Financial crises in East Asia, Russia, and Latin America have caused some to wonder if there is something inherently unstable about financial markets that thwarts their ability to allocate capital appropriate^- and ultimately causes these crises. I build a multi-period, industry-level credit model in which debt-financed entrepreneurs develop homogeneous projects with long gestation periods, sequential investment requirements, and no intermediate cash flows. Entrepreneurs accumulate private signals about terminal demand, and if the signals are bad enough, may decide to halt project development before completion. The prevalence of project suspensions aggregates information and permits the industry size to adjust to the true state of terminal demand. Debt contracts depend upon the pricing power of the creditor; these contracts impact the size of the industry and the timing of the information aggregation. When demand realisations are poor, some investors will be disappointed ex post; aggregate disappointment will depend upon how long the investment behaviour has carried on before suspensions occur, and how large the industry is. I interpret situations of substantial aggregate disappointment as a 'crisis'. Principal results relate to the impact of debt finance on the timing and likelihood of project suspensions. With all equity (self) financing, suspensions will typically be observed, but they may occur relatively late in the game. In contrast, debt finance may lead to very rapid suspensions, depending upon the tools allocated to the creditor. When creditors exercise monopoly control over credit allocation and pricing, profit-maximising creditors can and will force suspensions. This may involve reducing the entrepreneurs' equity contribution and / or subsidizing credit in order to ensure entrepreneurial participation. When credit markets are competitive, creditors lack the pricing power that can be used to structure credit policies that force early suspensions. As debt accumulates and the entrepreneurs' share of liquidation proceeds dwindles, entrepreneurs may not voluntarily suspend operations as this will lead to loss of private benefits. Therefore, there may be no suspensions observed in equilibrium. This problem will be particularly acute when the entrepreneurs' initial equit)' stake is small.

Project managers today rely on scheduling tools based on the Critical Path Method (CPM) to determine the overall project duration and the activities’ float times. Such data provide important information about the degree of flexibility with respect to the project schedule as well as the critical and noncritical activities, which leads to greater efficiency in planning and control of projects. While CPM has been useful for scheduling construction projects, years of practice and research have highlighted a number of serious drawbacks that limit its use as a decision support tool. The traditional representation of CPM lacks the ability to clearly record and represent detailed as-built information such as slow/fast progress and complete representation of work interruptions caused by the various parties involved. In addition, CPM is based on two unrealistic assumptions: that the project deadline is not restricted and that resources are unlimited. With CPM, therefore, the most cost-effective corrective actions needed in order to recover delays and overruns cannot be determined. This research is based on the view that many of the drawbacks of CPM stem from the rough level of detail at which progress data is represented and analyzed, where activities’ durations are considered as continuous blocks of time. To overcome CPM drawbacks, this research presents a new Critical Path Segments (CPS) mechanism, with its mathematical formulation, that offers a finer level of granularity by decomposing the duration of each activity into separate time segments. The CPS mechanism addresses the problems with CPM in three innovative ways: (1) the duration of an activity is represented as a series of separate time segments; (2) the representation of the progress of an activity is enhanced; and (3) an optimization mechanism to incorporate project constraints into the CPS analysis. To demonstrate the ability of the CPS to provide better analysis than the traditional CPM, a number of case studies are used to show its ability to (1) simplify network relationships and accurately calculate floats and critical path(s); (2) achieve better resource allocation and facilitate accurate delay analysis; and (3) overcome problems associated with the use of multiple resource calendars. This research represents a change from well-known CPM techniques and has the potential to revolutionize and simplify the analysis of ongoing and as-built schedules. The developed CPS technique is expected to help project managers achieve a better level of control over projects and their corrective actions because it offers better visualization, optimization, and decision support for meeting project goals within the specified constraints.

Globalization has drawn Canadian design firms to projects in many parts of the world and cross-cultural design projects are now a significant part of landscape architecture practice. However, currently there are few studies that discuss the issues and challenges associated with these projects. Through exploring the relationship between professional values and the design process, this research intended to identify issues and provide resolutions associated with cross-cultural design projects. A literature review and interviews of experienced design professionals show that professional values affect the design process. In a cross-cultural design project, different value systems from multiple cultures interact and influence each other, creating issues and challenges, but also inspiring new design ideas. The research suggests that understanding values and the professional value system could help landscape architects identify issues and improve both the processes and the products of cross-cultural design projects.

No description available.

The term "Project" have become a growing work model that exist in almost all bransches. A project is a work effort made over a finite period of time with a start and a finish to create a unique product, service, or result. Science shows that time limitation has an impact on humans to perform under pressure, which challanges the contributor to deliver. This report contains an examination about project management, both coming from scientific results and an external business. The point of this study is to bring ideas of improvement, which can make the work method more effective in this company. / Projekt har blivit en växande arbetsform och existerar i nästintill alla verksamheter. Arbetsmetoden innehåller en tidsbegränsning och ett tydligt mål. Forskning visar att projektets tidspress har en inverkan på människor att skapa en prestationspress, vilket leder till att medarbetaren måste leverera. Denna rapport innehåller en undersökning kring projektledning, både vetenskapligt och på ett externt företag. Syftet med undersökningen är att få fram förslag på förbättringar som kan effektivisera arbetsmetoderna på det externa företaget.

This research project focuses on understanding the reasons why projects executed within Denel UAVS do not meet the objectives as set out in beginning of the project and inevitably, the project fails. The aim of the study is to meet the following objectives: 1) To evaluate the effect the current project management process practiced within Denel UAVS has on project success. 2) To evaluate the effect of size and complexity of projects executed within Denel UAVS has on project success. 3) To establish the most important interpersonal skills required by project managers, within Denel UA VS for project success. 4) To evaluate the influence the current organisational structure within Denel UAVS has on project success. The research method for this research project consists of two phases: namely phase one - Literature Review and phase two - Empirical study. The Literature review was conducted to evaluate the common reasons for project failure and to gain a better understanding of defining project success. A survey questionnaire was distributed to employees of Denel UAVS to obtain quantitative data as part of the Empirical study. The research provides information on results obtained and specific analysis of data collected from employees within Denel UAVS. The research also provides information on the reasons for project failure within Denel UAVS. The researcher makes recommendations to the management of Denel UAVS based on the results obtained from this study. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2006.

Formal project management methodologies and processes play a vital role in organisations that run large complex projects and programmes. Is it possible that these methodologies and processes can end up defeating the purpose for which they are introduced? Can these methodologies actually cause projects to fail by becoming the focus of attention? If so, what can be done to reverse this bizarre situation? This study intends to give some insights into these complex questions. Methodologies that are not usually used in such environments are applied to a particular messy situation on a project in an attempt to bring about some relief. The events took place in a conservative, rapidly changing and highly politicised organisation that had embarked on a programme comprising many large interdependent projects that needed to be implemented in an aggressive time frame. A particular large and complex project was running into trouble due to, in no small measure, the strict enforcement of onerous project management procedures. The project team was becoming demoralised and very stressed, which aggravated the situation further. Project managers usually adopt a "hard" approach to making changes. The aim of this research is to see whether using a "softer" approach in the environment described above could alleviate the situation. In this study, systems thinking and action research form the core of the multi-methodological approach to understanding the problem situation and identifying appropriate interventions to bring about improvements. Given the culture of the organisation concerned, will the application of these methodologies improve the situation by bringing the project back on track and improve staff morale? Other concepts that play a role in this study include complexity theory and the learning organisation that are deemed essential to the understanding of the holistic picture. 111 "This we know. The earth does not belong to us; we belong to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood that unites one family. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons and the daughters of the earth. We did not weave the web of life; we are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves." (Chief Seattle) / Thesis (M.Com.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2004.

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to describe how IKEA AB, works with projects today. Further, the aim is to give a suggestion on how a Project Management Information System could look like in the multi-project organization IKEA AB. In order to control and monitor, this study also includes performance measurements, in the form of KPIs, into the Project Management Information System.   Background: In today’s business life many companies are a multi-project organization with several ongoing projects at the same time. By using a Project Management Information System organizations are able to monitor, control and support projects. IKEA AB described having a set project methodology, but that project managers often work in their own way, and that this lead to a problem with monitoring and supporting project.   Methodology: The methodological approach in the study is action research. The contacts and interviews were conducted thru a semi-structured approach with people related to projects in different ways, project managers and management board members.   Findings: The findings of the study are that projects at IKEA AB are not conducted in a cohesive way. The suggestion for a Project Management Information System at IKEA AB containing of several parts; the system need to include a project plan, KPIs to monitor cost, time and resources, and project members feelings needed to be monitored during execution. The information also needed to be presented in two separate dashboards to deliver the right information to the right person.

Generating innovative solutions for large-scale multifaceted problems increasingly requires the carefully orchestrated coordination and collaboration of complex collectives composed of multiple teams. However, there are many difficulties inherent in collaborative work, which are often exacerbated when individuals hail from multiple fields, perspectives, cultural backgrounds, and geographical locations. Although collective creativity can be maximized when teams leverage functionally diverse information, often residing outside the boundary of the team, this is only true to the extent that teams can effectively reconcile often-competing perspectives. Resolving these countervailing pressures requires leadership networks - patterns of emergent influence - that enable organizational teams to explore and exploit diverse informational sets. In this thesis, I turn to leadership networks in order to understand how the social structure of influence within cross-functional multiteam systems (i.e., MTSs) holds the potential to catalyze innovative new ideas. I evaluate hypotheses about the structure of leadership networks and resulting creative output in a sample of geographically distributed cross-functional MTSs formed using students completing linked semester-long projects across two universities in the US and France. Findings reveal the structure of leadership networks, both during early exploration and later exploitation phases, has important downstream consequences for innovation. First, my results suggest that throughout exploration and exploitation, innovation arises in those MTSs who exhibit leadership networks high in bridging ties and whose leaders have strong mutual influence on one another. Second, I find innovation arises in those MTSs whose leadership networks are highly concentrated around a relative few members during the exploitation phase.

At the heart of Project Management are time, cost and performance by utilizing the available resources. When analysing the Global Competitiveness index for 2012-2013 it becomes clear that in South Africa labour efficiency is far below what it should be, ranked 113th out of 144. In the same report Business Sophistication is ranked 38th out of 144. It becomes clear that performance, time and cost at the heart of Project Management are hampered by the low labour efficiency. The adoption of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in the Construction Project Management Environment will raise productivity and will increase the quality and speed of work, financial controls, communication, and access to common data. The effect will be improved communication, an increase in the speed of data transmission, cost savings and fewer occurrences in miscommunication. The study has been done to set a framework of how ITC can be managed and implemented in the South African Construction Project Management Environment. These enablers and disablers of ICT in Construction Project Management should be determined. The current rate of ICT adoption is verified and the future trends in ICT are researched, characteristics common to quality information should also be verified. The study determined that the future developments in ITC will be profound and if applied correctly, Project Management through the means of communication will be affected positively. In the empirical study the characteristics of quality information, the disablers and also the enablers were investigated taking into account the current rate of ICT adoption in the South African Construction Management Environment. The framework used in the study proposed and confirmed how ITC can be managed and implemented in the South African Construction Project Management Environment. It is set out in the following steps: Firstly: By determining the common characteristics of quality information, namely accuracy, completeness, consistency, uniqueness, and timeliness. The implementation of ITC in the Construction Project Management Environment can be controlled. Secondly: Disablers of ICT adoption in project management exist, namely economic factors (reduction in employment, rising cost, and limited trade), social factors (digital divide, security and lack of education), and other factors (legal, environmental and cognitive). These factors should be managed. Thirdly: Enablers of ICT adoption in project management exist, namely relative advantage, complexity, compatibility, trial ability and observe ability. These enablers must be focused on and exploited where possible. Fourthly: Determine the current rate of ICT adoption in Construction Project Management. This was done and it is clear that the digital divide has been crossed by South African Project Managers and that they will embrace future developments in ICT in general. Finally: Future trends in ICT for the next five to ten years pertaining to Project Management should be analysed and new trends with possible advantages for Project Management must be investigated on a constant basis to see what will be advantageous. / Thesis (MBA)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.