Apologies for Cross-posting

PLEASE NOTE CONFIRMED SPEAKERS AND DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACT SUBMISSION – SEPT
17 2004

The 2nd workshop on
Making Projects Critical:
‘Projectification’ and its Discontents

13th-14th December 2004
St Matthias Campus, University of the West of England, Bristol

organised by
Svetlana Cicmil & Damian Hodgson

http://www.uwe.ac.uk/bbs/research/research/mpc   

Call for Papers

There is emerging evidence from several sources of an increasing reliance
upon projects as an alternative to bureaucratic and hierarchical means of
organising (Pettigrew, 2002) which has been linked by some to the move
toward post-bureaucratic, even post-modern organisations (Clegg, 1990;
Heckscher and Donnellon, 1994). At the same time, for many writers such
evidence appears to support those writers who first drew attention to
the ‘projectification of society’ (Midler, 1995; Lundin and Söderholm,
1998) to encapsulate the apparent colonisation of all quarters of life by
project-related principles, rules, techniques and procedures to form a
new ‘iron cage’ of project rationality. For many, then, ‘the project’ may
be seen as a defining feature of late modernity, reflecting shifts towards
discontinuity, flexibility, insecurity and impermanence across both
developed and developing societies. The attraction of ‘projectification’
lies in its promise to deliver both ‘controllability and adventure’
(Sahlin-Anderson, 2002) and at the same time ‘devolution and
accountability’.

In the 12 months since the last Making Projects Critical workshop, the
debate on the future of project management and our understandings of
projects has shown signs of opening up, with an increased willingness from
several in the field to re-examine taken-for-granted assumptions
underpinning current practice. In large part, it is concerns about the
poor performance of project management on its own terms, and the enduring
failure to deliver projects ‘on time, on budget, and to specification’,
which have motivated this reassessment of the discipline. However, such
criticisms may be seen as locked into the same instrumental rationality
which has characterised the discipline so far, focusing almost exclusively
upon the (in)effectiveness and (in)efficiency of projects as currently
organised.

We wish in this workshop to move beyond this functionalist position to
consider the other side of projects more often neglected in this debate –
the broader consequences of projects for those who work within projects,
those who are directly affected by projects and indeed those who manage
projects. On the one hand, there are strong arguments that project working
typically leads to the removal of discretion and autonomy from skilled and
committed employees and a tendency to deskill project workers of all
levels. At the same time, the intensity of project working has major human
impacts within and beyond the workplace, which are often ignored or
obscured in the search for greater project efficiency. At the same time,
the increased reliance upon projects in the public sector and in
international development can be argued to have had deleterious effects
upon representation and local democracy, transplanting a neo-liberal form
of ‘control at a distance’ in a broad range of contexts.

This workshop is intended to encourage research which applies critical
perspectives to understand the implications of project management and
project organisations for work in the contemporary workplace and for
society more broadly. Among the broad range of themes we wish to address
in the workshop, issues of power and domination, control and resistance,
autonomy and surveillance, figure strongly. Through the workshop, we hope
to both highlight and break down the theoretical and methodological
limitations of traditional conceptions of projects, project-based
organisations/organising and Project Management. We would welcome
abstracts from all critical perspectives – Marxist, feminist, labour
process, post-structuralist, post-colonialist – without wishing to
prescribe a ‘critical’ approach. In addition to work on projects
in ‘traditional’ sectors such as engineering, construction and IS/IT, we
would particularly invite abstracts dealing with the impact of projects in
the public sector, international development, and change management.

Specific themes that might be addressed include;

• Discipline and Control in Project Teams
• Critical Approaches to Project Management Education
• Project Managers and Professionalisation
• Surveillance and Control in Virtual Projects
• Complexity versus Order in Projects
• Projects and Governmentality
• The Place of Projects in New Public Management
• Gender, Project Work and Project Rationality

This list of topics is suggestive rather than exhaustive – in general, we
would encourage the submission of any work which adopts a broad critical
perspective on the theme of projects and project management. Work
emanating from the previous workshop is to be published in a forthcoming
text by Palgrave, and we would also hope to develop publication
possibilities based on the themes and contents of this workshop.

As the workshop is self-financing, precise fees are yet to be fixed;
however, it is likely that the cost of attendance will be in the region of
£100 (€150) per person including meals. As numbers will be limited to 30
persons, please book early.

International Invited Speakers:
David Courpasson, EM Lyon
Stuart Green, University of Reading
Donncha Kavanagh, University College Cork

Abstracts of up to 300 words or other expressions of interest should be
sent to either address below by the deadline of Friday September 17 2004.

Svetlana Cicmil
Bristol Business School
University of the West of England
Frenchay Campus
Bristol
BS16 1QY
+44 (0)117 344 3464
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or

Damian Hodgson
Manchester School of Management
UMIST
PO Box 88
Manchester
M60 1QD
+44 (0)161 200 8791
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