CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction
This chapter illustrates mass literature review of this dissertation topic. The chapter is mainly divided into six sections. The first suction is a literature review
of project management under joint organizations in general. The second section highlights the projects and operations nature. The third section of this chapter
highlights the project lifecycle in general and the definition of organizations such as project shareholders. Section four of this chapter is mainly about project
management in general theory behind project and project management, project management processes and tools and project management success or failure. The fifth section
is focused on joint organization operation concepts and performance and current knowledge of the effective management of joint organizations. The sixth and the last
section of this chapter mainly focused on management challenges and solving problems under joint organizations operations through project management. Overall, this
chapter aims to achieve objectives 1 and 2 highlighted in chapter 1.4.
2.2 Project Management under Joint Organizations
There are many past studies that handled with analyzing some elements that are related to the topic of this research. Most of these studies have focused on the element
of multicultural environments in projects. Price and Ochieng (2010) notes that the increasing global partnerships are one of the leading factors behind increasing
joint project operations. For example, usually in the construction projects there are a number of involved companies or organization and each of them have their own
objective in order to complete the project as desired. Another example of joint organizations is software development projects, where the project is developed jointly
across a nation’s boundaries, involving multiple and different firms working together to guarantee the success of projects. Price and Ochieng (2010) examined the role
of cross-cultural communication in such projects by conducting empirical research of joint operations of multiple firms/organizations between Kenya and United Kingdom
(UK). Under that, they suggest that the completion of such projects is hugely affected by cultural variations between the firms, which are also transferred to the
collaborating team members.
A related study by Mäkilouko (2003) sought to unearth joint operations across collaborating firms from an international perspective. The study involved joint
operations regarding different organizations drawn from several countries. The study discussed that there are several problem that could face project managers of these
organizations such as in-group favoritism, cultural blindness, parochialism and ethnocentrisms. The study concluded that leadership problems existing in such joint
operations are a main factor that can determine success or failure of a given project and each manager should deal with cross-cultural problems in effective way.
Related studies on leadership of such projects are also extensively documented by Miller et al (2000), Canen and Canen (2008), Ayoko and Konrad (2012) and Sitek et al
(2010). However, the authors add another dimension on the need for a revised organizational vision between or among the joint collaborating organizations.
In other studies, the need to share liabilities if the joint project delays or any other issue faces the key project aspects such as scheduling and scope problems have
also attracted key interests among academicians. For example, Branzei et al (2002) examined situations where cost sharing should arise in case of delays in various
milestones of the project. The problem of determining the ‘fair’ value of sharing responsibilities becomes a main issue. The study suggests that there is an essential
demand to define roles and responsibilities of different joint organizations members in clear way to minimize the problems that could be existed in such organizations.
2.3 Projects and Operation: the nature of project
Juran (1998) defined project as an issue planned to find solutions. Generally, each organization contains different departments, and each department is organized and
planned to serve the company in particular purpose. Duncan (2000) also considered processes and projects as the main classification of works that are carried out in
each organization. Many people can not distinguish between these two aspects because they are similar in several characteristics such as; each of them is completed,
designed, and carried out through people in the organization. However, in order to distinguish between them, each aspect owns its unique nature and period, that is
considered as the main factor to success any organization works.

Operations are considered as a continuous and repetitive process in addition they are an oriented in advance process and own frameworks that are pre-programmed for any
section in each businesses. Operations are accompanied along with the presence of works. On the other hand, Projects are considered as a temporary process that own a
specific start and end points in order to create a distinctive service or product (Ngoc, 2010). For each business strategy in any organization, Projects perform
critical roles in this strategy. Also, projects are determined as progressively elaborated (Prabhakar, 2008). Therefore, Projects own two main characteristics that
distinguish them from other different activities in business which are: singularity and temporariness. The project temporariness can be explained according to the fact
that each project owns a specific time to start and to end and the uniqueness can be either explained with regards to the fact that each project is established for a
specific reason or to create a distinctive service or product and that add the uniqueness characteristic of the projects. In addition, another reason for the
uniqueness theme of the project is there pre-defined orientation that is existed in order to solve problems according to the differences in the nature of the problem
itself (Freitag and Matthias, 2011).
2.4 Project Lifecycle and Organizations
2.4.1 Lifecycle of Project
Project lifecycle posses many definitions, however, the most known definition is that which considered Project lifecycle as a combination of project stages in order to
manage control and activate projects in appropriate way. Each project has a distinctive design that is placed with reference to the project properties, goals and their
arrangements (Ngoc, 2010). On the other hand, all Project life cycles are established to connect between the projects stages from its beginning to the stage of
completion of the project (Wideman, 2004). Altering the technique utilized to finish the project, handoff criteria or at least the activities of stages of overlapping
could do the transition process from one stage to another. Mainly, each project life cycle properties based on projects properties, but the main characteristics that
each project lifecycle own is that at intermediate stages of projects, staffing and cost cycle is at peak, but at the beginning and at the end of the project, these
cycles commonly be at low levels as Figure 2.1 shows:

Figure 2.1 Typical cycles of staffing and project cost throughout the lifecycle of project (Lynda, 2009)
Another main property that each life cycle has that the certainty stages of project accomplishment can be ascertained in more accurate way by the continued progress of
the project more than when the project launched. On the other hand, during the progress of work in the project, errors and project cost will commonly increases and the
stakeholders affects will decrease in dramatically way. Figure 2.2 discusses the general direction of effects of stakeholders:

Figure 2.2 Influence of stakeholder’s according to time (source: Lynda, 2009)
2.4.2 Project Stakeholders
Stakeholders of a project can be defined as a set of persons or individuals in which the success or fail of project activities will depend on them (Lynda, 2009). The
involvement of project stakeholders can be limited in specific stages of the project lifecycle or can be activated to the whole project processes. The main individuals
that are concerned in the completion of a project can be categorized as (Olander, 2006) indicated:
• The manager of the project: The individual who is responsible on the accomplishment of the project in appropriate way from the beginning of the project to the
end and his main role is to control and manage the whole project.
• Customers: The target set of people whom expected to utilize the produced products or project services. The existence of the project depends on the presence of
this category of stakeholder.
• Performing organization: The organization that includes the workers whose are mainly in charge of completing the project work.
• Team members of the project: The project workers and employees.
• Team of project management: The members of project team who are reasonable in managing the project practices.
• Influencers: persons who are affect project products or project activities. These can be divided to positive or negative influences.
• Sponsors: The main financial supporters of the project.
Furthermore, there are other different internal and external organizations and individuals in addition to above-mentioned project stakeholders such as business owner,
authorities, entrepreneurs, investors, etc. Figure 2.3 shows the common relationship between a project and its stakeholders:

Figure 2.3 The relation between the project and its stakeholders (Ngoc, 2010)
2.5 Project management
2.5.1 Theory behind project and project management
Generally, Project management is a process of applying Knowledge, equipment’s, and proficiencies to achieve project objectives. According to Wiewiora et al. (2009) the
recent situation of the market, corporations must be at a good level of competition to hold their situation in the market. In addition they must respond quickly to all
environmental and market changes. Many organizations transformed from the ordinary functional business to a temporary organization that is considered as a project-
based (PBO) over the twenty first century (Wiewiora et al., 2009).
Many past literatures indicated that a project-based organization added multiple benefits to nowadays market when comparing it to an ordinary functional organization
such as; it has a quick respond to technology and environmental alterations (Kerzner, 2009). In addition these organizations can deliver products quickly according to
restricted founded resources and they can add new procedures of businesses (Wiewiora et al., 2009).
As mentioned before, a project is a unique and temporary organization that attempts to achieve a particular purpose (product or service) through a specific lifecycle.
On the other hand, a project-based organization is an organization that delivers services or creates products contrary to what consumers recommended for designs
(Turner et al., 2000).
2.5.2 Project management processes and tools
There are four major components of project management process as Ngoc (2010) discussed which are plan, do, verify and act. These components interact with each other
even if they are appeared as discrete elements. Although the differences existed between one project and another, the processes of project management are often
overlapped and they all need a continually revising. The management and the implementation of any project will depend on the diversity of every factor that could
affect the product and the projects processes (Ngoc, 2010). These factors are project size, project complexity level, skills of project team, resources availability,
organization structure of project management and many other are the main factors that could affect the project management processes. Figure 2.4 illustrated the main
four components of project management processes:

Figure 2.4 Components of Project management process (Ngoc, 2010)

Mainly, there are three factors that any good project management deals with. These factors are cost, period, and performance. If the project is completed on the
predicted time, within the allocated costs, and with a good performance level then this project is considered as a successful one. Moreover, the success of any project
will also depend on the project manager and team qualifications and skills. There are many techniques and strategies that should be implemented in any project in order
to control the components that are included in a large project. These techniques help in the accomplishment of planning processes, improving products, managing
resources and checking the workflow in a criterion that support the project success (Crawford et al., 2006).
2.5.3 Project management success or failure
According to the fact that the performing organization will directly affected by the success/failure of projects, many past researches tried to examine and measure the
influence on organization of project failure .The report that are formed in 1994 and named as the report of CHAOS (Standish Group, 2004), indicated that 30% of IT
projects failed and 16% succeeded. This condition has enhanced with time: the percentage of project fails have been decreased to 15%, whereas 34% of projects were
successful (Standish Group, 2003). Generally, there are three dependent relations that the success of any project depends on which can be discussed as follow. “Any
information system is fashioned through its project organization’s activities, any project organization demands support; and supporters require a payback from the
system” (Sauer, 1993:55). Figure 2.5 illustrates these three relations;

Figure 2.5 The triangle of dependence (Sauer, 1993:56)
A main factor that controls the project success or failure is the ability of project stakeholders to strengthen or weaken the project. To make any project management
successful this require to create a balance between the discordant managing demands according to the restrictions of allocated cost, period, and quality to deliver the
expected services or products. Figure 2.6 indicates the main three components of project success:

Figure 2.6 The three components of project success (Clarke, A., 1999).
2.6 Joint organizations operations
2.6.1 Concepts and performance of joint organization operation
Concept can be defined as a thought or a representation of a notion or it can be considered as an expression of how something might be done. A concept could guide
individuals or organizations to a desirable way of accomplishing some duties, especially after further improvements, testing, evaluation and refinement (Suffolk,
2005). Concepts of joint organizations operations for the twenty first century provides an insight into how the future force will operate and describes attributes
needed by this force to achieve its missions.
The performance of any joint organization is considered as a result of strategies that performed through the organization managers and staffs. One of the main issues
of managing joint organizations is to find a suitable measure of performance of joint organization (Griffith et al., 2008). Measures that depend on financial
information’s are less used because these information’s are seldom available and sometimes and with giving the objectives of joint organizations, the financial
measurement are not applicable.
Subjective and objective are the main measurements that are utilized to evaluate the performance of joint organizations. Subjective measures are the beliefs of
managers of joint organizations, and these measures commonly obtained from surveys that indicated the satisfaction levels of managers with financial and/or operational
performance, with the accomplishment of organizational goals, and levels of knowledge transferred (Kirti and Sudhir, 2004).
On the other hand, objective measures could be acquired from external resources like the financial statement of the organization. Organization profitability is a
well-known example of objective measures. The decisions that are taken by managers to enhance organization performance can be made as follow: to decide by the manager
if the joint organization is the best choice or not, then the role of partner came which is concentrated on evaluating the performance of joint organizations by a
specific criteria (Beamish, 2008).
2.6.2 Current knowledge of the effective management of joint organizations
Although there are many past researches that handled with management of the joint organizations, however, all of them still cannot cover all managerial issues that
face these organizations, so this research came to study effective management of joint organization in more details. Generally, there are four stages in which the
partnering process of Joint organizations performed which are; evaluating the purpose behind establishing these organizations, choosing the suitable partner,
specifying terms, application and business management. Another important factor that could affect the operation of joint organization is the decisions taken by
managers in which these decisions could support the organization performance to gain more satisfaction levels from partners (Beamish and Lupton, 2009).
The effectiveness of joint organization management practices will mainly depend on organization manager and staff performance, especially throughout the existed
difficult economic situations. Performance measurement for effective management of joint organizations mainly focused on investigating the influences of allocated
funds, resources, existed knowledge and the applicable internal processes in addition to the existence of the internal and external liability in each organization
(Wolf, 2000). In other words, effective management processes is considered as a tool to generate a performance measurement system that is considered as a desirable and
flexible strategy that could improve the managerial acts in any time and with reference to surrounding rapid changes.
2.7 Management challenges and solving problems under joint organization operation through project management
With reference to the fact that joint operation between two or more organization needs a special arrangement to cater between different opinions of team member and
managers and possible conflict in daily activities of organizations. Many problems face the operation of joint organizations according to today’s environmental
complexity that existed because of several factors such as the new information and technology revolutions (Bobbins, 1974). Conflict is one of the main problems that
could face these organizations. When the team member of a project interacts with each other in order to complete their tasks and to achieve the organization
objectives, there is always a potential for conflict (Verma, 1998).
Generally, there are some viewpoints realized about conflict in organizations. The most known viewpoint which is accepted by major proportion of business institutions
assumes that conflict often has a negative effect, in which when the degree of conflict increases, the organization performance declines. In this viewpoint, the upper
management of the joint operation should align themselves to convey strong message that the managers are responsible in releasing projects of any conflict (Dinsmore,
1990). The second viewpoint named as the human relation view. This view considered conflict as a normal phenomenon in any organization and it is either have a positive
or negative effect in organization performance and this can be measured due to handling criteria. According to the fact that conflict has a positive effect on
organizations, the mangers must concentrate on managing it in effective way in spite of deleting or suppressing it (Bobbins, 1974).
There are another issue that could appear when managing joint organizations and this issue known as governance or control problems. This issue is mainly appeared when
partners or organization managers have different visions or purposes (Pearce, 1997). The managerial decisions that are made at this stage are critical and this could
be explained according to the fact that it is more difficult to apply major changes in governance roles after the operation of joint organization. This issue could be
solved by constructing a trust connection between managers and partners of joint organizations, which could be created through implementing a comprehensive contract
for each involved joint organization (Luo, 2002). This trust that has been added to the organization could improve employees’ satisfaction and increase their
commitment to their duties at joint organizations (Cullen et al., 1995). Generally, the achievement of partner’s objectives directly depends on the excellence of the
working relationships between those partners (Yan & Gray, 2001). Another factor that could affect the control problem in joint organizations is the total number and
quality of partners, in which Makino and Beamish (1998) discussed that when the joint organizations are managed and controlled by two partners then they are likely to
outperform more than other organizations which are managed with three partners or more.

Another challenge that could face joint organizations management process is the cultural differences of organization managers. These differences could make
communication, taking decision, managing workers more difficult and challenging process (Child and Markoczy, 1993). The existed researches that concentrated on
examining the effect of cultural difference on joint organization performance have illustrated various conclusions. For example, the cultural differences could
directly affect the survival of joint organization for a long time (Barkema et al., 1996). Furthermore, another researcher indicated that this would directly affect
the performance of the joint organizations (Hu and Chen, 1996). Therefore, cultural difference is considered as a critical point that each manager must pay a huge
attention for it especially when choosing partners, and negotiating terms. A large difference in long-term orientation can be a problem, as emphasis on short-term
objectives by one partner may signal a lack of long-term commitment. Therefore, the main management challenges that could face joint organization operation are
conflict, governance or control problems, and the cultural differences challenge.
The main role of the project managers in the process of managing organization is to create an effective way to communicate between team members and managers in joint
organization operation. Generally, any project management process under joint organization operation should assist in creating an encouraging environment that
facilitate solving problems procedures such as solve conflict between opinions of team members and managers and to increase the commitment of team members to
objectives of the organization (Thomas and Schmidt, 1976). Due to the huge effects of conflict on success of organizations, managing this phenomenon is considered as
one of the main qualification of a project manager especially in joint organizations.
With reference to the fact that conflict could be generated due to several purposes, such as conflict that occurred in joint organizations over priorities, cost,
administration procedures, etc. There are many solutions that could be added through project management processes to solve existed conflict especially in joint
organizations (Thamhain and Wilemon, 1975). Table 2.1 illustrates the recommended solutions for project conflict as suggested by Thamhain and Wslemon;
Table 2.1 Recommended solutions for project conflicts

(Thamhain & Wilemon, 1975)
Therefore, the main criteria that all managers could follow to solve organizational problems is to predict the problem, face it, and resolve it through finding and
developing modern strategies and plan.
2.8 Summary
In summary, this chapter discussed the research topic of project management under joint organizations operations and its associated problems and solutions. This
chapter reviewed all aspects involved in project management perspectives. Also, this chapter discussed projects and operations nature, project lifecycle, and the
definition of organizations such as project shareholders was discussed in relation to the topic. Furthermore, the discussion focused on joint organization operation
concepts and performance and current knowledge of the effective management of joint organizations. Also, the challenges and solving problems under joint organization
operation through project management was discussed. All to all, through the discussions of project management under joint organizations operations the following
research questions emerged:
1- How does project management under joint organizations operations work?
2- What are the main problems that could face project management under joint organizations operations?
3- What are the possible solutions that could be implemented to avoid managerial problems in such organizations?
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