Contextualization of project management practice and best practice

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Contextualization of Project Management Practice and Best Practice contributes to a better understanding of project management practice by investigating the use and usefulness of project management practices, tools, and techniques. The study examines practice variations among organizational, project management, and project contexts and performance. The use of project management practices, tools, and techniques is seen here as an indicator of the realities of practice. A clear understanding of the state of professional practice is particularly important to future development in the field of project management. Directly observing what project practitioners do and how they put into action their knowledge and competencies is a means to understand their practice.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• List of Figures (p. vii)
• List of Tables (p. ix)
• Chapter 1 Introduction
• 1.1 Background (p. 1)
• 1.2 Development (p. 1)
• 1.3 The Study (p. 2)
• Chapter 2 Outline of the Research
• 2.1 Introduction (p. 5)
• 2.2 Rationale (p. 6)
• 2.3 IS/IT and IS/IT-Enabled Change Projects (p. 9)
• 2.3.1 Focusing on IS/IT-Enabled Projects (p. 9)
• 2.3.2 Is the Study of Projects a Social Science? (p. 12)
• 2.3.3 The Nature of Projects (p. 14)
• 2.3.4 Managing Projects at a Time of Change (p. 16)
• 2.3.5 Project Success and Failure (p. 19)
• Chapter 3 Culture
• 3.1 Culture and the Challenge of Placement (p. 25)
• 3.2 The Culture-free Thesis (p. 25)
• 3.3 What is Culture? (p. 30)
• 3.4 Cultural Theory (p. 34)
• 3.5 Culture in Contemporary Management (p. 40)
• 3.6 Culture and Diversity in Project Management (p. 44)
• 3.7 Cultural Imperatives in Project Management (p. 54)
• Chapter 4 Cognition, Perceptions and Culture
• 4.1 Social Cognition and Psychology (p. 55)
• 4.2 Values (p. 56)
• Chapter 5 Research Method
• 5.1 Conceiving the Research Methodology (p. 61)
• 5.1.1 Language (p. 63)
• 5.1.2 Instrumentation (p. 63)
• 5.1.3 Administration (p. 68)
• 5.1.4 Response Equivalence (p. 68)
• 5.2 Developing the Data-Gathering Tool (p. 72)
• 5.4 The Pilot Study (p. 75)
• 5.5 Questionnaire Design (p. 76)
• Chapter 6 Survey Data Analysis and Results
• 6.1 Objective (p. 79)
• 6.2 The Survey Data and Relevant Factors (p. 80)
• 6.3 Data Analysis Techniques (p. 81)
• 6.3.1 Preliminary data analysis (p. 82)
• 6.4 Results (p. 86)
• 6.4.1 Preliminary Data Analysis Results (p. 86)
• 6.4.2 Nationality and its Interaction with Culture (p. 86)
• 6.4.3 Age (p. 88)
• 6.4.4 Gender (p. 90)
• 6.4.5 Project Roles (p. 91)
• 6.5 Hypothesis 1: Interactions of Cultural Perspectives, Project Environments and Importance of Project/Success Failure Factors (p. 93)
• 6.5.1 SEM Model Fit (p. 94)
• 6.5.2 Impact of Cultural Factors on Project Environments and Importance of PSFFs (p. 95)
• 6.5.3 The Uni-dimensionality of the Assignation of Importance of PSFFs (p. 98)
• 6.6 Hypothesis 2: Exploring the Impact of Cultural Perspectives and Project Environments on Stages of the Project Cycle when Views of PSFFs are Formed and/or Revised (p. 101)
• 6.7 Hypothesis 3: Exploring Views on the Scale of Project Success or Failure (p. 102)
• 6.8 Summary of Data Analysis Results (p. 105)
• Chapter 7 Conclusion (p. 109)
• References (p. 113)
• Appendix A Secondary Interview Coding (p. 143)
• Appendix B Initial Cultural Disposition Question (p. 147)
• Appendix C The Revised Questionnaire (p. 151)