Papers by Karel de Bakker
An Assurance Framework for Reliable ICT-Enabled Service Chains
Assurance is an essential condition for trust in a collaborative ICT-enabled service business. In... more Assurance is an essential condition for trust in a collaborative ICT-enabled service business. Insufficient assurance can cause organizational vulnerability, inefficiency and major loss of business revenues. Especially complex and extensive composite ICT-enabled services are confronted with a major increase of business- and discontinuity risks. To mitigate these risks, this paper presents a conceptual solution for assurance and governance in ICT-enabled service chains, by designing an assurance framework based on business strategy, the management of risk-control obligations and the control and audit of the service chain. After presenting the design of the new assurance framework, the business implications are explained. In this context, the feasibility and relevance of the framework are validated at two large public companies in The Netherlands. The paper shows that a new assurance and governance approach for ICT-enabled service chains is required in practice and theory, where assur...
International Journal of Project Management, 2012
The central question of this research is if, and how, risk management contributes to the success ... more The central question of this research is if, and how, risk management contributes to the success of IS/IT projects. Risk management is used regularly in IT projects, despite indications in literature that risk management only occasionally contributes to IT project success. Drawing on Habermas we distinguish between instrumental and communicative effects of risk management. Stakeholders from seven ERP implementation projects indicate that in addition to the instrumental effects of risk management, being direct risk mitigating actions by stakeholders, individual risk management activities are able to generate communicative effects. Communicative effects create a commonly shared definition of the situation by influencing stakeholders' perceptions and expectations and by defining the inter-stakeholder project relations. These effects contribute to the effectiveness of instrumental action, and consequently to project success. Stakeholders consider risk identification to be the most influential risk management activity, both in number and in strength of the effects.
Risk management affecting IS/IT project success through communicative action
Project risk management is defined in the literature as being instrumental action based on ration... more Project risk management is defined in the literature as being instrumental action based on rational problem solving. Research indicates limited positive effects of an exclusive focus of instrumental action on project success. This article proposes to extend this instrumental view through ...
The question whether risk management contributes to IT project success is considered relevant by ... more The question whether risk management contributes to IT project success is considered relevant by people from both academic and practitioners" communities already for a long time.
Does project risk management contribute to project success; more specifically to success in Enter... more Does project risk management contribute to project success; more specifically to success in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation projects? The answer is provided in this thesis by conducting a combination of literature investigation, case studies and an experiment.
The existing literature is barely able to demonstrate evidence that project risk management contributes to IT project success. Moreover, the literature demonstrates that assumptions on which the influence of risk management on IT project success is based, are often incorrect. In order to further investigate the relationship between project risk management and project success, an extension to the existing model is proposed.
The model extension assumes that project stakeholders interact during the execution of risk management activities, and that this interaction is able to influence project success. This is an addition to the existing (instrumental or non-social) model of risk management, which itself precludes stakeholder interaction.
The additional model was investigated by interviewing numerous stakeholders (project managers, IT suppliers, customers) from ERP implementation projects. Stakeholders indicate that individual risk management activities, e.g. risk identification or risk allocation, generate so called communicative effects: action, perception, expectation and relation. These effects contribute to project success; they influence stakeholders’ actions and stakeholders’ common definition of the situation.
Findings from case studies were confirmed by an experiment in which the effects of a single risk management activity were investigated. Results indicate that risk identification in which the project group discusses the risks contributes to project success in terms of higher quality and valuation of the result.
The question whether risk management contributes to IT project success is considered relevant by ... more The question whether risk management contributes to IT project success is considered relevant by people from both academic and practitioners‟ communities already for a long time. This paper presents a meta-analysis of the empirical evidence that either supports or opposes the claim that risk management contributes to IT project success. In addition, this paper also investigates the validity of the assumptions on which risk management is based. The analysis leads to remarkable conclusions. Over the last ten years, much has become known about what causes IT projects to fail. However, there is still very little empirical evidence that this knowledge is actually used in projects for managing risks in IT projects.
This paper concludes with indicating new directions for research in the relation between risk management and project success. Key elements are stakeholder perception of risk and success and stakeholder behaviour in the risk management process.
Keywords: Managing risk, Project success, Information Technology
Project risk management is defined in the literature as being instrumental action based on ration... more Project risk management is defined in the literature as being instrumental action based on rational problem solving. Research indicates limited positive effects of an exclusive focus of instrumental action on project success. This paper proposes to extend this instrumental view through communicative action. This theoretical broadening was explored by interviewing project stakeholders about project success and risk management application. Analysis demonstrates stakeholders deliberately use risk management to convey messages to others, with the aim of influencing their behaviour, synchronising their perception and making them aware of the context and their responsibilities. Stakeholders perceive these effects as contributing to project success.
Keywords:
Managing risk, Project success, Information technology, Case studies, Communicative action
Risk management is an instrument used by project managers to
execute and control their projects ... more Risk management is an instrument used by project managers to
execute and control their projects to assure that outcomes are aligned with project plans. Existing evidence for the contribution of this instrument to project success is not convincing, because this evidence is often based on assumptions that prove inaccurate for most projects. These assumptions were addressed in an experiment involving 53 project groups. The results from this experiment demonstrate that the use of risk identification, a single risk management activity, positively influences objective and perceived project success. Communication between project members during risk identification plays a crucial role in this relation.
… France, 19-20 June 2002. 5 p …, Jun 1, 2002
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Papers by Karel de Bakker
The existing literature is barely able to demonstrate evidence that project risk management contributes to IT project success. Moreover, the literature demonstrates that assumptions on which the influence of risk management on IT project success is based, are often incorrect. In order to further investigate the relationship between project risk management and project success, an extension to the existing model is proposed.
The model extension assumes that project stakeholders interact during the execution of risk management activities, and that this interaction is able to influence project success. This is an addition to the existing (instrumental or non-social) model of risk management, which itself precludes stakeholder interaction.
The additional model was investigated by interviewing numerous stakeholders (project managers, IT suppliers, customers) from ERP implementation projects. Stakeholders indicate that individual risk management activities, e.g. risk identification or risk allocation, generate so called communicative effects: action, perception, expectation and relation. These effects contribute to project success; they influence stakeholders’ actions and stakeholders’ common definition of the situation.
Findings from case studies were confirmed by an experiment in which the effects of a single risk management activity were investigated. Results indicate that risk identification in which the project group discusses the risks contributes to project success in terms of higher quality and valuation of the result.
This paper concludes with indicating new directions for research in the relation between risk management and project success. Key elements are stakeholder perception of risk and success and stakeholder behaviour in the risk management process.
Keywords: Managing risk, Project success, Information Technology
Keywords:
Managing risk, Project success, Information technology, Case studies, Communicative action
execute and control their projects to assure that outcomes are aligned with project plans. Existing evidence for the contribution of this instrument to project success is not convincing, because this evidence is often based on assumptions that prove inaccurate for most projects. These assumptions were addressed in an experiment involving 53 project groups. The results from this experiment demonstrate that the use of risk identification, a single risk management activity, positively influences objective and perceived project success. Communication between project members during risk identification plays a crucial role in this relation.