2014Cambridge Conference Business & EconomicsISBN : 9780974211428
Taking the Mystery out of the Concept of Top Management Support: The Context of Information Technology Projects
ABSTRACT
This paper presents a new definition for the concept of top management support in information technology projects. Top management support is identified in literature as an important critical success factor for project performance. However, prior studies claim that the current understanding on the concept is insufficient and has led to poor project performance. These prior studies call for further in-depth investigations into the concept to identify the specifics of top management support. Academic guidelines state that the components of a thoroughly defined concept include a strong theoretical base, properly stated boundaries and the ability to adjust to situational circumstances. Adhering to these guidelines, a theoretical definition based on popular managerial role-based theory with clearboundaries and the ability to travel across different levels of abstraction, is presented in the first part of this study. Improving upon the guidelines from academic literature, the theoretical concept is further tested empirically using a qualitative study for added rigour in the second part of this study.Findings from the empirical study support the theoretically defined concept. Therefore, this fresh concept definition, supported by theoretical and empirical rigour is presented as new contribution to literature. The findings from this study are expected to be instrumental in improving the understanding of the concept of top management support and benefit information technology projects. The fresh concept definition also opens up future research opportunities as different attributes of the concept warrant for further study.
Keywords
Top Management Support, Concept definition, Critical Success Factors, IT projects, Qualitative data analysis
INTRODUCTION
Top management support (TMS) for information technology (IT) projects is described as a critical success factor (CSF) for achieving better project performance(Akgün, Byrne, Lynn, & Keskin, 2007; Belassi & Tukel, 1996). In order to ensure high performance in projects, support from the top management is requested by project managers to address issues beyond the project manager’s authority or expertise(Ragu-Nathan, Apigian, Ragu-Nathan, & Tu, 2004). According to industry and academic reports,IT project performance is still low(Meredith & Mantel, 2006; Nah, Lau, & Kuang, 2001),and therefore,it is questionable whether the project managers receive the support they need(Loonam & Donagh, 2005). A contributing factor for this lag of TMS is considered to be the lack of understanding by the top management of what is expected of them withprior definitions falling short of rendering such information.
Treatment in literature for TMS is ambiguous and does not agree on a common view of the concept(Dong, Neufeld, & Higgins, 2009; Jarvenpaa & Ives, 1991). The majorityargue that top management support is a set of resultant actionsarising from the behaviourof managers(Young & Jordan, 2008)while others argue for managerial perceptions(Jarvenpaa & Ives, 1991).Some even argue for both(Bassellier & Pinsonneault, 1998), but have failed to attract many followers. This indecision further adds to the confusion while it is obvious that the concept has rarely been studied in adequate depth. Studies that have pursued investigations on critical success factors for IT project performance stress that each CSF is a concept by itself and should be studied in greater depth(Butler & Fitzgerald, 1999; Williams & Ramaprasad, 1996). The existing concept definitions for TMS appear to fall short of these academic prescriptions leading to an absenceof theoretical and empirical rigor and could pose a significant threat to the reliability of research projects that use these concept definitions. Therefore, it is vital that the concept of TMS is defined adhering to theoretical guidelines,and be supported by empirical methods.
Literature suggests that the top management engage in functional roles on a daily basis.Therefore, rendering support for projects overseen by them is most possibly embedded in these roles. Top managers are known as generalists;hence, it is possible that a firm foundation for the concept definition for TMS could be initiated using general management theory. Amongst the studies reported on top management, the study on top management roles (Mintzberg, 1973) has been adopted and referred to by many subsequent studies in many contexts including IT(Grover, Jeong, Kettinger, & Lee, 1993). Mintzberg (1973) has studied the actions of top level executives and identified ten managerial roles that are engaged by the top management to execute their work.Therefore, it is possible that TMS could be conceptualised using managerial roles by Mintzberg (1973) if a top managementbehavioural based view is adopted. This notion providesa path towards a fresh view of TMS – a managerial role based concept definitionfor TMS. This paper explains the research carried outwith the intention of compiling such a definition.
The remainder of the paper is organised in the following order. The first section that follows is the literature review. Then, the section proposing a new theoretical definition for the concept of TMS is presented. The methodology for the empirical study is statednext followedby the section that discusses the empirical findings and the research contribution. The paper concludes with the conclusions section.
LITERATURE REVIEW
This section presents a review of literature on top managers and the roles they play, and discusses the applicability of these roles towards a new concept definition for top management support. Prior to attempting a new definition, academic guidelineson defining a concept are discussed and the existing definitions on TMS from literature are evaluated in an effort to observe their compatibility with these guidelines.
Top Managers, the Nature of Their Work and Managerial Roles
Managers are personnel entrusted with responsibility and explicit authority (Mintzberg, 1994) to execute the organisational strategy. A manager may be in charge of an organisation or one of its subunits as per the structure (Li & Harrison, 2008;Sambamurthy & Zmud, 1999)and the management system in an organisation. The term, top manager is used interchangeably in literature to identify senior management levels. The senior (departmental/unit) manager(Crawford, 2005; Augustine, Payne, Sencindiver, & Woodcock, 2005), director and managers with the ‘chief’ prefix such as, but not limited to, chief information officer, chief technical officer and chief executive officer are commonly identified as the top management(Francoeur, Labelle, & Sinclair-Desgagne, 2008). In organisations with flat hierarchies the top management may sit directly above the project manager, whereas in organisations with multiple hierarchical levels, the power distance may be more. Whatever the term used, the top management is expected to engage in activities that need their attention.
The actions engaged by the top management include but are not limited to formulating strategy(Collier, Fishwick, & Floyd, 2004), training(McLagan, 1988), staff development(Trinka, 2005), procurement, establishing trust and work relationships(Atkinson, 2004), and instilling ethical behaviour and harmony (Viswesvaran, Deshpande, & Joseph, 1998) in the work place. Managers also liaise with external parties that have stakes in the organisation. These stakeholders may be suppliers, customers and networking organisations(Luthans, Rosenkrantz, & Hennessey, 1985). Given such vivid explanations of managerial work, it is not surprising that researchers have offered to categorise managerial work(Allan, 1981; Mintzberg, 1973; Radner, 1992; Shapira & Dunbar, 1980). Mintzberg is one such scholar that identified ten managerial roles from the activities that top managers carry out. These roles have been widely accepted in academia and can be seen employed even in recent years(Stewart & O'Donnell, 2007).Mintzberg (1973) has suggested ten roles to group the activities carried out by top managers and further categorised them into three main categories (Table 1).
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The Concept of (Behaviour Based) Top Management Support
Literature specifies that when top managers extend support, there is a high possibility of better performance at both project and organisational levels(Williams & Ramaprasad, 1996). This study refers across these levels with the intent of understanding the treatment in literature on the concept of TMS. As stated above the scope of this study is based on TMS brought about by the behaviour of the top management. Hence, table 2 below illustrates definitions and the main actions mentioned in these definitions. It is noted that not all studies that undertook to investigate TMS offered explicit theoretical definitions for TMS, some definitions found in literature are merely casual descriptions. A prominent few were selected to make necessary arguments for this study. The selected definitions are also considered the best for the particular exercise described as the activities mentioned are easily segregated.
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The definitions (Table 2) cover a large number of activities that are carried out by the top management. These activities no doubt help improve project/organisational performance.However,most of these definitions have not employed academic guidelines, i.e. theoretical or empirical rigour when compiling the definitions. In the next section a brief discussion on suitable guidelines on concept definition is presented.
Theoretical Guidelines for Defining a Concept
The building blocks for any research are the concepts that are undertaken for the study and are of undeniable importance. Although there may be more than one wayto define a concept, guidelines from Osigweh, (1989)are genuine in illustrating the applicability of their guidelines, and have attracted popularity. Adopting a clearly defined concept is essential for carrying out reliable research. Poorly defined concepts will leave fundamental gaps in research findings. It is mentioned in literature that a concept needs to have degrees of varying abstraction;i.e.it should be collapsible and expandable as per the situation. Osigweh (1989)has compared travelling along the lines of abstraction in concept definition to that of climbing a ladder. In this scenario the definition with more specificity and detail will be at the bottom of the ladder of abstraction while the universal definition resides at the top.
Osigweh (1989, p. 584) points out that it is important “to retain extensional (breadth or denotation) gains by ladder climbing, while minimising losses in connotative (intention or depth) precision.”Osigweh (1989, p. 584)further explains the terms denotation and connotation saying that, “the extension of a concept refers to the class of things to which it applies, or the totality of objects which it identifies, the connotation of that same term refers to the sum total of characteristics or collection of properties that anything must possess to be denoted by that term”.In order for a concept to be considered sufficientlydefined there are three domains to note on the ladder of abstraction(Osigweh, 1989). First of these domains is when a concept is distinguished with a narrow scope and explained with many attributes. In the seconddomain, a concept is identified with a broad coverage of one or more classes with few attributes. While these are the prominent two, a middle domain between the two is also accepted. This middle domainis expected to be defined with the breadth of the scope balanced by the number of attributes. Osigweh (1989) warns that when a concept is given a narrow scope and two few attributes or when a concept is too broad with many attributes, it cannot be claimed as an effective concept. In the next sub-section, using these guidelines the definitions in Table 2 are critically evaluated, and the problems with these definitions are discussed.
Problems with the Available Definitions on the Concept of Top Management Support
Although commendable on the effort, the current definitions on the concept of top management support appear to fall short of the above guidelines. They fail to illustrate adequate retention in extension and minimised losses in connotation while travelling the ladder of abstraction(Osigweh, 1989). Yet another downfall of these definitions is that they do not make the boundary for TMS clear. Therefore, most definitions are not suitable for future research. Osigweh (1989)states two undesirable domains in concept definition. The first is the “stretched concept domain”(Osigweh, 1989, p. 587)with a broad coverage and too many classes with packed ideas. The second is the “configurative situational concept domain”(Osigweh, 1989, p. 587) with narrow coverage and two few attributes.The definitions extracted from literature were compared with these guidelines and the observations made are stated below.
The definition Top manager’s set of psychological states & behaviours about IT(Bassellier & Pinsonneault, 1998) has “too many classes”(Osigweh 1989, p. 582)as both mental state and behaviour have been considered. The definition by (De Holan & Mintzberg, 2004)Engaging in the operational work under them, could be criticized as having too broad a coverage as operational work under the supervision of the top manager may have many underlying dimensions. Therefore, it could be declared “an exaggeration”(Osigweh 1989, p. 584). According to(Thomas, et al., 2002), TMS is Helping to establish project management as a strategic capability, this definition seems packed with intention and non-specification of the term strategic capability and is considered “over encompassing”(Osigweh 1989, p. 584). The evidence suggests that these definitions identify with the stretched concept domain on the ladder of abstraction.
The definition,CEOs support for bringing up a COO, who might be his successor(Levinson, et al., 1993) has a narrow coverage where it is assumed that the work of a top manager is only to nurture subordinates. Providing the money and commitment to operate the company effectively, by (Correll, 1994) has too few attributes where they perceive that money and commitment are the only support expected of a top manager. These definitions can be identified as belonging to the configurative situational concept domain in the ladder of abstraction. As a considerable number of definitions are identified with undesirable states of a concept, the need for a theoretically defined, empirically verified concept definition is clear. The first step towards a sufficiently defined concept is to firmly ground the definition in theory
In order to firmly ground the new concept definition in theory, both management theory and the body of available literature on TMS are utilised. Multiple rounds of comparisons between Mintzberg’s (1973) role descriptions and activities from the current TMS definitions were carried out until there was consensus among the authors (Table 3).Theresults from this exercise suggest that actions from eight roles are often referred to when mentioning TMS. Seven roles from Mintzberg’s (1973) initial list are included: Leader, Monitor, Disseminator, Entrepreneur, Resource allocator, Disturbance Handler and Negotiator.The eighth is the role that emerged from literature beyond the realm of Mintzberg’s (1973) roles - the Technical Expert role(Lau, Newman, & Broedling, 1980). A new role category is introduced for this role, i.e. the Technical role category.
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July 1-2, 2014
Cambridge, UK1
2014Cambridge Conference Business & EconomicsISBN : 9780974211428
PROPOSED NEW CONCEPT DEFINITION FOR TOP MANAGEMENT SUPPORT
The first step in defining a concept is to set the boundary for the concept. This study is defining a concept for TMS in IT projects and has adopted a managerial role based perspective. Managerial roles are “an organized set of behaviours belonging to an identifiable office or position”(Mintzberg 1973, p. 54). Therefore, essentially, the suggested definition for the concept of TMS addresses top management behaviour. The term “identified position”is interpreted for this study as the top manager consulted by the project manager for support on projects.He/she may reside anywhere above the project manager in the organisational hierarchy.
Observations from the previous exercise are noted, but the evidence is considered insufficient to make the decision to stop investigating particular roles. Therefore, all ten roles identified by Mintzberg in 1973 and the new Technical Expert role are included in the theoretical definition with the intention of further investigation using empirical methods.The theoretical concept definition for TMS closely follows Osigweh’s (1989) guidelines, and for better clarity and comparison, the three levels of abstract are illustrated in Figure 1 below.In the first instance, i.e. at the lowest abstraction level, a precise coverage is given with many attributes.In the middle abstraction level, the breadth of the concept is managed with the number of attributes offered in the definition.At the universal level with the highest abstraction, a broader definition is suggested (Figure 1). The suggested definition does not travel to the undesirable domains condemned by Osigweh (1989). Although Osigweh’s (1989) prescriptions end here, in order to apply further academic rigour to the process of concept definition an empirical study is carried out. The methodology employed for the empirical study is given in the next section.
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METHODOLOGY FOR THE EMPIRICAL STUDY
The proposed theoretical concept definition for TMS is further investigated using a qualitative study involving five organisations representing large, medium and small sizes. The unit of study is an IT project. The projects selected were known to be ‘closed’ in some manner whether they were considered a success or not. The decision to study closed projects was made so that the project managers would recall supportive top management actions that would have beenrequired while the project was being carried out and be able to relate either receiving or not receiving support to the end result of the project. Six projects (1- Online Tea Auctioning System, 2 - Insurance System, 3 - Mobile Platform Change, 4 - Disaster Recovery Record System, 5 - Document Retention System, 6 - Online Stock Trading System)were selected to be studied.The project manager of each project and a key team member were contacted to collect the data. The key team member was separately interviewed to rule out any bias and to get a second opinion from within the same project environment. Twelve interviews which ranged approximately between 1 hour to 1 ½ hours were carried out.
The interviews were semi-structure and were designed in a way that the subjects could freely express their views. It was explained to the subjects that the ‘top management’ is the level of management initially consulted by the project manager when help, support or assistance was required for the IT project. The Interviews were recorded, then transcribed and were analysed using NVivo version 8. In the first step of analysis, the project managers’ views werethoroughly analysed to identify top management actions that are needed in IT projects. In the second step, nodes were created on the Nvivo software package with actions specified in Mintzberg’s (1973) managerial roles(Bazeley, 2007). Then these two qualitative data sets were closely analysed for relevance. The findings are discussed next.