Advanced Project Management: Stakeholder

Requirement

Write a research report on Advanced Project Management : Stakeholder Management (Human Side of Projects)

Solution

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to address the human aspect of the project management. The paper has considered the stakeholder management as one of the concerning topic. The paper will be exploring the concepts related to project stakeholder management in the form of various clients in relation to the projects. The projects are the major arena where the management is utilized more or less efficiently and in abundance. Therefore, it would be apt to discuss the topic in relation to the project management. The stakeholder management includes various clients. The selection of this particular topic has been made due to the availability of vast access to the information regarding this project and the researcher of this project can contribute efficiently by analyzing and moving ahead with the research topic. There have been major improvements and the increase in the corporate stakeholders and it has outnumbered other types of stakeholders. The increase in the separation of client and the ownership of the overall projects has given new meaning to the projects. Therefore, it is imperative to explore the various stakeholders in the form of various clients. The paper has been divided into various sections that discuss certain areas concerned with the research topic. The initial section tries to understand the questions related to the research topic and the rationale behind selection of this project. In the end of the initial section, assumptions have been discussed. The further paper focuses on the similar topics covered by the other researchers related to the research topic. In the end a lucid discussion and conclusion have been provided with the limitations of the findings. 

Avail of the best help with project management assignments from the professional writers of Allassignmenthelp.com. Our main aim is to help students understand the practical applications and provide online assignment help using real projects. Our customer executives and professionals are available 24/7 to help you with all kinds of financial management assignments help.

Research Objective

The research objective for the research is:
“To explore the concepts related to the stakeholders in the form of various ‘clients’ in respect to the construction projects and their impact/influence/power-exertion over the projects.”

Research Questions

The research question for the objective stated above has been divided into three parts. They are:

  1. Who the stakeholders of the project are?

  2. How important is stakeholder management?

  3. What are the expectations of the stakeholders from the projects?

  4. What power the above stakeholders exerts on the project development?

Research Rationale

It is imperative for the construction industry to understand the interest level of various stakeholders involved in certain project. The earlier researches have aptly discussed the various stakeholders that involve in the project. These stakeholders finance the project and certainly have some interest. Some of the identified stakeholders are the sponsors, employees, customers, communities, and others. In earlier times, the stakeholders were kept in one box and defined as single entity to the project. However, the contemporary orientation has changed. It defines that the size of the contribution of the stakeholders in the project defines their level of interest in the project. Therefore, it become imperative to understand the power one stakeholder holds in comparison to another and the level of influence one shareholder can execute in comparison to other shareholders. The definition of the rationale for the conduction of this research can be stated as, “understanding the orientation of the various individual stakeholders and the power of influence of each of them can provide enough predictability for the project manager that PM can handle the project efficiently”.

Research Assumptions

There are certain assumptions to this research that seems important to discuss here as it will give fair idea to the readers on what are the things they should be keeping in mind while moving ahead with the research. Mentioned below are some of the assumptions that are likely to impact the project progress in positive or negative way:

  • It is assumed that the researcher of this project has enough information about the topic.

  • It is assumed that the research being conducted on the topic can get enough support from the related personnel who have worked on the identified construction project.

  • It is assumed that the personnel providing the information and the previous researches conducted on the similar topics are authentic.

  • It is also assumed that the resources required for the research will be available throughout the research and the researcher has to make less effort in collating the available resources.

Literature Review

The literature review has been conducted in various phases. The various phases have tried to understand the various aspects of the research topics and it has been collated in the discussion section to reach certain conclusion that can be beneficial for further implementation or utilization in other researches or practical aspects of the project development.
Various researches (Newcombe, 1996) have defined the activities concerning the projects as the coalition where the various people with enough monetary and knowledge strength come together for common goal. The aforementioned researches defined the project or the organization of the individuals for the project as activities that focus on coalition of the individuals for the defined goals. However, the later researches (Mintzberg, 1983; Bass, 1990; Rudolph and Peluchette, 1993) have changed the orientation of the way stakeholders or the actors of the project were seen. These researches have asserted that there are various levels of actors active for certain project holding various level of power and the firms involving in the project activities often find it in different conflicted objectives placed forward by the powerful individuals. The project development has seen major changes in the past few years and that reflects in the aforementioned researches. The various stakeholders exert power on the project development to influence the further course of the project. Power of the stakeholders can be used in various ways, either it can be used to exert changes in the project development or it can be used to maintain the status quo within the project development with other stakeholders. Some of the researches ( Harrison and Caron, 1993) reflect that the attitudes of the stakeholders and their objectives regarding certain project define whether they will approve the project. 
Stakeholder management is a critical part of PM for development and other project sorts and numerous lessons can be gained from methodologies being created and embraced in the general situations of the project management. Various research papers have discussed on the importance of the stakeholders. Most of them emphasize that the stakeholders can be considered as the most important element than the shareholders of the ongoing project (Donaldson and Preston, 1995; Jones and Wicks, 1999). 
Stakeholder hypothesis offers various viewpoints and along these lines desires better support from them. Sociology stakeholder hypothesis tends to center around ideas of equity, value, and social rights majorly affecting the way that stakeholder's apply moral suasion over project improvement or change activities (Gibson 2000). Along these lines a perspective can win that a stakeholder is somebody influenced by a project and having a good (and maybe a nonnegotiable) right to impact its result. This perspective is extremely expansive and its results unmanageable in light of the fact that there are such a large number of courses in which a project can affect a wide scope of individuals—from influencing a business domain through to other more physical or social measurements that identify with personal satisfaction issues. Instrumental stakeholder hypothesis holds that stakeholders and directors interface and the relationship are dependent on the nature and attributes of their cooperation (Donaldson and Preston 1995). The recognizable proof of stakeholders is more related with the instrumental organization limit, on the other hand being factors of impact.
The perspective above suggests a requirement for understanding, and expected responses extending from standoff to common alteration contingent upon such halfway variables, for example, trust and duty, motivational strengths (being fit or in strife). Jones and Wicks (1999) suggest a concurrent stakeholder hypothesis that clarifies stakeholder activities and response to change, prompting a requirement for PMs to endeavor to create common trusting and agreeable companies with stakeholders. An outcome of this hypothesis is that their activities should be ethically taking into account moral models. By meeting these two goals, companies can increase upper hand. What turns out to be clear, whatever reasoning is there in regards to stakeholder hypothesis, is that 'honest to goodness and legitimate' stakeholders should be recognized and their energy and impact mapped so that their potential effect on projects can be better caught on. Suitable procedures can then be figured and ordered to boost a stakeholder's impact and minimize any negative impact. Inability to welcome this has prompted endless project disappointments as has been itemized in the writing, for instance in (Morris and Hough 1993). Briner et al (1996) recognized four arrangements of stakeholders: customer; project pioneer's companies; outside managements; and imperceptible colleagues. Cleland (1995, p151) perceived the need to build up an authoritative structure of stakeholders through seeing every stakeholder's interests and arranging both exclusively and aggregately to characterize the most ideal approach to oversee stakeholder needs and needs. He, in the same way as other project management journalists, recognizes a few groups of stakeholders from the production network. Stakeholders have been depicted as the individuals who have an interest, key in "individuals arranged task societies" and viably dealing with these stakeholders is fundamental (Cleland 1995). 
Cleland (1999) states procedure for overseeing stakeholders: recognizing proper stakeholders; determining the way of the stakeholder's enthusiasm; measuring the stakeholder's involvement; anticipating what the stakeholder's future conduct will be to fulfill the stake; and assessing the effect of the stakeholder's conduct on the project group's scope in dealing with the task. He additionally gives some useful exhortation on the best way to do this, however quite a bit of it can be effectively distinguished (as anyone might expect) as a PM technique of arranging, sorting out, coordinating and controlling. The issue that the creators have with this methodology is that most stakeholder gatherings and people are outside and thus a significant number of the project management sub-procedures are difficult to accomplish. For instance, project supervisors essentially can't apply control on outside groups where course relies upon sort of power bases that are not accessible to the project director. Additionally, numerous organizational inside people are outside the limits of power accessible to project supervisors. Cleland (1999, p175) offers, after the initial step of recognizing stakeholders has been accomplished, a basic approach to picture stakeholders and their imaginable effect and impact.
The methodology is basically to list stakeholders along one end of a table, rundown the noteworthy stakeholder enthusiasm along another end of the table and to then demonstrate the apparent extent of their advantage. Risk evaluation can be embraced utilizing a likelihood of occurence examination. This methodology is, in any case, forewarned against as far as these frameworks expecting to recognize not just the span of effects but their likelihood of happening additionally the nature and timing of practical reactions to such dangers (Ward 1999). Ward and Chapman later contended that risk maybe a deceptive term and that instability would be a superior term to utilize (Ward and Chapman 2003). In any case, as a first project in surveying the potential effect of a stakeholder enthusiasm for terms of adding to project achievement the result of an interest-quality and its impact sway potential may give a valuable type of imagining these two measurements of stakeholder interest. From the stakeholder point of view they have a personal stake in the project's prosperity that fluctuates in power from low to high. Additionally the effect of that intrigue can be evaluated in wording running from high to low. This gives one means by which a stakeholder interest power guide can be created. It can likewise be portioned as seen above and can be connected to a sub-set of stakeholders. In this representation we are showing collegial and groups of practice interest. This could be valuable in outlining techniques for boosting collegial backing and duty to extend achievement and creating achievement criteria measures. The "effect" part of the record identifies with the power that these people may need to apply impact. Their impact is limited by their wellspring of power. The way of power and impact, the wellsprings of this power and the route in which it is utilized to add to or control agreeable connections support all obtainment systems what's more, the connections that create from these. It is intriguing that various books have showed up giving guidance on the utilization of energy to undermine the contender and to win against an apparent foe.
The works of Machiavelli and Sun-Tzu are among the most noticeable. A late book on power and its utilization—which highlights thoughts from the Machiavelli, Sun-Tzu and others—identifies with winning power and holding power for individual pick up and not to accomplish an objective that is shared by others (Greene and Elfrers 1999). Positional power, be that as it may, is the slightest compelling of the three sketched out in building responsibility to shared targets, winwin results and useful discourse whether in determining contrasts or building shared understanding. Project administrators should know about the sorts of power that individuals can wield to impact the conclusions and activities of others. A valuable apparatus for imagining power and impact examples is informal community mapping. This is additionally a straightforward idea that augments the idea of an company outline as mapping individuals' position in an order to one of their position as influencer and shaper of thoughts and assessment. Figure 2 beneath is a case of mapping issues and influencers (Lovell 1993). Note this may well turned out to be too mind boggling to be in any way connected to all stakeholder impacts however the creators trust that this is the way that some accomplished project administrators think when attempting to comprehend why an interest position might be held by a specific stakeholder and to comprehend the wellspring of power of that intrigue.

Discussions

The power of surrounding on a project development and the position of the individuals inside it for specific issues is significant. With experience, this comprehension is created through a mix of cognizant and natural, practically intuitive activities. It happens through changing circumstances and adjusting states of mind to be more in accordance with the task's objectives. This sounds misleadingly basic, yet requires information of the surrounding and every one of the "players" in this procedure and their needs. Notwithstanding when the PM needs formal power, he/she should have the capacity to impact individuals and results; through building and sustaining what power they have in upgrading support. Inability to comprehend and control the political procedure has prompted the defeat of numerous projects. To effectively oversee inside a company's energy structures it is likewise important to comprehend the company's formal structure (a company outline will represent this), its casual structure (kinships, collusions, keeping up colleague with previous work stakeholders) and thirdly its surroundings (every player's inspiration, needs and values). Correspondence is key for task chiefs for companies with not just close, steady "tame" stakeholders additionally those that might be unfriendly to the needs of project objectives and vision.
These power structures are perplexing and always show signs of change requiring an abnormal state of support. Support as 'dynamic correspondence' frameworks with fitting stakeholders will likewise give 'early cautioning frameworks. Unavoidably, rebel stakeholders (supporting one of the warring gatherings in the project group, or looking to set up authority over manageable stakeholders, or with other concealed plans) will actuate strife or cause inconvenience for the PM. This inconvenience could be moved to cross out the project or surprisingly more dreadful, change some part of the project; change the extension, specialized bearing, decrease the financing, require extra or diverse reporting. In the event that PM can built up a solid establishment of comprehension stakeholder impact and its power then they can connect with persuasive stakeholders in dynamic correspondence, and debacle might be turned away in hazardous circumstances. A PM having enough credibility among the shareholders, and knows how to take advantage of the power structures of his/her company (through profound information of stakeholders and their impact) can perceive these signs, and defuse potential emergencies before catastrophe strikes. The researchers asserts that the qualities and activities that make a decent leader will bolster a PM working effectively inside the power structure of a company to keep up the targets outlined in the project vision and mission. The coordinated effort between powerful stakeholders and the PM takes place only when the individual conduct by workers to not just work cooperatively but also to share information. Working cooperatively requires an incredible measure of collaboration. 

Research Limitations

There are certain limitations to this research that needs to be understood prior to utilizing the identified results. The first limitation to this research is that due to the lack of enough time, the limited number of research papers has been consulted. Moreover, no empirical studies have been conducted to prove the theoretical aspects or theoretical conclusions developed above. The understanding from the research however can be applied to the situations around the world. The study was completely theoretical and only the theories developed by previous researchers have been consulted. Therefore, it is suggested that the use of findings should be done prudently.

Conclusion

The paper tried to understand the various research questions regarding stakeholder management and project management. It tried to understand the types of stakeholders that can be met by the project managers working on a project and the importance of management of these stakeholders by the project managers for the smooth conduction of the project development. The questions and its identified answers are given below:
Who the stakeholders of the project are?
The stakeholders of the project are the individuals or the organizations that has certain interest in the conduction of the defied project. These stakeholders can be the company that provide fund for the project conduction, the users of the project, the sponsors of the project, and the developers who will be working on the project. These stakeholders have their own interest associated with the project.
How important is stakeholder management?
Stakeholder management allows the project manager to effectively manage the whole project. The stakeholder management allows conduction of the project with less issues and more stability. Various stakeholders of a project have various orientation regarding the project goals and objectives. Therefore, everyone would prefer to see fulfillment of their personal goal. This might lead to chaotic situation. Therefore, it is suggested to manage the stakeholder effectively.
What are the expectations of the stakeholders from the projects?
The various stakeholders prefer to see fulfillment of their personal objectives. The expectations depend on the amount they have invested in the project or the level of risk associated among the project and the stakeholders.
What power the above stakeholders exerts on the project development?
The exertion of powers depends on the amount invested or extent of stake one stakeholder has in the project. The exertion of power on a project is directly proportional to the personal stake involved in the project.

Place Order For A Top Grade Assignment Now

We have some amazing discount offers running for the students

Place Your Order

References

  • Berman, S. L., Wicks, A. C., Kotha, S., & Jones, T. M. (1999). Does stakeholder orientation matter? The relationship between stakeholder management models and firm financial performance. Academy of Management journal, 42(5), 488-506.

  • Briner, W., Hastings, C. and Geddes, M. (1996). Project Leadership.2nd.Aldershot, UK Gower.

  • Cleland, D. I. (1995). “Leadership and the Project Management Body of Knowledge.”

  • International Journal of Project Management. 13 (2): 82-88.

  • Cleland, D. I. (1999). Project Management Strategic Design and Implementation. Singapore,

  • McGraw-Hill, Singapore.

  • Cleland, D. I. (1999). Project Management Strategic Design andImplementation.3rd.Singapore McGraw-Hill, Singapore.

  • Donaldson, T. and Preston, L. E. (1995). “The Stakeholder Theory of the Corporation: Concepts, Evidence, and Implications.” Academy of Management Review. 24 (2): 233-236.

  • Donaldson, T., & Preston, L. E. (1995). The stakeholder theory of the corporation: Concepts, evidence, and implications. Academy of management Review, 20(1), 65-91.

  • Gibson, C. B. and Zellman-Bruhn, M. E. (2001). “Metaphors and Meaning: An Intercultural

  • Analysis of the Concept of Teamwork.” Administrative Science Quarterly. 46 (2): 274-303.

  • Gibson, K. (2000). “The Moral Basis of Stakeholder Theory.” Journal of Business Ethics. 26: 245-257.

  • Harrison, J. S., & John, C. H. S. (1996). Managing and partnering with external stakeholders. The Academy of Management Executive, 10(2), 46-60.

  • Lovell, R. J. (1993). “Power and the Project Manager.” International Journal of Project

  • Management. 11 (2): 73-78.

  • Mintzberg, H. (1983). The case for corporate social responsibility. Journal of Business Strategy, 4(2), 3-15.

  • Newcombe, R. (2003). “From client to project stakeholders: a stakeholder mapping

  • approach.” Construction Management & Economics. 21 (8): 841-848.

  • Rudolph, H. R., & Peluchette, J. V. (1993). The power gap: is sharing or accumulating power the answer?. Journal of Applied Business Research, 9(3), 12.

  • Ward, S. C. (1999). “Assessing and Managing Important Risks.” International Journal of

  • Project Management. 17 (6): 331-336.

Get Quality Assignment Without Paying Upfront

Hire World's #1 Assignment Help Company

Place Your Order