Publication Type
Journal Article
Book Title/Conference/Journal
Journal of the Association for Information Systems
Year
6-2011
Abstract
Why do IT projects continue to stumble, despite the proliferation of risk management methodologies and a growing body of knowledge on project risk assessment and mitigation? In this paper, we propose an alternative theoretical perspective that views project risk as a social construction process shaped by the risk accounts of social groups and actors within an implementation context. Risk management is embedded in the social processes where risks are negotiated and contested, with some risk accounts amplified and some attenuated. Through the analysis of a large IT implementation in an Asian logistics firm and its trajectory of successive crises, we examine the process of the social construction of risk. Our findings highlight the inherent fragmentation and the challenge of building collectiveness in risk construction, and the need for risk managers to consider the influence of broader social structures and the reshaping dynamism of sudden focusing events in managing complex IT projects.
Disciplines
Risk Analysis | Technology and Innovation
Subject(s)
Basic or Discovery Scholarship
ISSN/ISBN
1536-9323
Publisher
Association for Information Systems
DOI
10.17705/1jais.00269
Version
publishedVersion
Language
eng
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Format
application/PDF
Citation
LIM, Wee Kiat; SIA, Siew Kien; and YEOW, Adrian.
Managing risk in a failing IT project: A social constructionist view. (2011). Journal of the Association for Information Systems. 12, (6), 414-440.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cmp_research/2
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.17705/1jais.00269