Projects, Organizations, and the New Modernity

Thus far in the chapter—our treatise of businesses in the world of projects—we have tried to outline the roles that businesses might play in such a world. In the process we have covered different types of relations between projects and businesses. Thus, we have discussed instances where companies have come to be regarded and treated as projects. We have also alluded to the case where some aspects of business life have become projectized or transformed into project-like phenomena. We have also covered the case when projects and businesses seem to complement each other in terms of action and learning. This last section is supposed to take us a bit further but along a different type of avenue that will take us to grounds where historical developments play a definite role.

One way to analyze what seems to be going on when it comes to the development of projects and general organizations in thinking and in practice is to relate that development to changes in thinking of society and societal changes on a grand scale. One particular line of thinking appears relevant here, the sequence Modernism, Post-Modernism, and Neo-Modernism (or New Modernity). There is not space to develop in any detail at all for what these societal models stand. At that, such a task is very difficult since the views on these models or phenomena differ radically. I will refrain from delving into the details and try to outline the main characteristics only in order to back up the claims I want to make.

If you try to relate project thinking during the past century to the sequence mentioned above, you will find that the general notions of project management were formulated in the 1950s in the US (Engwall 1995) when Modernism is regarded as the dominating line of thinking. People were not necessarily discussing societal developments in those terms at the time. Rather the Modernism characterization was a label used in the subsequent era to form the contrast for whatever was to be seen as new. Anyway, the notions of project management were mainly formed in the defense industry and in the Department of Defense in the US. (One might even say that projects in the meaning of that time are a product of the so-called military-industrial complex.) The projects at that time had a technical character and were all representing major efforts on a grand scale with almost no resource constraints but with very seriously meant time limits. The cold war fostered such attitudes and the projects went well with the general characteristics of Modernism. They represented major efforts concerning control of the world, also encompassing social engineering efforts on a grand scale. In a general sense they were also like dreams of rationalization. Careful planning reassured the actors that the project adhered to the rationality norms of the era.

Subsequently, the character of projects changed. Initially, the techniques and the organization spread to other technical areas outside the military applications. However, the techniques for planning and follow-up still favored major projects involving extraordinary personnel and a lot of monetary resources. Over time, however, project management found applications in areas where it never had been used before. Over time notions of project management have also become integral parts of a variety of professions. At the same time the tendency has been that the size of projects (in terms of personnel and money) has decreased (Engwall 1999, 549). Small projects appeared in a wide variety of contexts and the projects themselves, as well as their contexts, gave a fragmented impression. In that sense the projects of the '80s and the '90s go well with the notions of the Post-Modern era. The ideas of social engineering on a grand scale have given way to the notions that control is very difficult, if not impossible. Problems are rather solved in a patch-work fashion, where the fragmented views of the world become very apparent. The spreading of project ideas to a diversity of new application areas is another sign of fragmentation.

In the '90s Neo-Modernism has appeared as a leading theme for the development of societies. Rationality is back as a key word for how societal problems are attacked. Efforts to that effect lead to a "risk society" according to Beck (1992). The notions of this new modernity (or Neo-Modernism) are that the introduction of rationalization efforts carries risks with it. The entire societal development might be regarded as a host of efforts to form rational institutions and at the same time trying to ameliorate dysfunction resulting from these efforts.

On a macro level, the focus of this essay has been on concomitant changes in the life of businesses and in the way projects seem to function. Possibly, both of them are examples of rationalization. Projects are governed so as to promote action rationality. Businesses are adapted in the same vein according to notions of how profitability arises and in accordance with the needs for rational projects.

To conclude this chapter with one notion of what the future might have in readiness for us, there is a need to illustrate how the discussion above has one fundamental weakness. The discussion about storing knowledge generated in projects ends up in the solution that the task of a permanent organization is to have a natural storage and retrieval system at hand. At the same time the argument is that businesses are on the move as well. In other words, businesses are not permanent organizations that can be used as fix points for the knowledge created in the temporary projects. Most likely, the storage problem alluded to has to be solved in another way in the long run. This might be regarded as one of the risks to which Beck (1992) alludes. It will give rise to new forms of storing and retrieving knowledge through reflexive modernization? Is there a need for institutional reflexivity carried by individuals to handle the unforeseen under these circumstances? Will there be a new role for universities in storing and retrieving knowledge?