A construction project requires a multitude of people with different skills and interests and the coordination of a wide range of disparate, yet interrelated, activities. Such complexity is further compounded by the unique characteristics of a project and many other external uncertainties. As a result, construction is subject to more risk than other business activities. In a risky situation, individuals or organizations perceive the situation in their own ways and behave differently to meet their own interests. Many researchers have asserted that divergent risk attitudes are sources of mismatched risk perceptions and inconsistent behaviors among project participants in different organizations, which can disturb proactive and consistent organizational activities. The research on risk attitude has, therefore, been advocated to exploring ways to consistently arouse people‘s cognition, affection, and behavior among stakeholders. However, previous research has been a widely misunderstood concept and remains a fragmented focus in the construction field. Evidence on the construction of risk attitude and how it manifests itself is unavailable. To date, prior researchers have suffered from an issue-oriented focus that has resulted in simplified models by studying single level of antecedents of risk attitude and consequences of management performance, rather than multi-level. Moreover, previous studies only focused on the direct relationship between risk attitude and management performance instead of providing a profound conceptualization of the indirect relationship between risk attitude and management performance or empirically exploring risk attitude‘s antecedents and consequences. The current study seeks to bridge this research gap. Triangulation research is employed as an appropriate research methodology in which both qualitative and quantitative data collection are used to test the research propositions. The research plan draws upon ontology and methodological pluralism. By adopting the Critical Incident Technique (CIT), coupled with an intensive literature review, one can explore the manifestation of risk attitude and its antecedents by analyzing critical incidents derived from preliminary interviews. Cognitive Motivation Theory (CMT) and Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) provide rationales to combine a processed view of risk attitude and the antecedents and management performance of individuals and organizations into a multi-level model of risk attitude. Responses to a questionnaire survey of 239 individuals nested in 61organizations were analyzed with a blend of Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) to establish and examine the hypothesized relationships in the theoretical model. To capture the practical manifestation of risk attitude and its influence on management performance, case studies of two ongoing construction projects were performed. The findings summarized from both qualitative and quantitative studies indicated that risk attitude diverged due to the multi-level influences of its antecedents on project participants, resulting in inconsistent risk perception and risk inclinations. Risk attitude has two levels of manifestation – an individual and organization level. Individual risk attitude manifests itself as cognition, affection, and behavioral inclination, while organizational risk attitude mainly shows up as managerial trust, formalization, an ambiguity of goals and objectives, and a merit system. The findings confirmed that motivated individuals tend to present more consistent risk attitude and be more willing to and capable of exhibiting good management performance. The motivation behind this study is beyond the traditional motivational means. It extends from internal motivation with its locus of control and self-efficacy to external motivation with its interpersonal exchanges, external controls, and observational learning. The risk attitudes of motivated people to evoke better management performance, especially in the process of integrating risk management into a safety management system and the outcome performance of a stakeholder‘s satisfaction and potential to organizations. The research attempts to advance risk attitude theory by re-conceptualizing the antecedents of risk attitude and the consequences of management performance make the underlying theorizing mechanism explicit and testable. This study also provides practical indications of concrete interventions by managers to make risk attitudes converge and then strengthen safety risk management. The thesis contributes to multi-level analysis in the management research field and differentiates the different levels of participants in construction projects. Methodological pluralism and blended qualitative and quantitative research methods will be addressed to demonstrate the different and complementary perspectives of research. Due to limited samples, the generalizability of the findings in the different project types or across other levels needs to be further verified. / published_or_final_version / Real Estate and Construction / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Construction project organisation is a complex human system. Despite the formal governance structure of project, construction works and activities still rely primarily on informal personal contacts of the participants. It is the “here-andnow” interactions and mutual adjustment of project participants that underpins daily construction operations. From the perspective of social learning theory, human interactions in project organization involve learning. In this context, the social nature of learning comes to prominence. Learning embodies the accommodation and adjustment of the project participants’ expectation and tacit nuances prevalent in the interactions among participants. As a human system, the organization of project participants in a project forms a social network. The relational links of participants embedded within the network act as an important resource. This resource, especially the goodwill engendered among the participants, can be used to facilitate actions. Such goodwill is referred to as social capital. The combination of these two perspectives enables the construction of a model of the project team. Social capital engendered in the project organization can be appropriated to facilitate positive actions. In this line of conception, the network of relationships among the project participants may offer mutual support for the cultivation of reflective practices and learning in terms of adaptation, integration, and cooperation. Because social capital is the primordial form of social phenomenon, it is postulated that social capital provides the conditions necessary for learning to take place, and learning, in turn, contributes to project success – that is, project learning mediates the impact of social capital on project success. To test this hypothesis and a series of other related propositions, empirical studies had been carried out within the Hong Kong construction industry. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches were adopted in the empirical studies – questionnaire survey and case studies were conducted. Findings reveal that a more integrative procurement arrangement, management commitment, project team appraisal system that emphasises team working, participants’ intensive interactions, positive personality all contribute to the formation of project social capital, while multiple managerial hierarchies, subcontractor-induced problems, government transparency requirement, goals mismatch, and bureaucratic contract administration all impede its formation. In project organisation, the overlapping of both formal and informal organisational structures occupied by personnel with both technical and managerial capabilities improves project organising efficiency. Indeed, with the mediational thesis generally supported – the impact of social capital on project performance is mediated through learning - and the emergence of a new personal dimension, social capital is a critical antecedent to project organising. However, because social capital and learning affect the soft rather than hard success criteria, other factors need to be considered for overall project performance. These other factors are the capabilities of all project parties and the adoption of relational contracting norms and behaviours. It is the combination of all these factors with social capital as the substrate of participants’ interactions that are most likely to lead to overall project performance. / published_or_final_version / Real Estate and Construction / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

M.Ing. (Engineering Management) / The triple constraint considerations in construction projects determine failure or success of projects. The key reasons of a winning project comprise of identification, monitoring, control and management of projects risks. Projects, over the years, failed to be completed within the contracted triple constraints. The persistent failure of construction projects in South Africa contributes to lack of development in skills and infrastructure. It is hypothesized that a deeper comprehension of the triple constraint and strategic management may supplement success of construction projects. It is difficult to complete projects within the stipulated triple constraint elements due to the high degree of unforeseen circumstances. Although the success of construction projects is confined to the triple constraint, the projects successes can also be influenced by other external factors and intra-management of the triple constraint including trade-offs. The ever escalating societal demand makes it a necessity to keep up through intensive investigation into construction projects. Communication breakdown is one of the sources of errors and is therefore essential for practicality of the survey in the investigation. A questionnaire was chosen for the survey. The collected data was organised into qualifications and experience and was presented in a tabular and graphical formats. Due to the anticipated reluctance to participation, a larger number of people were engaged. Contrary to the contextual information, the fieldwork survey indicates that projects are successful relative to the triple constraint elements. The success or failure of projects is largely founded on the triple constraint elements except for contractors who in addition to the triple constraint cite other factors. The scarcity of engineering and construction skills in South African government is hurting success of construction projects and therefore infrastructure and skills development and sustainability. In conclusion, both the contextual and fieldwork survey attribute failure of construction projects to lack of understanding and poor management of the triple constraint elements and trade-offs. These conclusions are however limited to failure to survey all project management data, sample size, ability to address questions and honesty of participants. A further study into a bigger sample of this specific study is proposed.

No description available.

With a desire to increase the chance of success of major infrastructure and construction (MIC) projects, it is increasingly common to invite the public participating in the planning and design processes. Public participation requires the involvement of individuals and groups who are positively or negatively affected by a proposed intervention (e.g. a project, a program, a plan, a policy). An effective public participation program can be beneficial to the parties involved (i.e. the decision makers and general public) in many ways. As a result, a number of participatory approaches have been developed by various sectors to drive the process of agenda-setting, decision-making, and policy-forming. Many research studies focusing on various aspects of participation in policy-making in general have been conducted, but few have looked into its application in the construction and infrastructure industry in particular. On the other hand, the decision making process of contemporary MIC projects is becoming ever more complicated especially with the increasing number of stakeholders involved and their growing tendency to defend their own interests. Failing to address and meet the concerns and expectations of stakeholders may result in project failures. To avoid this necessitates a systematic participatory approach to facilitate the decision making and evaluation. This research, therefore, aims to develop a multi-stakeholder multi-objective decision making and evaluation model to help resulting in consensus and increasing the satisfaction among various stakeholders (or stakeholder groups) in MIC projects. In this research, an extensive literature review was first carried out to examine the salient elements of public participation in MIC projects and to identify the barriers to effective public participation in project decision making in different countries (e.g. Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, United States, South Africa, etc.). China being a developing country was selected for in-depth case study analysis. Through a series of interviews, the underlying reasons for ineffective participatory practice in China were revealed. A questionnaire survey was then conducted to unveil those stakeholder concerns pertinent to MIC projects at the conceptual stages through the degree of consensus and/or conflict involved. Finally, a multi-stakeholder multi-objective decision model and a multi-factor hierarchical comprehensive evaluation model were developed. These two models were founded on the decision rule approach and the fuzzy techniques respectively. Another round of interview was conducted to investigate the (i) influence of different stakeholder groups in making decisions related to MIC projects during their conceptual stages; and (ii) relationship between the satisfaction of a single stakeholder group and that of the stakeholders overall. The application of the two models was demonstrated by two cases in Hong Kong and their validity was confirmed through validation interviews. The results indicated that the two models are objective, reliable and practical enough to cope with real world problems. The research findings are therefore valuable to the government and construction industry at large for successful implementation of public participation in MIC schemes locally and internationally in future, especially when the construction industry is becoming increasingly globalized and the trend of cultural integration between the East and West is ever growing. / published_or_final_version / Civil Engineering / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

A more rapid and widespread use and implementation of technology in construction often fails since its benefits and limitations remain somewhat unclear. Project control is one of the most variable and time consuming task of construction project managers and superintendents, and yet continues to be mostly a manual task. Controlling tasks such as tracking and updating project schedules can be assisted through remotely operating technology such as hi-resolution cameras that can provide construction management and other users with imaging feeds of job site activities. Although construction cameras have been around for many years the costs, benefits, and barriers of their use have not been investigated nor quantified in detail. Subsequently, definitions and understanding vary widely, making it difficult for decision makers at the organizational level to decide on the investment in camera technology. This thesis reviews the status of hi-resolution cameras and their present use in construction. Results of a multi-phased survey to industry professionals were collected in order to identify benefits and barriers and develop a cost-benefit model that can be used for implementation technology in construction.

M.Tech. (Information Technology) / Increasingly, more now than before, the corporate world has been paying more attention to the prominent topic of “governance”. The absence of governance in an organisation or ineffective governance has become synonymous with all that is wrong. It is regarded to be the root cause of all evils – not only in the corporate environment, but also in society. Following corporate scandals of recent years that have exposed corporate malpractices and mismanagement, corporate governance is increasingly being recognised worldwide as a best practice and an effective mechanism that not only promotes corporate efficiency, competitiveness and sustainability, but is also a tool for combating corporate corruption. The audit function is considered one of the main supporting pillars of corporate governance, as it plays an important role in helping management attain its business goals and strategic objectives. This is realised through a systematic and disciplined approach to evaluating and improving the effectiveness of the organisation’s system of internal control, risk management and governance processes. The failure of the audit function is said to have been one of the critical contributors to recent global corporate scandals. Robust auditing is believed to be the cornerstone of modern corporate governance. The use of auditing in project management processes increases the probability of project success. Using corporate governance as a best practice and audit as one of its sub-sets, this research study deals with the topical issue of failures in Information Technology (IT) projects. The study strives to address this problem by adopting a holistic approach to IT project management auditing that includes corporate governance principles over and above the traditional principles and processes for auditing IT projects. Over the past 15 to 20 years, the rate of failure of IT projects has changed little in continual surveys, showing that more than half of all IT projects overrun their schedules and budgets. This situation has continued in spite of new technologies, innovative methods, tools and different management methods. Although most organisations heavily rely on IT-enabled projects for competitive advantage, it is estimated that worldwide over $6.2 trillion is being wasted annually on IT project failures. One of the reasons for this situation has allegedly been the failure of project governance. Thus, the importance and added value of this research study lies in adopting a holistic approach to IT project management auditing. The study involves corporations and not government agencies or other institutions. The study adopts a qualitative research approach and uses semi-structured face-to-face interviews as the primary method for data collection. It is intended that this study fills a gap in the research literature on the topic.

VULCO es una empresa que opera en el Perú desde 1986, siendo su principal giro de negocio la venta de equipo y maquinarias a compañías de los sectores de minería y equipos para producción de agregados en el sector construcción. Sus principales clientes son del rubro minero, existiendo una oportunidad de negocio de mucha importancia para consolidarse como proveedor de servicios integrales. El presente trabajo de investigación consiste en determinar la influencia que tiene la aplicación de las buenas prácticas de la guía del PMBOK® quinta edición, en el montaje de 3 baterías de hidrociclones CAVEX en la planta de Separación de Molibdeno de una Gran Minera. La obtención del valor que generará la empresa en el ahorro de recursos, le servirá para obtener ventaja ante sus demás competidores. También le permitirá ejecutar obras con mayor calidad que dejen satisfechos a los clientes. Las conclusiones que se obtengan serán de mucha utilidad para la empresa VULCO, y servirán para decisiones de inversión en proyectos futuros, de forma que la investigación realizada formará parte de los activos de los procesos de la organización. La mayoría de los procedimientos que se siguen para este tipo de proyectos, se hacen en base a experiencias anteriores. Sin embargo, no se cuenta con una base de conocimientos sólida, ni tampoco con indicadores de medición que permitan conocer el momento que la empresa empieza a tener sobrecostos o retrasos; con la aplicación de los estándares del PMI al proyecto se podrán tener mayores y mejores controles del proceso de ejecución del montaje, así como también identificar oportunidades y amenazas. / VULCO is a company that has been operating in Peru since 1986. It is a company that sale an equipment and machinery for another companies in the mining and equipment for the production of aggregates in the construction sector. Its main clients are from the mining sectors. Thus, there is a very important business opportunity to consolidate as a provider of integral services. The present research, works on determining the influence that the application of the good practices of the PMBOK® fifth edition guide on the assembly of 3 CAVEX hydrocyclone batteries in the Molybdenum Separation plant of the Mining Company. Obtaining the value can significantly generate and saving the resources. It will also help the company to gain more advantages among the other competitors and so does in executing works with higher quality that automatically boost customers satisfied. The conclusions obtained will be very useful for the VULCO company, that will be used for investment decisions in future projects, so that the research carried out will be part of the assets of the organization's processes. Most of the procedures following these kind of projects are based on previous experiences. However, there is no strong knowledge base, nor with measurement indicators that allow us to know when the company begins to have cost overruns or delays. The application of PMI standards to the project will guarantee a better control for the assembly execution process, as well as identifying opportunities and threats. / Trabajo de investigación

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T16:45:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Welerson Robaina Kanup.pdf: 1168428 bytes, checksum: f9c894dbce62ea48c931fdf5d62dc650 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-05-26 / Pandata Informatica / The projects management maturity is bound on the ability of an organization in managing its projects This dissertation has as objective to show to a way them organizations to reach project management maturity as strategical distinguishing. For this we evaluate the theoretical beddings and concepts of the models of management maturity and analyze the application of a model in a non-profit organization of the area of projects management. The bibliographical revision, divides in two parts, introduced the beddings of the projects management and in the second part the beddings of project management maturity. The methodology of research adopted in this dissertation was the application of OPM3 (Organizational Project Management Maturity Model), of PMI (Project Management Institute), in an organization and its analysis. The application of the model was carried through in the directions of the company (vice-presidency, studies technician, administrative, support to the associate, financier and events) and presents in detail the application of the model in the administrative direction. As instrument of collection of data we carry through interviews with the directors of the company and fulfilling of the questionnaire of the tool of the OPM3 Self-Assessment for execution of the evaluation. For analysis of data we also use the tool that after fulfilling of the questions produced a vision in high level or executive - including the list of Better Practical that currently they exist in the organization, and those that do not exist in relation to the Standard Model. The list of Better Practical that they do not exist currently in the organization was referenced as Target Best Practices . The program also generated four graphs, established in the answers: 1) the organization s overall position on a continuum of organizational project management maturity, 2) the organization s maturity in terms of each domain, 3) the organization s maturity in terms of each process improvement stage, and 4) a composed view of graphs 2 and 3. The conclusion showed that projects management maturity is a strategical differential and will be reached with strategical planning directed toward management of projects in the organizations / A maturidade em gerenciamento de projetos está ligada à habilidade de uma organização em gerenciar seus projetos. Esta dissertação tem como objetivo mostrar um caminho para as organizações alcançarem maturidade em gerenciamento de projetos como diferencial estratégico. Para isso avaliamos os fundamentos teóricos e conceitos dos modelos de maturidade de gestão e analisamos a aplicação de um modelo em uma organização sem fins lucrativos da área de gerenciamento de projetos. A revisão bibliográfica, divida em duas partes, introduziu os fundamentos do gerenciamento de projetos e na segunda parte os fundamentos de maturidade em gerenciamento de projetos. A metodologia de pesquisa adotada nesta dissertação foi a aplicação do OPM3 (Organizational Project Management Maturity Model), do PMI (Project Management Institute), em uma organização e sua análise. A aplicação do modelo foi realizada nas diretorias da empresa (vice-presidência, estudos técnicos, administrativa, apoio ao associado, financeira e eventos) e apresentamos em detalhe a aplicação do modelo na diretoria administrativa. Como instrumento de coleta de dados realizamos entrevistas com os diretores da empresa e preenchimento do questionário da ferramenta do OPM3 Self-Assessment para execução da avaliação. Para análise de dados utilizamos também a ferramenta que após preenchimento das questões produziu uma visão em alto nível ou executiva - incluindo a lista de Melhores Práticas que correntemente existem na organização, e aquelas que não existem em relação ao Modelo Padrão. A lista de Melhores Práticas que não existem atualmente na organização foi referenciada como Melhores Práticas Alvo . O programa também gerou quatro gráficos, baseados nas respostas: 1) Posição como um todo da organização em uma série contínua da maturidade de gerenciamento de projeto organizacional, 2) a maturidade da organização em termos de cada domínio, 3) a maturidade da organização em termos de cada estágio de melhoria, e 4) uma visão composta dos gráficos 2 e 3. A conclusão mostrou que maturidade no gerenciamento de projetos é um diferencial estratégico e será alcançada com planejamento estratégico voltado para gerenciamento de projetos nas organizações

Thesis (MBA (Business Management))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Despite the growth and adoption of project management expertise and techniques, the increase in organisational project-maturity and the emergence of the Web, project success remains a challenge. A key factor leading to the continued failure in IT projects is the lack of identification and appreciation for the key factors that influence the success of project management success. Therefore the researcher embarked on this study to determine the top five critical success factors of project management in the South African ICT environment. The researcher also determined during which phases of the project life cycle these critical success factors occur. In order to determine these objectives, qualitative research was conducted that included a study of literature, available material, views from experts as well as a content analysis from sample interviews. South African ICT companies do not directly focus on any critical success factors, but indirectly they do focus on certain areas that will increase the probability of project management success. The research identified the top five critical success factors as a comprehensive project management plan, well defined scope, skilled and experienced project managers, user / customer involvement and top management support. The research also identified that the focusing on the project planning and project execution and monitoring phases of the project life cycle are the most crucial for project management success. In addition the research identified that project managers who have a strong technical background understand the complexities of the product better and do tend to manage the deferent component of the projects more effectively. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Ten spyte van die groei en toename in projekbestuurkundigheid en -tegnieke, die toename in organisatoriese projek volwassenheid en die uitbreiding van die Web, bly projeksukses ‘n uitdaging. Om die rede het die navorser die studie onderneem om die vyf top kritiese suksesfaktore van projekbestuur in die Suid-Afrikaanse ICT omgewing te bepaal. Om hierdie doelwit te bepaal is kwalitatiewe navorsing onderneem wat ‘n literatuurstudie, beskikbare materiaal, opinies van kundiges sowel as inhoudsanalise van onderhoude gevoer insluit. Suid-Afrikaanse ICT maatskappye fokus nie direk op enige kritiese suksesfaktore nie, maar indirek fokus hulle wel op sekere areas wat die waarskynlikheid van projekbestuur sukses sal laat toeneem. Die navorsing identifiseer die vyf kritiese suksesfaktore as ‘n samevattende projekbestuursplan, goed gedefinieerde omvang, kundige en ervare projekbestuurders, gebruiker/kliënt betrokkenheid en topbestuur ondersteuning. Die navorsing het ook identifiseer dat die fokus op projekbestuursbeplanning, en projekuitvoering en monitering fases van die projeklewensiklus die mees kritiese is vir projeksukses. Die navorsing het ook identifiseer dat projekbestuurders wat ‘n sterk tegniese agtergrond het die ingewikkeldheid van die eindproduk beter verstaan asook die verskillende komponente van die projek meer effektief bestuur.