovation implementation that focus on factors at an individual level and those asking for a better understanding of innovative behaviour. This work shows PBE practitioners how the perceptions of project-participants can have a major impact on the effectiveness of an innovation implementation. The findings provide an evidential basis that can improve implementation effectiveness, especially in PBE organisations. The knowledge built into the P-I model can also assist the planning and execution of innovation implementation strategies, aid in the assessment and redirection of those in progress, and help document lessons learned for implementations within project organisations that have been previously completed. This research uses the P-I model to open the way for future empirical studies of innovation implementation in PBE contexts beyond construction. These would also provide data to further refine the constructs in the model.