Blending bureaucratic and collaborative management styles to achieve control ambidexterity in IS projects

Abstract

Managing information systems (IS) projects requires what we refer to as ‘control ambidexterity’, which is the use of different types of control to meet conflicting demands. This leads to the use of contrasting styles of IS project management and creates tensions in managerial practice, neither of which are well understood. We address this theoretical gap in our understanding based on an exploratory case study of an IS implementation project in the financial services industry. Adopting the lens of management styles as a meta-theoretical perspective, we sought to address two research questions: (1) Which management style(s) do IS project managers draw upon in practice and why? (2) What kinds of tensions result for IS project managers and team members from drawing upon contrasting management styles in combination – and how do IS project managers and team members deal with these tensions? Two contrasting styles of management emerged from our data – bureaucratic and collaborative – that are drawn upon by IS project managers to achieve control ambidexterity. Furthermore, drawing upon these two different styles in combination within the confines of a single project creates tensions. We explore these tensions and present an illustrative example of how IS project managers can deal with these tensions successfully in practice. Specifically, we find that they can be dealt with effectively by a tandem of two project managers who share responsibility for managing the IS project. The findings of this study have important implications for our understanding of control ambidexterity in IS projects.

Keywords:

• control ambidexterity
• IS project management
• tensions
• contrasting management styles
• tandem project management structure

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Robert Wayne Gregory

About the Authors

Robert Wayne Gregory is an Assistant Professor in Management Information Systems at the University of Göttingen, Germany. He completed his Doctoral Dissertation at Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany in 2010 and received the Alcatel-Lucent Dissertation award for outstanding performance. His research focuses on the management of IT in complex organizations. His research has appeared in Information Technology & People and Information Systems Frontiers, among other journals.

Mark Keil

Mark Keil is the John B. Zellars Professor of Computer Information Systems at Georgia State University. He holds B.S.E., S.M., and D.B.A. degrees from Princeton University, M.I.T. Sloan School of Management, and Harvard Business School, respectively. His research focuses on IT project management. He has published more than 80 refereed journal articles in such outlets as MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, and Journal of Management Information Systems. He has served as a Senior Editor for ISR and ISJ, as an Associate Editor for MISQ and ISR, as a Co-Editor of DATABASE, and an Editorial Board Member for JMIS and IEEE-TEM.