Project Management Theory and the Management of Research Projects

Ernø-kjølhede, Erik
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Ernø-kjølhede, Erik: Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy, Copenhagen Business School, Postal: Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy, Copenhagen Business School, Blaagaardsgade 23 B, DK-2200 Copenhagen N, Denmark

No 3/2000, Working Papers from Copenhagen Business School, Department of Management, Politics & Philosophy

Abstract: The management of a research project is full of uncertainty and complexity. Research has substantial

elements of creativity and innovation and predicting the outcome of research in full is therefore very

difficult. In addition, the relationship between the research project manager and the project

participants is characterised by an asymmetric distribution of knowledge where individual researchers

know a lot more about the potential – negative and positive – of their research contributions than the

project manager does. Furthermore, researchers in a project may have many competing demands on

their time and they may find themselves competing against each other for individual scientific priority

or the right to patent a research result. Given these and other inherent difficulties of managing a

research project this paper addresses two questions in particular: 1) What kind of guidance may a

research project manager get from existing project management literature? 2) What kinds of changes

or additions are needed to build a project management model for research? In dealing with these

questions the paper gives an outline of some of the basic tools and assumptions of existing project

management theory and compares these to conditions in research. Based on this, the paper discusses

the task of the research project manager and the interpersonal dynamics of a research team with a

view to giving some pointers to what a research project manager can do to create the best possible

conditions for a successful research project.

Keywords: Project management theory; Management of research projects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-acc
Date: 2000-01-01
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