The construction sector is one of the most important industries for the economy in Sweden. Between 2010 to November of 2020, there has been an increase in employment in the construction industry by 35.4 percent. In 2019 the Swedish construction sector was valued at EUR 53.3 billion, where the construction sub-sector makes up 47.6 percent (European Construction Sector Observatory - Country profile Sweden, 2020).  The construction industry is a fundamental part of society, whereas labor productivity, which represents the quantity of work performed per hour (Park 2006), is a vital element in the process of construction. Gunduz et al. (2020) state that labor consumes a significant amount of cost in construction projects, thus labor productivity is a determinator of cost optimization i.e., the process of making something as good or effective as possible (Cambridge Online Dictionary, n.d.). The benefit of productivity is seen as reduced construction time and cost (Fox, Marsh & Cockerham, 2010). Moreover, a lack of effective management activity towards construction resources can potentially decrease labor productivity. Thus, the familiarity of project managers with labor productivity factors is of major importance (Shehata & El-Gohary, 2011) and contributes to project success (Gunduz & Abu-Hijleh, 2020).

Since 1970, high project failure rate and low user satisfaction has elicited research on users and their role in the process. It is believed that users' physical participation or psychological involvement in the development process can improve user satisfaction and/or system quality. Previous research treats users as a source of requirements and hypothesizes satisfaction to increase when requirements are fulfilled. However, inconsistent conclusions lead to confusion. Recently, a co-production concept has been proposed to understand consumer participation in product development process. In this reconceptualization, users, instead of requirement generator, should be part of the production. In this study, based on co-production concept, we view users as one knowledge source and study how knowledge can be coordinated through the co-production process. After collecting data from 97 system users, most of the hypothesized relationships have been confirmed. IS-user co-production has a positive effect on expertise coordination and, in turn, improves teamwork outcomes. The only relationship that is not significant is between "bring expertise to bear" and "creativity." Implications for practitioner and suggestion for future research are provided. Co-production was found to be a second-order construct comprised of multiple formative constructs. Higher levels of coproduction behavior were expected and were found to produce better outcomes of collaborative efforts. For future study, this relationship is expected to hold true when pairs of information systems developers and information systems users who have worked together on the same information systems development project are surveyed at the end of their projects (or just before it ends or recently thereafter).

Concern for project failures and successes have posed a controversial and much debated topic amongst scholars and practitioners alike. IT projects are no exceptions and they too suffer from a high rate of failure. This research aims to explore the reasons why certain IT projects succeed). Besides its academic importance, the research intends to assess the implications for successful implementation of current and future IT projects. The review of the extant literature reveals the enormity of the challenges involved in minimising or avoiding project failures. Present work is contextualizing these issues in a large national organisation with branches throughout the KSA. The Saudi Arabia constitutes the case study for this research. Qualitative methodology was adopted to generate and collect adequate and relevant data. Main instruments were; Semi-structured interviews involving senior managers in five geographical areas who were involved in the management of the IT projects and selected project documents. Thematic analysis was used and led to emergence of seven main ‘themes’, 19 major ‘issues’, and the construction of the first time generic model for success of IT projects. The core issues identified in the model are: Quality, Time and Cost at three levels; individual, organisation and environment with specific order of importance. The implications of the findings for the theory and practice have been identified. It is also recommended that there is a need for further research into individual and contextual factors that influence both managers as well as the circumstances under which IT projects are implemented. / Ministry of Education, KSA

This research explores which entrepreneurial competencies are important for independent consultants to succeed in their projects. The topic is important because independent consultants' businesses are facing a high failure rate. Understanding which entrepreneurial competencies contribute to independent consultants' projects success can therefore increase their clients' satisfaction and impact the sustainability of their businesses. Although entrepreneurial competencies have been linked to the survival and success of new businesses, current research has not sufficiently examined which entrepreneurial competencies influence independent consultants’ project success. To our knowledge, there is a scarcity of qualitative research in this area. This gap limits our understanding of which entrepreneurial competencies are required for independent consultants to achieve success in their projects. Further exploration, particularly through qualitative methods, is needed to bridge this gap and provide deeper insights to the topic. To fulfill this, we formulated thefollowing research question: Which entrepreneurial competencies do independent consultants need to execute their projects successfully? We believe the more nuanced knowledge about this topic can help enhance project success and long-term business sustainability for independent consultants. In this research we hold a subjectivist and interpretivist perspective, and utilize an inductive and exploratory approach to explore the subject. The European Commissions’ framework “Entrepreneurship Competence Framework” (EntreComp) is used as a base to help us frame the interview guide and analysis. EntreComp helps us identify and understand entrepreneurial competencies. Taking the initiative, working with others, learning through experience, self-awareness & self-efficacy, mobilizing others, and creativity were found to be the key entrepreneurial competencies for independent consultants to succeed in their projects. Our findings also highlight the interconnectedness of these, along with other entrepreneurial competencies. This emphasized the importance for independent consultants to consider the entrepreneurial competencies interrelated relationships to achieve success in their project. Our research found that the entrepreneurial competencies vision and valuing ideas could be interpreted as having little to no importance for independent consultants and their project success. We also identified communication as an additional entrepreneurial competency of importance, previously not mentioned, and suggest its possible inclusion. Our research contributes to the field as it provides practical guidance for independent consultants in enhancing their project success, and may mitigate the risk of their business failure. The research can also foster discussion among academics, policymakers, and business support organizations about the support mechanisms needed to enhance the survival of new ventures. Lastly, it advocates for the development and integration of entrepreneurship education and training programs aimed at equipping aspiring entrepreneurs with essential entrepreneurial competencies to effectively navigate the competitive business environment.

The construction sector is embossed with uncertainty, where cash flow prediction, time delays, and complex feature interaction make it hard to predict which future projects will be profitable or not. This thesis explores the prediction of project yield and project success for a company in the construction industry using supervised learning models. Leveraging historical project data, parametric traditional regression and machine learning techniques are employed to develop predictive models for project yield and project success. The models were chosen based on previously related work and consultations with employees with domain knowledge in the industry. The study aims to identify the most effective modeling approach for yield prediction and success in construction projects through comprehensive analysis and comparison. The features influencing project yield are investigated using SHAP (SHapley Additive exPla-nations) and permutation feature importance (PFI) values. These explainability techniquesprovide insights into feature importance in the models, thereby enhancing the understandingof the underlying factors driving project yield and project success. The results of this research contribute to the advancement of predictive modeling in the construction industry, offering valuable insights for project planning and decision-making. Construction companies can optimize resource allocation, mitigate risks, and improve projectoutcomes by accurately predicting project yield and success and understanding the keyfactors influencing it. The results in this thesis reveal that the machine-learning models outperform the parametric models overall. The best-performing models, based primarily on accuracy and ROI, were the random forest models with both binary and continuous outputs, leading to a suggested data-driven guideline for the company to use in their project decision-making process.

Communication technology allows companies to deliver services electronically. This leads to a lower dependence on geographical location. Historically, companies have moved IT related work to countries where wages are lower to decrees costs. When IT systems over time increases in complexity, competence and resource availability becomes more important. In order to achieve success, the customer and vendor need to work closely. In previous research the customers’ point of view are mainly presented when examining the offshoring relation, but participation effect the vendor as well. The need to examine the offshoring relationship from the vendor’s point of view has increased as the vendor becomes more significant. This thesis has examined the point of view of Indpro, an IT service provider located in Bangalore (India) primarily serving customers located in Sweden. The empirical materials are based on a field study of Indpro during the author´s ten-week stay in Bangalore, India, where daily work was conducted at Indpro’s office. Materials collected during the field study where analysed through the lens of the theoretical framework created by Balaji & Ahuja (2005), called the offshore project success model. In conclusion, there is no doubt that cross-cultural understanding and clear expectations form the foundation of a trusting relationship between the vendor and the customer, which builds project success.

This research studies the competencies of International Development (ID) project managers from their perspectives, taking into consideration the contextual factors and the challenges that they face when managing ID projects. The study adopts a constructionist ontological viewpoint and an interpretivist epistemological philosophical assumption. The nature of the research is exploratory with an inductive approach, using qualitative research method. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews with experienced project managers in International Development projects. Template analysis strategy was used to analyse the data. The findings show that contextual factors have a significant influence on the challenges that ID project managers face when managing projects. Contextual factors are operating environment, large network of stakeholders and intangible goals of ID projects. Five challenges were identified as the results of the context, namely stakeholder management challenge, beneficiary needs analysis challenge, the challenge of balancing strategic and operational views, capacity building and training challenge and sustainable funding challenge. To overcome these challenges, seven ID project manager competencies were identified management skills, personal qualities, interpersonal skills, stakeholder engagement skills, capacity building skills, and change management skills. These competencies are found to be interrelated and complementary. While the role and responsibilities of ID project managers were also uncovered during the research, the findings on contextual factors, challenges and competencies help to better understand the ID project manager role and responsibilities. This study makes the contributions from both theoretical and practical point of view. With regards to theoretical contribution, our findings expanded on ID project manager competencies as well as relating them to the context and challenges in ID projects. The role and responsibilities of ID project manager is another theoretical contribution in this study. From a practical point of view, this thesis’s findings would be useful for various organizations who deliver ID projects, particularly human resources management. In addition, it can act as knowledge sharing with ID project managers and help in designing and enhancing educational programmes in ID project management. Overall, this could result in better delivery and overcoming the challenges of International Development projects.

<p>U disertaciji je prikazana povezanost organizacione kulture i strukture preduzeća sa uspehom projekata koji se u tom preduzeću sprovode. Predložen je model promene nivoa prisutnosti identifikovanih faktora organizacione kulture i strukture koji su povezani sa uspehom projekata u cilju njegovog povećanja.</p> / <p>The dissertation presents an influence of organisational culture and structure of the company on the success of projects implemented in that company. A model is proposed, which changes the level of identified factors of organisational culture and structure which are proved to be associated with the success of the projects.</p>

Novos negócios, novos serviços, novos processos e a evolução constante dos que já existem, além do atendimento das estratégias estabelecidas, são desafios diários da organização. Isso indica a necessidade de se ter funcionários, independentemente do nível hierárquico, que possuam senso de oportunidade e sensibilidade para os desafios e os problemas enfrentados pela empresa, além da obstinação em resolvê-los, características ligadas ao conceito de empreendedorismo corporativo. De um outro ponto de vista, o atendimento das estratégias, em sua maioria, é realizado por meio de projetos, sendo o maior responsável pela sua liderança: o gerente de projetos. Assim, nesse processo, esse profissional torna-se um elemento chave para o sucesso do projeto e das estratégias; adicionalmente, pode se tornar importante para o futuro da organização, ao usar sua capacidade empreendedora para vislumbrar novas necessidades e oportunidades. No entanto, o gerente de projetos tem responsabilidades operacionais, de monitoramento, contabilização e controle perante o projeto, para que os objetivos iniciais sejam atendidos, quando talvez as características de um empreendedor não sejam necessárias. Torna-se então relevante avaliar se as características de um empreendedor corporativo agregam valor ou não ao gerente de projetos, na medida em que elas se reflitam em projetos mais bem sucedidos. Para essa avaliação, realizou-se uma pesquisa por meio de 164 gerentes de projetos, em sua maioria homens bastante experientes, com pós-graduação. A análise não-paramétrica indicou uma tendência de se ter projetos mais bem sucedidos quanto maior for a tendência empreendedora do gerente de projetos. Houve um destaque para a tendência criativa, para a qual pôde-se observar um impacto positivo em inúmeros critérios de sucesso, inclusive sugerindo que quanto maior a tendência criativa do gerente de projetos, maior será a possibilidade do projeto ser bem sucedido. Como não se encontrou menção dessas características nos autores pesquisados nesse estudo, recomenda-se a revisão do estudo do perfil do gerente de projetos, a fim de se avaliar mais profundamente a inclusão da tendência criativa em seu perfil. Um gerente de projetos não pode mais ser visto como um mero executor; deve sim ser visto como um parceiro importante no reconhecimento e busca de novas oportunidades, além da contribuição aos bons resultados, pela persistência em solucionar problemas e desafios encontrados no desenvolvimento de suas atividades. / New businesses, new services, new processes, the already constant evolution of them, also the settle strategy are the organization daily challenges. So,it indicates they require to have employees, independently from hierarchical level, who have a sense of opportunity and sensibility to the problems and dare faced by the company, and a strong will to solve them. These characteristics are part of the conception of corporate entrepreneurship. A another point of view: these strategies solutions are in its majority made by projects, and the responsible person for its leadership is the project manager. Therefore, in this process he becomes the key element to the project and strategy success; additionally he can become very important to the future of the organization when he applies his entrepreneur skills to glimpse new necessities and opportunities. However, the project manager has operational responsibilities, like monitoring, accounting and control, in order to attend the initial targets, even whenever entrepreneur skill might not be necessary. Therefore, it is relevant to evaluate whether a corporate entrepreneur skills add values to the project manager or not, from the moment they are used in successful projects. A research with 164 project managers with post-graduation courses and great work experience was carried on, in order to have this evaluation. Nonparametric analysis indicated a tendency of more successful projects as far as the manager entrepreneur skills tendency increase. There was an emphasis for the creative tendency, which a positive impact in several successful criteria could be observed, also suggesting that the more creative tendency of the project manager, the more it will be the responsibility of a successful project. As there are not mention about this characteristics in the literature, we recommend a profile project manager review to fill this gap. A project manager cannot be like a simple person who carry orders; he should be a partner in a enterprise to seek opportunities, beside his or her contribuition to fix the problems and challenges.

Enterprise system replacement projects within the property and casualty insurance industry are costly, high-risk undertakings that carry a significant risk of project failure. The decision to replace policy administration systems for companies with over $250 million in direct written premium is a multimillion dollar investment for corporate strategic decision makers. This study examined the financial impact of enterprise policy administration system replacement in the property and casualty insurance industry by comparing financial performance results for companies that performed policy administration system replacements with those that did not. Insurance industry financial results for the years 2009 through 2014 were used for the analysis and examined in a quantitative quasi-experimental study using repeated measures MANOVA with 6 levels for US companies with over $250 million in 2009 direct written premiums. This analysis showed that enterprise system replacement was not financially significant for revenue growth or operational efficiency. This finding suggests that system replacement should not be used as a financial growth strategy for organizations, although other justifications for system replacement may make replacement beneficial. Additional research is recommended to determine whether financial performance gains seen in 2014 for companies performing system replacements carry into future years, or whether particular companies with positive performance results following system replacement employed strategies that could be generalized across the industry. This study promotes positive social change by informing sound financial decision making and investment by insurance companies, thereby improving their financial health and stability.