A Reconceptualization of the Concept of Project Success at the Organizational Level

Accepted to the 2015 JAIS Theory Development Workshop 1

A Reconceptualization of the Concept of Project Success at the Organizational Level

Michael J. Cuellar Georgia Southern University

[email protected]

Abstract

The concept of project success in Information Systems and Project Management research has been one of the key concepts in the field. However, after years of research, the field agrees only that the concept of success is critical to the field, and there is no agreed upon definition or operationalization. This paper addresses these issues by undertaking a critical review of the literature related to project success in the IS and project management fields finding that each of the dominant perspectives has philosophical and practical inadequacies. It then proposes a new conceptualization of project success based on the Morphogenetic Social Theory of Margaret Archer (1988, 1995). This new conceptualization, the paper argues, alleviates these inadequacies and points toward a more robust research agenda for success.

Keywords:

Project Success, IS Success, Morphogenetic Social Theory, Project Management


A Reconceptualization of the Concept of Project Success at the Organizational Level

Introduction

What is project success? Despite years of examination of the concept, the literature has not

produced a consensus definition of success and the literature remains in conceptual

ambiguity (Baccarini, 1999; de Bakker, Boonstra, & Wortmann, 2010; Guy G. Gable,

Darshana Sedera, & Taizan Chan, 2008; Ika, 2009; Pinto & Slevin, 1988; Rai, Lang, &

Welker, 2002). To illustrate this situation, consider this case study of a business process

re-engineering (BPR) project described in Larsen and Myers (1999)1: the Alpha NZ case.

The project here was one in which business processes were redesigned and a new

technology artifact was implemented to support them. Initially, the project was viewed as

a great success. Projected savings of $2.1 million annually and a 64% reduction in

accounting staff were achieved. However, two months later, after the removal of the

members of the original project team from the organization, the accounting staff was left

without much expertise in the new system and because the management reporting features

had not been completed, a lack of ability to generate management reports. These two issues

led to low morale in the group. At this point there was a wide disparity in opinion among

the various stakeholders about the project. The key players in the project team, no longer

on site, continued to believe that the project was a success. The integration of the system

and the financial savings had already paid back the implementation expenses. However,

1 Appendix 1 contains a more detailed description of the project.


the users had a different perspective. They felt that the loss of expertise and failure to

deliver the required reporting made the project a failure.

The research questions then are: how can we determine if a project is a success or a failure?

How should project success be conceptualized? Additionally, is it a binary decision? Or is

there some middle ground? The answers to these questions from the literature are unclear.

The only things that the literature seems to agree upon is that the concept of success is

critical to IS research (Guy G. Gable et al., 2008; Rai et al., 2002; Sabherwal, Teyaraj, &

Chowa, 2006) and that there is no agreed upon definition (Ika, 2009; Rai et al., 2002) or

ways to measure or assess the concept (Guy G. Gable et al., 2008). Additionally, in

studying project success or defining it as a variable, the literature has used different

definitions of success, which makes cross study analysis difficult because of the translation

required. They also hold that it creates issues for practical applications such as making

benchmarking difficult (Bannerman & Thorogood, 2012; Guy G. Gable et al., 2008).

To attempt to move beyond this conceptual ambiguity and practical confusion toward a

conceptualization of success at the organizational level, this paper examines the various

attempts to conceptualize project success from the IS and project management literature

and their explanatory power through the lens of the Alpha NZ case. It finds various

weaknesses in the existing conceptualizations, either in philosophical ability to examine

situations or to properly classify empirical results as either as successes or failures. After

doing so, it conceptualizes project success based on the critical realist Morphogenetic

Social Theory (Archer, 1995) in an attempt to overcome these inadequacies. A research

agenda for the new conceptualization is suggested.


Literature Review Methodology

This review follows a philosophical analytical approach to the literature as described in

Rowe (2014) and illustrated in Alavi and Leidner (2001)’s review of knowledge

management. In it we assess the literature and categorize it according to meta-theoretical

position. We then analyze the general approach for each meta-theoretical position and

identify issues with that general approach to conceptualizing project success. Each general

approach was subjected to an evaluation with the Alpha NZ case (M. Larsen & Myers,

1999) to determine its ability to correctly classify the case. This case is appropriate because

the Alpha NZ case is a complex one that contains a change in perception of success without

a change in the project at all. It is also particularly well suited as it can serve the role of

several cases in one. Since it records the history of a project where it was first recorded as

a success and then subsequently a failure, it can used first, as two simple cases where the

project is completed and evaluated. Then, it is a more complex case where the project is

the status of the project has been changed. The various conceptions of project success will

need to account for all of these different features.

Data Collection

The literature for this review was gathered following the guidance of Webster and Watson

(2002). For this review, we sought to gather articles in both the project management and

IS literature that focused on project success. We included the project management literature

instead of solely the IS literature as the IS literature has not considered this issues as

intensely as the project management literature and therefore the project management

literature has the more mature consideration of project success.


We selected articles that focused specifically on conceptualizing “project success,” “IS

success,” “success criteria,” or “evaluation criteria”. We focused on theoretical

contributions rather than how the concept was operationalized in empirical research

because we believe that empirical contributions are driven largely by theoretical work. We

did not include the “success factors” stream of research (Bannerman & Thorogood, 2012)

as it used the definitions defined previously and did not seek to contribute to

conceptualizing “success”

We implemented Webster and Watson’s recommendations by beginning with the lists of

articles cited in the review articles by Ika (2009) and Jugdev and Muller (2005). This gave

us a good basis in the project management literature. We added additional articles by

examining the papers referenced by those papers (thus implementing the “backward”

chaining recommended by Webster and Watson). We also performed two separate searches

in Google Scholar. One for “Success” in the title, the other for “evaluation” in the title

selecting those articles that seemed to deal with conceptualization of success or evaluation

criteria. For these searches we looked in the major project management journals: “Project

Management Journal”, “International Journal of Project Management” and “International

Journal of Information Technology Project Management” which are the major journals in

the project management field. For the IS field, we searched in the journals provided by

both the AIS senior scholars and the Academic Journal Guide produced by the Association

for Business Schools (Cremer, Laing, Galliers, & Kiem, 2015) (See Appendix 2 for the list

of journals). These overlapping lists provide a large representative sample of the IS

literature. We utilized Google Scholar as it provides a more complete and inclusive

coverage of the IS literature than other databases such as Web of Knowledge or Scopus


(Harzing, 2008). Additionally, textbooks on project management were consulted for their

treatment of project management success (Brewer & Dittman, 2010; Brown & Hyer, 2010;

Cleland & Ireland, 2007; Kerzner, 2009; Larson & Gray, 2011; Marchewka, 2009;

Schwalbe, 2007).

Classification of Approaches

Once the papers were collected, they were classified into categories representing the meta-

theoretical approach taken by the authors. We began with the taxonomy specified in Ika

(2009), to classify the articles. Ika (2009) identified three basic approaches to project

success, “objectivist”, “situational” and “subjectivist” with different approaches and

assumptions. The “objectivist” views approach project success as a universal methodology

by which projects can be evaluated. The “situational” or “contingent” approaches

recognize that “one size does not fit all” and those different characteristics of the project

and the environment in which it is found call for different success criteria. Thus given a

certain set of project and environment characteristics, project success criteria should be

similar. In contrast to those two approaches, the subjectivist approaches view success as

extrinsic to the project. Project and environment characteristics are not predictive of the

perception of success; rather, it is the result of a political and dialogic process.

For our classification approach, we sought to describe the meta-theoretical assumptions

behind the different approaches. They are described in detail below. In our approach we

found that the situational approaches, as described by Ika (2009), are actually objective

methods in that they consider success to be able to be evaluated by objective measures.

The measures are idiosyncratically selected based on the characteristics of the project and


the environment in which it operates but they are still objective measures. Since Ika (2009),

a new view based on the principles of sociomateriality has been proposed (Cecez-

Kecmanovic, Kautz, & Abrashall, 2014). This view eschews any attempt at

“representation” of success or failure but rather seeks to focus on the story behind how the

situation came to be viewed as a success or failure.

Findings

In this section, we report the findings of the literature review. First we consider some term

definitions that will be used throughout the discussion. Then we examine the classifications

of the articles in terms of conceptualizing success that we found.

Definitions

Mandatory vs. Operational vs. Strategic Projects

First, we recognize the distinctions that literature makes between different kinds of

projects. While this distinction is found only in Larson and Gray (2011), it is yet a useful

one. First, projects may be distinguished between mandatory projects, those that must be

done for regulatory and other reasons; operational projects, those that are done to improve

existing operations; and strategic projects, those that are done to provide a strategic

advantage in the marketplace (Larson & Gray, 2011). This distinction is important, as each

of these different kinds of projects will have different success criteria.

Project Management Success vs. Project/Process Success

The literature also distinguishes between types of success. First, it describes project

management or process success. This kind of success, as its name implies refers to how


well the project has been managed and typically refers to whether the project has come in

on time, on budget and with the required features, the so-called iron triangle. The other

type of success that the literature refers to is project or product success, did the project

accomplish the goals or provide the benefits for the customer or organization that it was

intended to provide (Baccarini, 1999; Bannerman & Thorogood, 2012; Collins &

Baccarini, 2004; Cooke-Davies, 2002; Han et al., 2012; Ika, 2009).

Both project management success and project success represent attempts to describe

whether a project a whole has been successful or not. They are not intended to measure

only part of the project or project effects. Jugdev and Miller (2005) describe an evolution

in thinking about project success over the last 40 years. “During what they term Period 1,

the 1960s-1980s, simple metrics such as time, cost, and specifications [project management

success] were used to evaluate project success because they are easy to use and within the

realm of the project organization” (p. 23). In Period 2, the 1980s and 1990s, critical success

factors were identified but used intuitively and not grouped or consolidated into

frameworks. In Period 3, the 1990s and 2000s, a number of frameworks were developed to

describe how success was success was stakeholder-dependent and that success “involved

the interactions between the internal and recipient organization” (p. 25). Especially

following the work of Shenhar and associates (2001; 1997) success was seen as how the

project not only delivered what was expected, but also provided customer satisfaction and

affected organization performance and prepared the organization for the future which we

can consider as using a “project success” view of project success.


IS Success

This term, drawn from the Delone and McLean IS Success Model (1992, 2003) refers to

an interdependent set of six concepts that are held to represent the concept of IS Success

with one “Net benefits” being defined as the “dependent variable.” While all the concepts

are interrelated the ultimate determiner of whether an IS is successful is the net benefits

that it provides. Delone and McLean suggested that net benefits are such things as “cost

savings”, “expanded markets”, “reduced search costs” and other things (2003, p. 26).

While IS success is a different concept than project success, it can be used as a measure of

project success (see below). When project success is measured as the ultimate impact of an

information system on the organization, the “net benefits” of system use reflect on the

success of the project as a whole and therefore IS success can be considered as a way of

assessing project success.

Success Factors and Success Criteria

We must also distinguish between success factors and success criteria. Success factors are

those things that when present move the project toward being successful. Success criteria

are the measures or standards by which the project is evaluated in order to determine if it

is a success or failure (Cooke-Davies, 2002).

Classification of Papers

The final classification of papers is summarized in table 1. As discussed above, the

objectivist forms of classification, those that viewed success as an objective characteric of

a project we found in three different forms. There are also subjectivist forms of


conceptualization which view success as a subjective evaluation of the project and the new

non-representational or socio-material form which views success as an “agential cut”. We

now review each in turn.


Approach Objectivist Subjectivist Non-representational

Concept Objective characteristic of the project Politically determined social construction

Relational Effect of a Network of Actants, the

result of an “agential cut”

Sub-category Adherence to Planning Product Success Contingent /

Situational

Criteria Adherence to Planning “Net Benefits”

Criteria varies on project

characteristics and environment

Power-based negotiations “Ontological Politics”

Methodological Approach

Compare to planning

Cost-Benefit Analysis Multiple Analysis of Agential

interactions

Description of the interactions that lead to the description of the

project/IS as a success or failure

Representative Publications

Traditional, textbooks, Beale

and Freeman (1991)

Myers (1995)

Cecez-Kecmanovic, Kautz and Abrashall

(2014)

Delone & Mclean (1992,

2003)

Shenhar & Assoc. (1997, 2001) Larsen and Myers (1999)

Slevin and Pinto (1986) Bannerman (2012) Fincham (2002)

Wilson/Howcraft, (2005)

Issues One size fits all One size fits all Doesn’t handle shifts in success

criteria Agential focus Subjectivity, Inability to

explain or predict, Lack


Not determinative of success

Can’t determine until after

benefits realized Lack of methodology

of methodology and concepts

Lack of Concepts

Considers social environment /political /stakeholders?

No No Somewhat Yes Yes

Table 1: Summary of the Various Approaches to Conceptualizing Success


Examination of the Existing Conceptualizations

For each of these conceptualizations, we examine them in terms of the philosophical approach.

That is we look at the meta-theoretical assumptions related to the conceptualization in terms of

ontology and epistemology. As will be seen, the meta-theoretical approach guides and limits the

capability of the approach determine success. After describing the philosophical approach, we will

assess the ability of the approach to evaluate success which we term the empirical capability,

finally we use the conceptualization to examine the Larsen and Myers case to illustrate its ability

to examine complex, ambiguous cases such as that one.

Objectivist Approaches

The objectivist approaches have in common a view of success as an intrinsic characteristic of the

project that can be evaluated by a set of objective success criteria. The criteria vary based on the

approach but ontologically, they all view success as an objective characteristic of the project.

Epistemologically, they hold that success is something that is available to empirical observation

and we can, with proper refinement, have a clear view of it. Thus by evaluating the criteria held to

determine success based on the project characteristics, we can determine whether the project is

successful. As we look at the three approaches illustrated in table 1, we see that while they hold

this metaphysical position in common, they grow increasingly diverse in terms of the criteria used

moving from a “one size fits all” conceptualization of project management success to an “each

project has different criteria” approach of the situational approaches.


Adherence to Planning or Project Management Success.

The received view of project success is that of project management success or the so-called “iron

triangle” of adherence to planning (ATP). If a project meets the criteria of being completed on

time, on budget, and meeting the requirements, it is considered successful. This definition is the

one most commonly encountered in the project management textbooks (Brewer & Dittman, 2010;

Brown & Hyer, 2010; Cleland & Ireland, 2007; Kerzner, 2009; Larson & Gray, 2011; Schwalbe,

2007) and it is the common definition provided by practitioners and used in the empirical studies

(Agarwal & Rathod, 2006; Atkinson, 1999; Bannerman & Thorogood, 2012; Barclay & Osei-

Bryson, 2010; de Bakker et al., 2010; Ika, 2009; Procaccino & Verner, 2006; Savolainen, Ahonen,

& Richardson, 2012; Wateridge, 1998; White & Fortune, 2002). These criteria are parsimonious

and easy to understand and compute. They provide a simple, direct measure of project management

performance (Bannerman & Thorogood, 2012). They can also be used to assess project progress

by means of such tools as Earned Value Analysis. It can be applied to all types of projects:

operational, mandatory and strategic with equal efficacy.

Philosophical Assessment. Ontologically, it emerges from the confluence of the money expended,

time taken and functionality delivered when compared to the planned budget, time and

functionality. Epistemologically, it follows the process of comparing the planned values against

the actual values. Where these values are congruent, the project is a success where there is a

disparity; the project is considered a failure.

Empirical Assessment., A number of projects have been recognized to have violated these criteria

and have been considered successes instead of failures and vice versa (Pinto & Slevin, 1988). For

example, Ika (2009) cites Shenhar, Dvir, Guth, Lechler, Panatakul, and Poli, (2005) in reference

to the second generation of the Ford Taurus car. This project was completed on time in 1995 but


was not considered to be successful in the marketplace. There are also projects that could be

considered failed projects in terms of ATP but were considered successful: The Thames Barrier,

the Fulmar, the Concorde (Munns & Bjeirmi, 1996), North Sea Oil projects (de Wit, 1988), the

Sydney Opera House (Lim & Mohamed, 1999), and the first generation of the Ford Taurus car

(Shenhar et al., 2005).

The Sydney Opera House may be the most outstanding example of the failure of ATP. Originally

planned to take 10 years and 3.5 million pounds, it eventually completed 10 years late and 14 times

over budget (F. Wilson, 2013). Even at that it was not considered to be a very good venue. It was

recently rated as having the worst acoustics out of 20 major venues. The opera pit is too small

necessitating constant work arounds and the concert hall swallows up the sound because it is too

large (Kamenev, 2011). Yet it has become the symbol of Sydney, bringing millions of visitors and

dollars to Australia and was recently named a UNESCO World Heritage Site (Kamenev, 2011).

Today it is considered to be a great success.

Evaluating the Alpha NZ Case. In viewing the Alpha NZ case under this success framework, we

see that at the time that the project was delivered, since the project was successful in terms of

completing on-time, on-budget and with the desired results it would be considered a success.

However, it has difficulty accounting for the change in attitude toward the project. While the

adherence to planning did not change with the passage of time, however within a few months, the

view of the project changed and the project was viewed less favorably and ultimately was

considered a failure. This method of determining success cannot account for the change in status

over time.


Project or Product Success.

In this approach to evaluating projects, the attempt is to evaluate the project in terms of the success

of the product or service as implemented. Instead of focusing strictly on the project performance,

the emphasis here is on the “net benefits” of the project. Did the benefits provided by the project

exceed the cost and if so, did they do so by a sufficient quantity to be considered a success?

Au, Ngai and Cheng (2002) suggest that cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is the ideal way of evaluating

success on this basis. Similarly, Cuellar (2010a) attempted to reduce all IS projects to monetary

evaluation. Perhaps the most prominent attempt to evaluate project success on the basis of the

delivered product in the IS field, has been the Delone and McLean IS Success Model (D&M

model) (Delone & McLean, 1992, 2003). In their 2003 version, they attempt to relate the

interdependent relationship of seven constructs: (1) system quality; (2) information quality; (3)

Service Quality; (4) customer satisfaction; (5) intention to use; (6) use and; (7) net benefits. The

D&M model consolidated the findings of the empirical research prior to 1992 and spawned a

generation of research based on this model. These papers have been cited over 3600 times and

have received a large amount of empirical support. Recently, Petter, Delone and McLean

performed both a qualitative literature review (Petter, DeLone, & McLean, 2008) and a

quantitative meta-analysis (Petter & McLean, 2009) and an examination of the independent

variables (Petter, Delone, & McLean, 2013) which demonstrated significant empirical support for

the relationships in the model. Additional work has been done responding to the D&M model (Guy

G Gable, Darshana Sedera, & Taizan Chan, 2008; Sabherwal et al., 2006; Seddon, 1997; Seddon,

Staples, Patnayakuni, & Bowtell, 1999). The work here has moved the model more in the direction

of the situational or subjective approaches by arguing that “IS Success is thus conceptualized as a


value judgment made by an individual, from the point of view of some stakeholder (Seddon, 1997,

p. 248) or multiplying different measures for different stakeholders in different situations.

Another method of assessing success in this vein is the approach of Slevin and Pinto (1986). In

that paper, they introduced the Project Implementation Profile (PIP). In the PIP, it is argued that a

project that achieves high levels of 10 Critical Success Factors (CSFs) then you will have a

successful project. They do not explicitly define success but imply that if you have the 10 CSFs

you have a successful project.

Philosophical Assessment. This view maintains the positivist perspective that success is an

intrinsic characteristic of a project and can be clearly seen and objectively evaluated. The objective

criteria are “net benefits”. Does the project provide benefits in excess of cost? Benefits may be

considered either quantitatively in terms of hard currency or qualitatively in terms of some

intangible benefit provided to the organization. Epistemologically, this view again holds that the

benefits are something that is readily assessable by the organization in an objective manner.

On philosophical basis, the project success approach can be criticized as to 1) causality; it is

difficult that prove that the new information technology caused the benefits observed; 2)

intangibility: many of the costs and benefits received from a project are not reducible numerical

values due to their qualitative nature; 3) subjectivity: where the conversions are possible, they are

often based on “expert” opinion rather than objective values generated from the project; 4)

Stakeholder agreement on benefits; this approach assumes that stakeholders all believe in common

definition of “net benefits”; 5) Context: while efforts have been made as described above, this

method of assessing success does not consider the social or political context of the evaluation.


Additionally, project success has the same weakness as that of Aristotle’s concept of happiness.

For Aristotle, happiness was the result of a good life. A good life was the result of structuring one’s

life and building the qualities and acquiring things such as wealth, friends, and knowledge that

lead to making oneself a complete human being: a good moral character which displays the virtues

and is balanced between excess and deficiency (Desan et al., 2013). Then at the end of one’s life

if one had those things then it could be concluded that that life had been a happy life. However,

we know that there are many people who have all those things and are not happy and live lives of

quiet desperation. Also, according to Aristotle’s view, a happy life could be determined only at

one’s death, it could not be assessed while living because things could change toward the end of

life which would result in the decision that it was an unhappy life. Slevin and Pinto’s model has

similar issues. It argues if a project has the ten critical success factors then the project is a success

even though this might not necessarily be the case in the view of all stakeholders.

Empirical Assessment. Cost-benefit analysis focuses only on “hard” benefits, those dealing with

money which makes them easy to compute. However, benefits are often qualitative or intangible

and thus are not susceptible to CBA analysis (Symons, 1991). Larson, et al. (2011) has indicated

that this kind of analysis works well for mandatory and operational projects but strategic projects,

those focused on preparing the company for the future, can’t be evaluated on financial terms until

well into the future when it is too late. The D&M and Pinto and Slevin models are open to similar

criticisms. As discussed above, you need to have a completed project before either of those models

and be used. The D&M model requires “use” and “customer satisfaction. The Pinto and Slevin

models require assessments of the 10 CSFs which are often qualitative and difficult to assess.

Evaluating the Alpha NZ Case. The D&M model fails to explain the change in evaluation over

time. When first delivered, the project would have been evaluated as a success having delivered


the net benefits desired. However, after the departure of the project team, much of the expertise

was gone from the accounting department. User satisfaction declined and while the net benefits

continued the same in terms of financial benefit, system was now considered a failure due to the

inability to provide needed management reporting and lack of expertise. With the exception of the

loss of expertise in the accounting department, the situation was much as it had been. The presence

of the experts had covered over for the lack of system and information quality, which were

uncovered after they left. In this case, the model fails to consider the social and political factors,

which obscured some of the independent variables that would have indicated that the system was

a failure.

Situational or Contingent Approaches

The issues with the project management success and project success views suggests the idea that

perhaps these weaknesses are due to the attempt to establish a universal set of success criteria for

all projects. Different scholars have found reasons for adopting differing measures for each project.

Pinto and Slevin (1988) among others found that success criteria change over time. During the

active project stage before implementation, success criteria focus on internal issues such as budget

and schedule. After implementation, criteria external to the project tend to gain prominence such

as organizational effectiveness and value. In two key studies, Shenhar, Levy and associates expand

upon this observation. Shenhar and Levy (1997) found that project managers view project success

as a four dimensional construct. They view it as project efficiency, how well the project was

managed; as impact on the customer, meeting the technical specification, customer satisfaction,

extent of use; as business and direct success, how the performance of the business changed as a

result of the project; and preparing for the future, how well the project fitted the organization for


future success. Time is also a determiner of which dimensions have the most importance.

Efficiency is a very short-term consideration, assessed at the end of the project. Preparing for the

future is a very long-term consideration. The other two are middle term considerations. Shenhar,

Dvir, Levy and Maltz (2001) found that project characteristics had an effect on the success criteria

used. The technological nature of the project, i.e. low technology vs. high technology changed the

success criteria used on a project. Low technology projects, using “tried and true” technology and

methods tended to put more emphasis on the efficiency of the process while in high technology

projects; the emphasis would be on effectiveness.

Integrating these insights with those of project management and project success, Bannerman, and

Thorogood (2012) propose a framework consisting of five domains. The first two domains deal

with the concepts of process efficiency and incorporate the ideas of ATP. Similar to that approach,

process efficiency can be evaluated based on ATP as well as how well it fulfilled the concepts of

a well-managed project. The next two domains encompass the concepts of product success. Similar

to CBA and the Delone and McLean and similar models, these domains strive to assess the impact

on the business. They cover both the customer success and business success dimensions as

described by Shenhar and associates. Finally, they add a fifth dimension in which they encompass

Shenhar, et al (1997)’s further dimension, planning for the future. According to the model, a

project should be evaluated by considering the efficiency of the project (domains 1 and 2), which

corresponds with the concept of ATP; the success of the client and business, which matches both

the considerations of the D&M and associated models and the finding of Shenhar and associates.


Finally, it should be evaluated on how it achieves strategic goals. This is roughly equivalent to the

preparing for the future perspective of Shenhar et al (1997). These domains and indicators are

illustrated in Figure 1 and table 2.

Figure 1. Multi-domain project success framework from (Bannerman & Thorogood, 2012, p. 4879)

Domain Descriptions Empirical Indicators

1. Process

Technical and managerial processes, methods, tools and techniques used to complete the project.

Processes were:�

• Fit for the purpose� • Aligned with project objectives • Integrated (as appropriate)� • Effectively implemented

2. Project Management

The project objectives or design parameters.

• Schedule met� • Budget not exceeded� • Project scope achieved

3. Product

Main project deliverable(s). E.g., it might be a newly developed system, an installed system, an infrastructure upgrade or a service of some kind.

• Specifications met� • Requirements met� • Client/user expectations met • Client/user acceptance� • Product/system used� • Client/user satisfied� • Client/user benefits realized


4. Business

The business objectives that motivated the investment.

• Objectives met� • Business case validated� • Business benefits realized

5. Strategic

The intended or unintended business advantage gained from the project investment.

• Business development enabled • External stakeholder/competitor

recognition� • Competitive response generated

Table 2. Domain summary descriptions from (Bannerman & Thorogood, 2012, p. 4879)

Philosophical Assessment. Retaining objectivist metaphysics, the situational approaches discard

the “one-size-fits-all” perspective on measurement and assume that success criteria are not the

same for all projects. This view sees the success criteria for a project as contingent upon the nature

of the project and environment in which it exists. Based on objective criteria that ideally are

mutually developed with the stakeholders uniquely for each project, the success of the project can

be objectively evaluated. They also incorporate the idea of time into their analysis. The

environmental considerations recognize that different domains will have different importance on

projects. Epistemologically, the assessment of success is still based on comparing the planned

values for the criteria to the objective values received from the project.

Empirical Assessment. While this conceptualization is an advance over those of project

management success and project success in that it incorporates both of those views and adds the

component of time to the analysis, it does not acknowledge the social and political effects on

evaluating success. Political factors could result in a distortion of the reading of these objective

factors.

Evaluating the Alpha NZ Case. In evaluating the Alpha NZ case, we see that under these methods,

the short-term answer would have been that the project is a success. The Process and Project

Management categories would be completely satisfied. In terms of Product, the main deliverables


were provided. The management reports were missing. However the system was quite useable.

The business case was validated. All the numbers were hit. The real deficiencies were covered

over by the project team being there. When they left the real deficiencies in staffing and expertise

were uncovered. It was now shown that because of the deficiencies in staffing that the business

benefits might not be realized and the view of the project shifted. The errors made by the project

in terms of the proper method of staffing the project were uncovered. However in terms of

Bannerman and Thorogood’s success model, the evaluation should have been unchanged yet the

project was considered to be a failure. It was still a success in domains one through four. The

argument could have been made that the project is a success but the staffing issues made it a failure.

When the project team was in place, things worked fine. It was only when they left that things fell

apart. However, that is not the view that prevailed in the organization. The project was now viewed

as a failure. Thus this approach failed to accommodate the change in status over time.

Subjectivist Approaches

While the objectivist views of success were founded in the characteristics of the project and/or the

environment, the subjectivist approach views success as being something wholly extrinsic to the

project and founded in the socially constructed opinions of the stakeholders and subject to a

dialogic and political process.

Many different approaches have been taken to assess success in subjective terms. Fincham (2002)

views success and failure not as polar end points but rather themes in a set of narratives about the

projects. These narratives are used to make sense of the events surrounding a project and can be

used to implicate, absolve, credit or discredit participants and approaches so as to create the

established organizational knowledge about the project. Myers (1995) suggests that dialectical

hermeneutics be used as an approach to examine IS implementation. Based in in the critical


hermeneutics of Gadamer and Ricoeur, in this view, the organization is understood as a “text

analogue.” The aim of the analysis is to iterate from a theory of the implementation to the data and

back again until the motives and actions of the participants make sense. In this manner, we

understand how the situation came to be in all of its contradictions and unintended results. By

using this approach, Myers argues that the issues related to trying to assess success and failure

based on objective categories are resolved and that allowance is made for changes in the status

over time. Wilson and Howcraft (2005) argue that existing approaches to the evaluation of

technology follow the assumption of rationality in the process. This assumption ignores the fact

that the evaluation of technology takes place with a socio-political context. Applying a Social

Shaping of Technology approach to a case study of an implementation of a system, they saw that

evaluation is in fact not an objective process but rather a politically laden interaction of relevant

social groups. Evaluations are in reality efforts by one group to establish their narrative of the

project as the “legitimate” version of events surrounding the project.

From a subjectivist standpoint, the methods of evaluation are not objective attempts to measure

the project but rather are tools to gain support and move their narrative toward acceptance by the

organization. Activities such as cost-benefit analysis and other seemingly neutral methods are used

to legitimize their narratives and enroll supporters and marginalize those who are opposed to their

position (M. Wilson & Howcraft, 2005). These methods may appear to be sound or flawed based

on the point of view of the participants (Symons, 1991).

Philosophical Evaluation. Ontologically, these views hold success as a social construction. It

therefore eschews positivist metaphysics and substitutes an interpretive metaphysics. Reality in

this view is the result of subjective interpretation or a construction of reality in which certain views

are said to be real. It denies that there is a clear unobstructed view of the real situation. Thus


success is extrinsic to the project. It is an evaluation of the project done by the actors in a dialogic

process. Each may argue for a particular narrative about the project that leads to a verdict of success

or failure. Epistemologically, success is assessed by determining which of the views of success

that might be articulated is the dominant view of the project in the organization.

Empirical Evaluation. The subjectivist views as expressed by Myers (1995), Fincham (2002), and

Wilson and Howcraft (2005), focus on analyzing the actions of the social agencies, but they tend

to deprecate or ignore the effects of existing social structures. They largely focus on the actions of

people without regard to the surrounding environment or for the effects of the technological

artifact. Fincham (2002)’s analysis for example, focuses on the people interaction with the

development project being portrayed as an issue around which the different actors told stories but

which did not play a role in the interaction which created those stories. While there was some

discussion of the culture of evaluation, it is couched in the idea of narrative rather than of culture.

For Fincham, everything is a narrative.

Additionally, what is missing in these approaches is a whole series of macro- and meso- concepts

that are linked to ontology as described by Stones (2001). These concepts to which Stones refers

are concepts that allow us to categorize and analyze the empirical data. In Archer (1995)’s

Morphogenetic Social theory described below, there are the concepts of emergent properties,

contradiction, morphogenetic cycle, situational logic, etc. that are missing in these theories

described in this section. The subjectivist approaches reviewed so far, seems to lack these as

portrayed in the articles referenced. They seem only to sensitize us to the concepts of narrative or

hermeneutics or interacting agencies but do not provide for us a mechanism and mid-range

concepts by and with which to structure the analysis of the situation.


Evaluating the Alpha NZ Case. From a subjectivist viewpoint, the Alpha NZ case can be seen as

a set of competing visions of the results of the project. The project team argued that the project

was successful based on the results achieved: headcount reduction, cost avoidance etc. This

viewpoint prevailed, as it was consonant with the culture of the organization at the time. The user

group did not mount a counter theory, as they had no need to do so. The project team was still

there providing support and so masked any deficiencies in the system. After the project team was

dispersed, the users were now shown to lack the skills necessary to operate the system; they then

mounted a new theory of the project, which cast it as a failure since it lacked the reporting

capability necessary. As the project team was gone, their viewpoint was unopposed and the project

viewed as a failure. This type of analysis accounts the change of view of the project despite no

change in the project and for the change over time.

Non-Representational Approaches

Recently, Cecez-Kecmanovic, Kautz and Abrashall (2014) have suggested another approach to

conceptualizing success based on the concepts of socio-materiality. The socio-material perspective

on IS success is, as they put it, a non-representational approach. The previous conceptualizations

discussed attempt to provide a representation of the state of the project as a success or a failure.

The socio-material view, rather than attempting to discern the essential nature of things, focuses

on the processes of how they came to be seen as particular things with properties and boundaries.

Thus it does not attempt to provide a representation of success or failure but rather attempts to

describe the interactions of things that arrived at the current state.

Dispensing with such concepts as structure and agency, they argue that the world is composed of

networks of actants. In this relational ontology, the actants, humans, technologies and anything


else, are all considered level things that have no properties or boundaries in and of themselves.

These are gained through the socio-material interactions (or intra-actions, as they, following Barad

(2003), put it) that form them. Their properties are relational effects. These relational effects are,

as they say quoting Law, “outcomes rather than explanatory resources.” (ibid, p. 566). Thus for

them things are “dynamic configurations of actors engaged in and performed by socio-material

practices..” (ibid, p. 566). These configurations are constantly shifting and changing, networks are

constantly being reconfigured so that “things” are in a constant state of flux and thus are

indeterminate. The appearance of essential characteristics is said to be found in the notion of the

agential cut, a temporary local stabilization performed by other actors that temporarily makes the

objects perceived to be stable and real. In other words, what reality is to us, is our performance in

stabilizing a network that creates what we call reality. It is only “our” reality and thus local to us

and not generalizable to the world at large and not necessary the same for others as “their” reality.

Therefore, IS success and indeed the information system itself are agential cuts of the swirling

intra-action of networks in the world. They are created by those performing the assessment and

thus “have no independent existence outside of those relations and actor-networks” (ibid, p. 567).

Therefore, different interactions will enact different networks which will create different realities

in which the notion of success or failure will be different and indeed the conceptualization of the

information system will be different.

Empirical Evaluation. Within this view there is no ability to explain phenomena thus rendering it

problematic for research purposes. In fact, it seems that they specifically eschew explanation. It

holds that there are multiple realities which are equally ultimate and therefore multiple competing

realities of the IS, success and failure (ibid, p. 582). Examining each different reality would yield

different analyses each of which is only temporary and local and which could be contradictory. In


fact, each explanation itself is an agential cut and depending upon the network that performs it,

could be different and contradictory explanations. Given each of these different realities and

explanations, we have no criteria for selection between them. Existing in a leveled reality of equal

things, any criteria that could be established would simply be an agential cut performed by the

network that created it and therefore not to be privileged about that made by any other network.

There again is therefore no possibility of developing an explanation.

Evaluating the Alpha NZ Case. In taking a non-representational perspective on this case, we might

say that the first view of the system was an agential cut created by a network of actors lead by the

project team who argued based on the goals of the system that the project was a success. The users

in the accounting group were enrolled in this network because the project team still being there

supported them and made the system work. Subsequent to this decision, the network broke apart

with the departure of the project team and a new agential cut was made by a new network driven

largely by the users in the accounting department who being low on skills in the SAP system and

missing the functionality of the management reports described the system as a failure. While the

non-representational view provides a story of what happened, it does not provide an explanation

for why it happened or how it can be avoided. Nor does it provide a firm indication of success or

failure.

Summary of the Literature

In summary, there are significant problems in the existing views. The objectivist approaches all

encounter difficulties in dealing with the social and political aspects of evaluation of a project. In

general they assume that the characteristics of the project determine success or failure, they don’t

account for political or social affects on the determination of success. Additionally, the


ATP/Project Management Success view was shown to be unable to correctly classify projects as

successes or failures. It also cannot account for the change in status over time. The Project Success

view was shown to be deficient in being able to predict success and encountered additional

difficulties in terms of being able to identify if the benefits came from the IS as posited. It also had

difficulties in being able to deal only with completed projects. It has nothing to say about projects

in progress. The situational view while covering all stakeholders and timeframes still does not

consider the political context in which the evaluation is done. The subjectivist views, while

handling the social and political impacts lack the tools and methodology to make an adequate

explanation. Finally, the non-representational view lacks the capability to explain, predict or

prescribe. It is therefore also problematic for the assessment of success.

Can any of these views be rehabilitated so as to be adequate? Various proposals have been made

to improve ATP by adding additional criteria such as customer satisfaction (Pinto & Slevin, 1988),

however adding additional criteria only moves it in the direction of the situational

conceptualization. For the project success view, Seddon, Gable, Saberwal and associates have

added additional considerations which allows more of the consideration of the various stakeholders

also moving it in the direction of the situational view. The situational view, itself, like all the

objectivist views, because it holds that success is an intrinsic characteristic of a project cannot

resolve the problem of the social and political aspects of the evaluation process which are external

to the project. The socio-material approach’s inability to explain, predict, or prescribe are due to it

meta-theoretical base in agential realism (Leonardi, 2013). Leonardi made a proposal to repair it

by substitution of critical realism for agential realism as the meta-theoretical underlayment which

resolves the problem but makes the sociomaterial approach shade into a subjective approach and

would be subsumed into the approach advocated in this paper.


The subjective approach has promise. Its problems were methodological and conceptual which

might be overcome. We make one such proposal below. We suggest that considering the effects

of structures and providing these macro- and meso- level constructs may enhance the subjectivist

view of project success. We identify one such approach below.

A Reconceptualization of Project Success

To address the deficiencies of the existing approaches, this paper extends and improves the

subjective approach to determining project success by utilizing Archer (1988, 1995)’s

Morphogenetic Social Theory (MST). As described above, the subjective approach provides a

conceptualization for success but is missing concepts and methodologies to provide rigor to the

study. MST provides these missing constructs and includes the consideration of the social

structures in which the project takes place. The section that follows first briefly describes Archer’s

theory and then applies it to the concept of success.

Archer’s theory is a general social theory specifically developed to explain how change occurs in

social structures and agencies. There are many excellent summaries of Archer’s thought (e.g.

Mutch, 2007) and this paper does not repeat them. It provides a brief summary of concepts that

are necessary for consideration in this discussion. MST argues that social structures, e.g.

organization, business process, systems of thought, are real things; that they have effects in the

real world. Social structures may be divided into two types, ideological structures, e.g. systems of

thought and other belief systems, which are relationships of logical propositions; and material

structures, e.g. organizations, business processes, demographics, which are relationships of

positioned practices. Ideological structures deal with relationships of ideas while material

structures deal with the relationships of roles. These structures are mediated to people by means


of agencies who advocate for them. This means that structures have effects in society when

agencies take up their cause and advocate for them. Therefore for a social structure to have an

influence on people, there must be a social agency to exert that influence. These social agencies,

according to Archer, are groups of people going through a similar experience. In an IS project,

these agencies might be a development team, a project manager, user, sponsoring line managers

etc.

Social structures are changed or sustained by means of the morphogenetic sequence(figure 2). The

sequence consists of three phases: conditioning, interaction and elaboration. In the conditioning

phase, social agencies in attempting to pursue their desired ends, encounter existing social

structures. These structures either enable or disable them from pursuing their ends. This encounter

results in the agencies adopting attitude or situational logic toward the existing structures. They

may desire to retain these structures or eliminate them or change them in some way. When one

agency attempts to acts on their desire regarding the structures, the second phase called interaction

begins. As the agencies interact, they may change, split, previously uninvolved agencies may get

involved; resources (sanction, wealth, expertise) allocated to the agencies may be realigned. At the

end of the interaction, social structures are elaborated. The existing structures may be retained, be

changed or replaced. How this happens is by a negotiation guided by the negotiating strength of

each agency. An agency may have gained resources and thus can dictate the contents of the new

structure or they may have to negotiate with others or may be powerless to oppose what others

choose to do.


Figure 2: The Morphogenetic Sequence from Archer (1995)

Success: an Ideological Social Structure

In the case of project success, we conceptualize the concept of success as an ideological social

structure. As described above in the subjectivist approaches, success is something external to the

project, not derived from characteristics of the project. Rather than being just a simple idea, the

idea of success is a judgment backed up by a chain of logic. For example, “the project is a success

because it is on-time, on budget and delivered the functionality.” It is therefore a set of logically

related propositions. Therefore the concept of success can be considered to be an ideological social

structure.

Social structures do not have any influence on people nor are their characteristics known until such

time as an agency points them out (Archer, 1988, 1995). Only when an agency points them out are

social structures considered or the gaps and contradictions known and the agency advocating it

can take action. In the Alpha NZ case, the missing management reporting functionality was a

contradiction to their claim that the project was successful. Initially the project team was able to

successfully smooth over the contradiction in their logic and the line managers did not appear to

advocate for their different structure leaving it unconsidered.

Previous Cycles T

1 Unintended consequences (Structural Conditioning)

Pre-existing structures (prior outcomes)

T2

Production

(Social Interaction) T3

(Morphostasis) Reproduction

Transformation (Morphogenesis)

Subsequent Cycles

T4

T4


Existing objectivist methods such as CBA, ATP, etc. can form the building blocks for construction

of the structure of success or failure. They are not determinative for assessing success but used as

part of the rationale supporting the conclusion of success or failure which in turn is advocated for

by an agency. Which rationalistic methods are appropriate to be employed and the process by

which they are employed are themselves ideational social structures that develop in an

organization. These structures form part of the environment in which agencies struggle to have

their perspectives adopted by the organization. The structure of how to evaluate an IS or a project

can either enable or disable an agencies effort to gain adoption of their concept of success or

failure.

These characteristics of success as an ideational social structure are seen in the Alpha NZ case .

The project manager and BPR guru argued for a structure for success as follows: it’s a phenomenal

integration unlike anything else anywhere, it paid back its cost, there was a 64% reduction in

accounting FTE and cost savings of $2.1 million annually. Yes, we did not deliver the management

reporting feature but we are working on it, therefore the project is a success. This logic relies upon

empirical facts, the stated project goals and the idea that projects should pay for themselves as part

of the justification for this train of thought. On the other hand the line managers were advocating

a different structure composed as follows: “Yes, we did save a lot of money but the reduction in

FTE was a mistake. We didn’t get the management reporting we expected, there is a lack of

expertise in the accounting department and morale is low, therefore the project is a failure.”

As Archer’s theory points out, the logical relationship between these propositions contains the

seeds of change or stasis. Should the structure contain propositions that are contradictory to each

other or there are contradicting facts, this is an opportunity for opposing social agencies to advocate

for change on account of this contradiction. Gaps or contradictions can be used as leverage or


fissure points to create change in the adopted ideological structures. In this regard, those

advocating for the structure must make compensating actions to resolve the contraction. This gap

or contradiction can by used by those arguing for a change in the view of project status to indicate

that there should be change. In Alpha NZ case, the dominant view of success was that advocated

by the project team. The lack of delivery of the management reporting represents a gap or a

contradiction in their logic. They attempted to resolve the contraction by saying that the reporting

was in development. This logic worked until the development was put on indefinite hold. The line

managers advocating for change in the status of the project then used it as a wedge issue. In the

larger scale, there can be competing conceptualizations that contradict each other. In the Larsen

and Myers (1999) case, we see that the two conceptualizations of success were contradictory.

As an ideological structure, project success is thus seen as a set of propositions and logic that are

advocated for by different social agencies each hoping by adoption of their version to achieve

something that benefits their interests. The adoption of a view of the project is not therefore

something of logical necessity but rather the outcome of a power based negotiation. This idea leads

us to the Morphogenetic Sequence as a method for understanding how a view of the project comes

to be adopted by the organization.

Success: the Result of a Morphogenetic Sequence

We now consider the question of how the idea of the success or failure arises in an organization.

MST suggests that social structures, such as success arise as the result of a Morphogenetic

sequence as describe above. Cuellar (2010b) has suggested a method for using MST to explain the

results of the projects. That paper suggests that the following process be followed:


1) Identify the social structure under examination. That is the social structure that is the subject of the morphogenetic sequence.

2) Data Collection 3) Analysis

a. Examination of the existing structures b. Definition of the agencies and their resource allocations c. Definition of the situation logics (the agencie’s goal in the morphogenetic sequence) d. Review of the history of agential interactions e. Power analysis focusing on bargaining power and negotiating strength that leads to an

explanation of the structural elaboration.

Cuellar (2010b) used it to describe the configuration of information systems and the resulting work

systems that obtained as the result of a project. It can also be applied to any change related situation

involving social structures. This paper utilizes this methodology to explain why the organization

adopts a particular configuration of success.

In the Alpha NZ case discussion, there are two morphogenetic cycles under consideration. The

first one occurred at the initial completion of the project. The second occurred two months later.

We will examine each in turn. The focal structure under consideration is that of the success/failure

status of the project. The data is provided for us in the case write-up. While the case does not

include a great deal of detail, it does provide enough for us to demonstrate the applicability of this

approach to the determination of why the project was considered a success or failure and how that

consideration changed.

At the initial project completion, we don’t have a great deal of data about the prior social structures

or project agencies. We do know that there was a project team with a “BPR Guru” and project

manger as well as the line managers. These were the agencies involved in the sequence. The project

team had resources in the form of expertise and sanction. They had the expertise in the ERP

package and as they designed the new system, they had expertise in how it was supposed to work

and what was important and what was not. They had sanction in the form of being able to change


the organization as required. The line managers had neither, they were new to the ERP package

and the process. They did not have sanction to oppose any of the changes proposed. The structure

for project success advocated by the project team and consultants as described above was logically

consistent except for the fact that the management reporting had not been delivered. This is a

contradiction in the logic of the structure. The project team had a vested interest in maintaining

the dominance of this structure and therefore, they adopted a situational logic of preservation. The

line managers at the time of implementation did not have an alternative structure, as the project

team had not been dissolved and so the project team’s version of success had been adopted. Nor

did they have a need for one. They were not organized to either support or oppose the system. The

project appeared to be working as specified. So at this time, all the agencies were more or less

agreed, so that the project team’s version of success was adopted on a consensus basis with little

controversy.

However, as time passed and the project team was dissolved and the management reporting

development effort was put on hold, the line managers developed a vested interest in changing the

situation. This led to a second morphogenetic sequence. Their situation had deteriorated and

morale was low and expertise had disappeared so that they had a great deal of difficulty in working

the system. They therefore adopted the alternative success structure described above and a

situational logic of replacement or elimination. At the April/May timeframe, the project team had

been dissolved effectively removing the biggest advocate of the dominant version of success.

When the line managers began the social interaction phase, they were the only corporate agency

on the field, the project team having been dissolved. The line managers could then argue, in second

morphogenetic sequence, that their structure should replace the structure originally adopted.

During the interaction phase of this cycle, the line managers would gain expertise resources as the


result of speaking from experience and would be able to overturn the original definition of the

project as a success. The opposition of the project team and the consultants would have been

reduced by their removal from the scene. They would be unable to advocate for their structure of

success. Thus the line managers would be in a much stronger position to make their argument.

As the structure was elaborated, the line managers would have had a stronger position. They now

would have the expertise to speak from experience about the problems that they had because of

the staff cuts and the lack of management reporting. They would have some sanction to speak as

the owners of the process. The project team being dissolved would no longer be there to advocate.

It does not appear that any other agency stepped up to argue for the old structure of success. In this

situation, the advocacy of the line managers would have swept the field and the ideological

structure of failure would have been adopted by the organization. We see this as in the subsequent

merger in which the company joined with another company; the SAP system was replaced by the

Oracle system from the acquiring company.

Success as an Organizational Level Construct

While individuals all have their perspective of the project, it is the evaluation that gains currency

across the organization that will determine the overall perspective of the project. As seen in the

discussion of Alpha NZ case study, different individuals (BPR Guru, project team, line managers)

had different perspectives but it was as an organization that the success structure was adopted.

This organizational adoption would determine whether the system would continue to be used or

whether it would be replaced. At an organizational level, through the lens of MST, we see success

as an ideational social structure that is adopted in the organization through a power-based

negotiation.


Thus looking at success from an MST standpoint, we can define project success as follows:

When a sufficiently influential social agency or agencies are able to impose upon, persuade, or negotiate with the other social agencies so that the organization adopts the idea that the project is successful.

This definition captures the idea that success is an organizational concept through the description

of social agencies of the organization being the ones that adopt the idea. The power based

negotiation concept is captured through the phrasing that one social agency imposes upon,

persuades or negotiates with others. In the structural elaboration phase of the morphogenetic cycle,

the negotiating power of the parties determines whether one social agency is able to impose their

conception, or must use persuasion or negotiation to establish their position.

Now this does not mean that the original structure argued by the agencies is necessarily adopted.

In cases where competing structures are advocated by agencies that are fairly well matched in

terms of resources, often the structure is modified into a compromise that neither of the agencies

began with. In the Alpha NZ (1999) case, it is binary, the structure advocated by the consultants

and the project team was installed and later, that of the line managers.

Discussion

This paper represents the first attempt to apply Archer’s Morphogenetic Social Theory to the area

of project success. The arguments of this paper therefore, represent a departure from the dominant

objectivist conceptions of success in the IS literature. This paper has conceptualized project

success at the organizational level as a politically determined ideological social structure that

comes into being as the result of a morphogenetic sequence. This approach is applicable to all

classes of projects, mandatory, operational and strategic. It can be used to explain how the

determination of success or failure arose within an organization.


It provides an improvement over the previous conceptualizations of success by providing greater

explanatory capability. Whereas the objectivist approaches limit their analysis to the

characteristics of the project and thereby often misclassify projects, this conceptualization

specifically deals with the social and political forces that impact the determination of success or

failure. It provides an improvement on the subjectivist approaches by providing the tools and

concepts necessary to guide the analysis of cases: the concept of structures and agencies along

with the morphogenetic sequence and the analysis method provided by Cuellar (2010a). As

opposed to the non-representational approach, it provides and ability to explain and determine

success or failure. These other approaches are absorbed into this conceptualization as part of the

rationale for the determination of success used by the advocating social agencies. An agency may

argue that project management success, project success, CBA, business performance, positioning

the organization for the future all justify the determination that the project is a success. We have

added the MST approach to those in Table 1 to create Table 3.


Approach Objectivist Subjectivist Non-representational Morphogenetic Social Theory

Concept Objective characteristic of the project Politically

determined social construction

Relational Effect of a Network of Actants

Ideological Social Structure

Sub-category Adherence to Planning

Product Success

Contingent / Situational

Criteria Adherence to Planning

“Net Benefits”

Criteria varies on project

characteristics and

environment

Power-based negotiations “Ontological Politics” Power-based negotiation in

a morphognetic sequence

Methodological Approach

Compare to planning

Cost-Benefit Analysis Multiple

Analysis of Agential

interactions

Description of the interactions that lead to the description of the project/IS as a success or

failure

Structural and Interaction Analysis

Representative Publications

Traditional, textbooks, Beale and Freeman (1991)

Myers (1995)

Cecez-Kecmanovic, Kautz and Abrashall (2014)

Delone & Mclean

(1992, 2003)

Shenhar & Assoc. (1997,

2001)

Larsen/Myers (1999)

Slevin and Pinto (1986)

Bannerman (2012) Fincham (2002)

Wilson/Howcraft, (2005)

Issues One size fits all

One size fits all Agential focus Results are not directly

generalizable


Not determinative

of success

Can’t determine until after benefits realised

Doesn’t handle shifts in success

criteria

Doesn’t consider social

or political activity

Lack of methodology

Subjectivity, Inability to explain or predict, Lack of methodology and concepts

Doesn’t consider social or political activity

Doesn’t consider social or political activity

Lack of Concepts

Not directly predictive to projects in process. Provides only areas toward to be sensitive.

Considers social environment /political /stakeholders?

No No Somewhat Yes Yes Yes

Table 3: Summary of the Various Approaches to Conceptualizing Success including the Proposed Morphogenetic Approach


This conceptualization has the practical effect of shifting the focus of the project manager from

managing the process to achieve project management success (time/cost/quality) to the

management of the social agencies in order to achieve a broad consensus that the project is

successful. In this agency management activity, the practitioner may utilize the logics of the

objectivist determinations of success to create his/her own ideational structure for which he/she

will advocate. He/she will then advocate for this structure among the agencies persuading them

that this is the correct perception of the situation. The shift in focus does not mean that he/she does

not pay attention to the performance of the project as this is important for the construction of his

structure of success, but it does mean that he/she sees it as not determinative of success but rather

as a key part of his/her argument.

This conceptualization also provides tools to the project manager to evaluate the project status. By

performing structural analysis: examining the social structures, agencies and resource distributions

within the project domain, he/she can project how the elaboration of the concept of success is

likely to occur and then take proactive steps to ensure a determination of success. This method of

analyzing a situation represents an improvement to and an extension of stakeholder analysis

(Freeman, 1984; Laplume, Sonpar, & Litz, 2008; Littau, Jujagiri, & Adlbrecht, 2010). In

stakeholder analysis, the project manager identifies and seeks to manage those people and

organizations that have an interest in the project and seeks to determine what resources are

available to achieve project success and determines how to manage them during the project. Using

an MST perspective, the PM would identify and seek to manage not only the social agencies

involved in the project, but also to identify the existing social structures both material and

ideological that are involved in the project. In so doing, the PM identifies the pressure points

(contradictions) in those structures and as well as the resources available to the social agencies


which gives him/her more direction in how to manage the project to ensure that it is perceived as

a success. By understanding the social structures that surround the agencies and the situational

logics adopted by the agencies toward the project as a structure and toward the social structure of

its success, the PM receives guidance about how to create action that exploits that situation to

achieve project results acceptance. Additionally, he/she should seek to create corporate agencies

of those positively disposed toward the project while attempting to split or removes resources from

those opposed to the project.

The MST approach has its own limitations. While structural analysis might be able to give some

indication of the likely result of a project but it is not determinative or predictive of the ultimate

success of a project. Therefore even though such an analysis might be done several times during

the course of a project, it only provides an indicator of what areas the project manager may which

to consider. It cannot predict success or failure. The results of MST analysis in a single case are

also not directly generalizable to other projects. As with interpretive research, the findings of a

single study explain that particular study but may or may not apply to other individual situations

directly. Perhaps if a large research program of such studies is performed, some generally

applicable concepts might arise.

A Research Agenda

This reconceptualization of project success calls for further development. Toward that end, we

propose a series of research questions to further develop this conceptualization.


Adapting and Explaining Existing Research to the Conceptualization

There is a large body of research in the project success area, which must be considered in

developing this new concept. For example, there is a body of literature concerning project

managers and other stakeholders’ differing conceptions of project success criteria (Agarwal &

Rathod, 2006; Baker, Murphy, & Fisher, 1983; Barclay & Osei-Bryson, 2010; Bryde & Robinson,

2005; Diallo & Thuiller, 2004; M. A. Larsen & Myers, 1997; Lim & Mohamed, 1999; Procaccino

& Verner, 2006; Saarinen, 1996; Savolainen et al., 2012; 1999; Shenhar et al., 2001). The question

here is how did they come to those different conceptions? What set of morphogenetic sequences

cause these different conceptualizations? Perhaps being in different communities of practices leads

them to different ideas. Perhaps organizational experiences drive these different

conceptualizations. Further research is necessary here.

Another question that could be investigated in this area is the status of existing approaches. If

success is a socially constructed evaluation, why does, for example, the Delone and McLean

model, which argues that “net benefits” is the dependent variable for success, find such a large

amount of empirical confirmation? It can be responded that there are three potential reasons. First,

the D&M model is not measuring success as defined by our proposed conceptualization. We

recognize that the D&M model does not recommend a particular instantiation of “net benefits”

and the criteria are selected by the stakeholders during the project or by the researcher during the

research project. Nevertheless, to evaluate success as if it were a matter of computing net benefits

does not correspond with the conceptualization advocated in this paper and therefore is not

measuring success. If success is an ideological social structure, measuring the expressed opinions

about net benefits does not get at it. It also assumes that net benefits are a proxy for success for all

social agencies, which is not necessarily so. Second, the analytical methodology utilized in those


studies may not powerful enough to discriminate between those who perceive the project as a

failure and those who perceive it as a success. What is captured is the average response across all

agencies. Different agencies may have different perspectives as in the Larsen and Myers (1999)

example. To identify the different groups, it would be necessary to identify what social agency

they belonged to. The standard methodology simply covers over these differences by calculating

the mean. Finally, it could be true that stakeholders have convergent views in many projects. As

conceptualized above, the success construct that is determined by a politically based interaction

that can be arrived at in various ways. If there was essential agreement, as in the first sequence in

the Larsen and Myers (1999) case, then the success construct is arrived at by consensus. Given

that many actors across many different agencies were surveyed, as is the case of the D-M model,

what we have then is the case that most actors express a common viewpoint either because they

agree with it or because it was imposed on them. We can hypothesize that this is the result of

common criteria that they use to evaluate the project. Thus the D-M model would represents only

one possible case, the “all agencies agree on the success criteria” case that might happen in the

majority of cases. It does not hold in the other case when the stakeholders have divergent criteria

or different criteria from those expressed in the model such as in the Larsen and Myers (1999)

case. There is therefore room for explanatory research on this phenomenon.

This paper also points the way to an integration of the various “success” research streams such as

“project success”, “IS Success”, “Implementation Success”, Analytics Success” etc. The success

of all these efforts are not characteristics of those projects but are ideological social structures

formed externally to the project as the result of a morphogenetic cycle. The various forms of

success should be susceptible to the same conceptualization and analytical method as project

success.


Effects of Culture

Another question in this area might be that the structures of success or failure might be different

in different cultures such as those of different projects, organizations or nations. Research is

needed to determine the cultural effects on the project success structure. Additionally, culture

might have an impact on the morphogenetic sequences that determine success or failure. Research

should be done to assess what commonalities exist between the way success or failure is

determined in different organizations and cultures.

Success Criteria/Factors Research

Given this new conceptualization of project success, the question of what factors tend to result in

success needs to be revisited. More research should be done to determine if there are common

tools or techniques used by project managers to gain acceptance of the idea that the project is a

success. Additionally, in this conceptualization, the project manager’s role becomes more political

and less technical as the project or program grows in size and importance. In those cases, the

project manager’s role is that of ensuring that the ideological structure of success are advocated

for and supported by the most powerful agencies. This would imply that thee project manager

should seek for the project to become a powerful agency in its own right by acquiring expertise,

financial and sanction resources for it. More research is needed in the characteristics and actions

of the project management to be able to achieve success.

For success criteria research, it opens the door to examining how success criteria are formed in the

different social groups and how the interaction of those groups change the success criteria on the

way to forming the organizational view of success. For success factor research, in addition to the

technical factors that have been currently studied, it suggests that studies of the project manager’s


communication, persuasion and political abilities should be investigated as factors in the success

of the projects.

Conclusion

In this paper, we reviewed the literature defining project success through the lens of the Alpha NZ

Case (M. Larsen & Myers, 1999). We saw that the objectivist views due to their conception of

success as an intrinsic characteristic of a project, could not account for political or social impacts

on the determination of success. The project management success or project success views were

unable to account for the change in status of the Alpha NZ project. The situational view while

making allowances for different stages, which had different success criteria, also could not account

for the change in perception of the projects. These deficiencies were ascribed to the lack of

recognition of the social and political context in which these evaluations are made. The subjectivist

views, while recognizing the social and political impact, lacked the tools to provide an explanation

as to why the project was considered a success or a failure. Finally, the non-representational view

given its inability to explain, predict or prescribe is unable to address either of the situations.

This paper advocated using Archer’s Morphogenetic Social Theory as the basis for a

reconceptualization of project success as an ideational social structure that was adopted in the

organization by means of on a power based negotiation. On that basis, success was defined as

occurring when sufficiently influential social agency or agencies are able to impose on, persuade,

or negotiate the other social agencies to adopt the idea that the project is successful. It correctly

classified the Alpha NZ case. This conceptualization of success opens new methods for

investigation of the phenomena and suggests new areas of research for studies of success factors

and success criteria.



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Appendix 1: The Alpha NZ Case (M. Larsen & Myers, 1999)

Larsen and Myers (1999) provide a description of a project that involved both Business Process

Reengineering and implementation of an SAP ERP system. The goals for the system were to have

the selection of a financial systems solution by the end of March 1995, processes and systems

implemented in a test environment by the beginning of October 1995; and live operations systems

and fully implemented organization infrastructure by the end of January 1996 (ibid, p. 405).

The implementation phase ran from February 1995 to March 1996 as show in figure A1 below.

While not indication is provided in the text, it appears that there were no significant issues in the

development process and it concluded on schedule as planned. All functionality was delivered with

the exception of some of the management reporting features. In fact, the statutory reporting piece

was considered superior to that found with the system it replaced.

Figure A1: the SAP Implementation Process (M. Larsen & Myers, 1999, p. 406)


The benefits projected for the system implementation were realized: “A 64% reduction in FTE

accounting staff from 67 to 24 was experienced, with projected savings of approximately $2.1

million per annum” (p. 409).

Subsequent to the implementation of the new system and processes the original project team was

disbanded with none of the original project team members left in the centralized accounting group

leaving them with none of the in-house expertise that had been accumulated over the course of the

project. This low skill level resulted in delays and ultimately non-completion of the management

reporting efforts. By April, 1996, a post implementation review found the lack of management

reporting was causing difficulties and the lack of management reporting, low skill levels and lack

of leadership from the centralized accounting group leadership lead to low morale in the

centralized accounting group.

Approximately six months after the end of the project the various stakeholders were asked about

the project. The project team members, the “BPR Guru” the Project Manager and other continued

to believe that the project was successful. The project achieved what it intended to do in a

spectacular manner. Problems that occurred later where the result of things out side of the project:

ownership of the system by Group Accounting lead to its failure.

The users however had a different perspective. The advantage of the system was supposed to be

the reporting, but that never materialized. The failure to keep expertise within the group was also

a problem. As a result the project in their perspective was a failure.


Appendix 2: the AJG journal List (Cremer et al., 2015)

Grade 4* Grade 2 (Continued) MIS Quarterly * Information Processing and Management Information Systems Research * Journal of Computer Information Systems Communications of the Association for Information

Systems Grade 4 Database Journal of Management Information Systems * Health Information and Libraries Journal Journal of the Association of Information Systems * Health Systems International Management and Data Systems

Grade 3 Information Systems and Business Management

Information Systems Journal * Journal of Enterprise Information Management European Journal of Information Systems * Journal of Global Information Technology

Management Government Information Quarterly Journal of Systems and Software Information and Management MISQ Executive Journal of Information Technology *

Decision Support Systems

Information Technology and People Grade 1 Information Society Australasian Journal of Information Systems Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (JASIST)

Communications of the ICISA

Information Systems Frontiers e-Service Journal International Journal of Human-Computer Studies Ethics and Information Technology Journal of Strategic Information Systems * Information Management and Computer Security International Journal of Electronic Commerce Information Research Journal of Computer Mediated Communications Information Resources Management Journal Expert Systems with Applications International Journal of Cases of Electronic

Commerce Information and Organization International Journal of Information Technology and

Management Journal of Decision Systems

Grade Two Journal of Electronic Commerce in Organizations Communications of the ACM Journal of Electronic Commerce Research Annual Review of Information Science and Technology Journal of Emerging Technologies in Accounting Journal of Information Science Journal of Information Systems Journal of Global Information Management Journal of Information Systems Education Information Systems Management Journal of Information Technology – Teaching Cases Business Information Systems Engineering Journal of Information Technology Management Interacting with Computers Journal of Information Technology Theory and

Applications International Journal of Information Management Journal of Information, Information Technology and

Organizations Computer Supported Cooperative Work Journal of Organizational and End User Computing


British Journal of Educational Technology Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce

Computer Journal Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research

Behavior and Information Technology Knowledge Management and Practice Internet Research Logistics Information Management Expert Systems: the Journal of Knowledge Engineering Online Journal of Applied Knowledge Management Electronic Commerce Research and Applications South African Journal of Information Management

* - included in the AIS Senior Scholar’s Basket of 8 journals


Appendix 2: Summary of Research Questions

Area 1: Adapting Existing Research

RQ 1.1 – Why do different stakeholders have different success criteria?

RQ 1.2 – Why do objectivist conceptualizations have significant empirical support?

RQ 1.3 – What is the effect of culture on the structure of success?

Area 2: What are the critical success factors for project success?

RQ 2.1 – Are there common tools and techniques that project managers can use to achieve success?

RQ 2:2 – Do the tools and techniques used by a project manager change with the size of the project?

RQ 2.3 – How do success criteria get formed in different agencies and how can this be used by project managers to achieve success in their projects?

Area 3: Research Methodology

RQ 3.1 – Beyond the MST method advocated by Cuellar (2010b). What other methods could be use to study project success?

Area 4: Practitioner Methdology

RQ 4.1 – How can this conceptualization be used to advance stakeholder analysis in the context of projects?

RQ 4.2 – How can project managers use this conceptualization to become more successful?

Documents

A Reconceptualization of the Concept of Project Success at the Organizational Level