•  
  •  
 

Systèmes d'Information et Management

Abstract

In the field of project management, norms are generally considered as being extraneous to project actors. However, norms only become a reality when they are put into practice. At the same time, due to human agency, projects actors have the ability to act on the norms they use. In order to understand how project management norms are enacted and how they contribute to structuring projects practices, we conducted a case study within a large scale IT program. Data were analyzed with a structurationist approach, which provides a view on projects practices as simultaneously structured by enacted norms and contributing to produce and reproduce these norms. Sociomaterial practices have also been identified in our results. From an empirical point of view, this research contributes to increasing the small number of descriptions of IS project management practices in a standardized setting. It provides a new perspective and a methodological approach for understanding how projects practices confront with norms. Our main contribution is to bring an original view of projects as social systems, which are recursively constructed due to actors’ reflexivity and agency.

Share

COinS