Paul Gardiner
Professor of Project Management- SKEMA Business School – France

Abstract:
This seminar presents the ‘strategy-project system’ as a novel construct to portray the balance between the interrelated activities of strategy formation and execution through project, program and portfolio management. Using a micro construct of “learning episodes” and a macro construct of “evolutionary learning”, I identify the catalysts that lead to a transition from a state of “organizational knowing” that change is desired to a state of “action” where the desired change is enacted and new capabilities are formed. You will learn about structuration theory, incorporating the concept of activity configurations in the methodology, as a basis to study the ‘strategy-project system’ from a more granular perspective than hitherto. An abductive, qualitative approach was used, based on case-study data collected from six countries yielding results that indicate how more mature organizations engage in a greater number of modes and styles of learning. Our research reveals how organizations maximize their learning-to-practice throughput, and thereby increase their organizational capabilities and business agility.

Paul Gardiner is professor of Project Management at SKEMA Business School where he is the Director of the DBA and a GAC accredited MSc programme. He gained experience in the manufacturing and oil and gas industries, before receiving his PhD from the University of Durham, UK. With a strong track record in programme design and development, he was lead academic in a consortium winning 5 million euro to launch an Erasmus Mundus Masters. His research interests are project-organisation interfaces, learning for business value and project management for competitive advantage. He has authored over 70 scholarly articles and an international textbook.

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Venue
Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering
Building B26/B – Room 1.30 – First floor
Via Lambruschini 4/B, Milano