Exploring Contingent Employment Policy in IT – Impacts upon IT Project Management Capabilities Enhancement in Large Hong Kong Organisations A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Project Management Ng, Chui-Ha (Tracy) Master of Education (Workplace), RMIT, Australia. Master of Business Administration, CUHK, Hong Kong. Bachelor of Science (Computer Science), CUHK, Hong Kong. School of Property, Construction and Project Management RMIT University October 2012 Declaration I certify that except where due acknowledgement has been made, the work is that of the author alone; the work has not been submitted previously, in whole or in part, to qualify for any other academic award; the content of thesis is the result of work which has been carried out since the official commencement date of approved research program; and, any editorial work, paid or unpaid, carried out by a third party is acknowledged.
Signed: Ng, Chui-Ha (Tracy) June, 2012 ii Acknowledgements I would like to express my sincere thanks to everyone who assisted me during the various stages of this thesis. I sincerely acknowledge the time, energy and patience from my supervisor, Professor Derek Walker and co-supervisor Dr. Ginger Levin, who spent time reading drafts, providing comments, correcting my grammar and giving me the required guidance to enable me to complete this thesis. More importantly, they provided the inspiration and encouragement throughout the entire length of this thesis.
Derek has even made a special transit via Hong Kong on his way to a conference to talk with me face to face about my thesis at the airport. Thank you to the sponsorships from the senior managers of the three case study organisations and participants in the case study organisations who took the time to participate in interviews, validate interview summaries and comment on the case study reports. I would also like to mention the four pilot interview participants who are senior project management practitioners in the Hong Kong IT sector. They provided me great insight to this thesis and fulfilled some of the gaps in my knowledge.
I am also grateful to all the friends from the postgraduate students at RMIT for being my antecedents on the path to attain the doctoral degree. I met them at the RMIT University, Australia at the beginning of my doctoral study. They are Eric, Kate, Eshan, Tee, Atif and Titus; they demonstrated to me the path is difficult but fruitful. In Hong Kong, I am also lucky to have my friends Lousia, Daisy, Olivia and Hung, who have access to local university libraries and helped me a lot on book rentals.
I would also like to express thanks to the boss of my part-time job, Tommy, for his trust and for giving me the complete flexibility to manage my time among work, study and family. Last but not least, I would like to thank my parents and family members who supported me to pursue this doctoral degree. In particular, I would like to acknowledge my parents. My father, who passed away in the mid-way on my path to complete this thesis, was a talented man with little formal education because of war.
He always encouraged his children to learn and pursue the highest education they could. My mother, with low literacy, is also a genius. She took care of neighbours’ kids to support our family. Most of these kids, including her four children, have been able to obtain territory education and have become contributing citizens to the society.
This thesis is dedicated to the memory of my late father. He gave me the courage to overcome all odds. iii Abstract “How can a project-based enterprise accumulate its core competencies when it rents all the human capital?” is a question from DeFillippi & Arthur (1998, p. 125) and is also a question that the researcher wants to answer as a project management veteran in the Hong Kong Information Technology (IT) sector.
Today, large Hong Kong organisations have an increasing reliance on IT and IT projects to sharpen their competitive edge. In parallel, contingent employment on IT projects has become a global trend and is only expected to increase. There are various concerns about the risks on the projects and the project organisations because of the turnover of project team members. Organisational knowledge generated from the projects is rarely retained when the contingent workers leave the project organisations; individual contingent workers might be frustrated by the lack of commitment on their future in the project organisations.
It is assumed that the contingent employment policy contributes to the risk of knowledge drainage, prohibits organisational learning, adversely affects the IT project management capabilities of organisations and thus risks the survival of organisations in the competition. Nevertheless, it was found that there was limited referential research undertaken on IT project management capability enhancement through the use of contingent employment even though there were numerous studies about IT project management, contingent employment, and enhancing IT project management capabilities (the three core themes of this thesis). The link joining these themes is missing; there is a gap in the existing knowledge areas. Based on this background, this thesis was commenced with the objectives to (i) explore the importance of continuous advancement of IT project management capabilities to business successes; (ii) identify and explain the contingent and permanent employment policies of IT professionals (including project managers) in large Hong Kong organisations; (iii) investigate and explain the impacts of contingent employment policies on enhancing IT project management capabilities; (iv) identify and explain the practices of advancing IT project management capabilities as an individual, as a group and as a large organisation; and (v) identify and present possible solutions to satisfy the needs to advance IT project management capabilities using contingent employment.
The thesis research followed a constructivist assumption to claim knowledge. The strategy of inquiry was the case study taking the multiple-case, comparative design. Three case studies were conducted in this thesis. The research method mainly relied on open-ended interviews supported by semi-structured interviews and triangulations using documentation and archival records.
It basically took the qualitative approach. The three case study organisations are typical large organisations and major employers of the Hong Kong IT workforce. The first and second case study organisations (C1-PB and C2-VD) are representative of a large IT users organisation and an IT and communications services organisation (the two key categories of IT employers) respectively employing a high percentage (over iv 50%) of contingent IT workers. The third case study organisation (C3-FI) is a contrast case since it employs a low percentage (below 20%) of contingent IT workers and is a typical IT users organisation.
The case studies and comparative analysis conclude that the degree of projectisation, project resource strategies and investment on IT project management capabilities have to fit the organisation’s specific business dynamics and change over time. The business situation of organisations determines the IT projects’ scale and complexity. These factors lead the IT groups to be organised along the spectrum as functional, balanced matrix or projectised structures. An organisation with higher projectisation is likely to have a higher reliance on contingent IT workers and more resource varieties as its IT project resource strategy.
In order to continue enhancing IT project management capability, while depending on an increasing percentage of mobile external resources (including contingent workers), an organisation may invest more on project governance and support structures, project management methodologies and tools; it may prefer to retain in-house staff to capture the tacit organisational knowledge and invest in cognitive and operational learning to retain codified organisational knowledge. It may be weak in reflective learning and social learning processes. The social capital development in relation to project management capability is found to be handled primarily by each individually. Within organisational boundaries social capital development is mostly informal.
Learning expanded to beyond the organisational boundary is not well mediated although various forms of social networks within and beyond the organisational boundary exist. It is found to be an under-developed area in large Hong Kong organisations. From the contingent workers’ perspective, they typically get into contingent employment work voluntarily unless they are young IT professionals or older technology IT workers. They enjoy the positive impacts brought from contingent employment although they may dislike or accept the negative impacts associated with this type of employment.
The relationship with an employing organisation may be a multi-contract or resign-and-rejoin relationship as large Hong Kong organisations prefer retaining a pool of stable contingent workers. In order to advance the project management capability to stay marketable, a contingent IT worker is likely to self invest and practise the individual level’s social, reflective, cognitive and operational learning. The thesis contributes to organisations having contingent employment as an IT project resource strategy by suggesting reference models to organise and develop organisational learning practices; and to contingent workers by providing a broad view of contingent employment and their ways to enhance in their project management careers. Academically, this research has three contributions including filling part of the knowledge gap, linking up knowledge areas to suggest reference models of enhancing IT project management capabilities under contingent employment context and identifying new knowledge areas such as the value of social capital and the roles of intermediaries that demands further study.
However, this research has its inherited limitations from theoretical v frameworks and a small number of case studies, the findings cannot be generalised to represent the situation of a typical large Hong Kong organisation. Furthermore, the participants are mostly from the IT group of the case study organisations. The data collected regarding a case study organisation are drawn from a relatively small group within a large organisation. They could be biased.
Keywords: case study, IT project management, contingent employment, enhancing IT project management capabilities, large organisation, organisational learning, Hong Kong vi Table of Contents Declaration. iv Table of Contents. vii List of Tables. xiv List of Figures.
xvi Glossary of Terms. xvii Chapter 1 - Introduction. Background of the Research. Significance of the Research.
Research Scope and Objectives. Research method and processes. Expected contribution and limitations of the research. Structure of the Thesis.
13 Chapter 2 - Hong Kong IT Context. IT in Hong Kong. Knowledge-based economy and growth of IT sector. Challenges of CIOs.
Key IT Trends. Increasing importance of IT role in organisations. Contingent employment trend. The Mainland China integration trend.
Cloud computing trend. The Hong Kong IT Workforce. Employers of IT workforce. IT workers career progression.
IT project managers on demand. Hong Kong contingent workforce in IT sector. IT workforce mutual co-operation with Mainland. IT workforce continuous learning.
29 Chapter 3 - Literature Survey. IT Project Management. Failure of IT projects. Characteristics of IT projects.
IT project management success models. IT project management capabilities. Contingent Employment and IT. New economy and contingent employment.
Advantages of contingent employment. Disadvantages of contingent employment. Contingent IT professionals and project managers. IT specific characteristics fit contingent employment.
Future of contingent employment. Enhancing IT Project Management Capabilities. Project manager career development. Formal and informal PM learning.
Contingent employment and individual learning. Organisational PM capability enhancement in new economy. Learning at three levels: individual, group and organisation. Social capital and communities in project management.
Organisational learning beyond organisation boundary. 70 Chapter 4 - Research Method. Ontology of the thesis. Knowledge claim approach.
Phase I – literature survey. Phase II – pilot interview study. Phase III – case studies. Phase IV – comparative analysis.
Individual case data analysis. Cross-case comparative analysis. 99 Chapter 5 - Pilot Interview Study Analysis. The Two Pilot Interview Study Organisations.
Learning IT Project Management Capabilities. Individual Level PM Capabilities Enhancement. Permanent and contingent employments shared characteristics. Contingent employment specific characteristics.
Group Level PM Capabilities Enhancement. Permanent and contingent employments shared characteristics. Contingent employment specific characteristics. Organisational Level PM Capabilities Enhancement.