Une analyse institutionnelle des pratiques de gestion de projet de systemes d'information

Information systems (IS) project management is a complex and crucial task that involves several facets. Besides the technical realization of the system, developing information systems implies a social process that involves stakeholders with very distinct skills and organizational origins. Behind so-called rational processes, project managers may in fact be influenced by institutional influences coming from their education, training, professional associations for instance. These influences take the form of shared norms, as for instance norms provided by the PMI (Project Management Institute) and diffused through certification and publications such as the PMBOK Guide. We first wish to take stock of the institutional contribution in IS research and understand how closely IS researchers followed the precepts of institutional theory. This is the subject of the first of three papers, a critical literature review titled: Positioning the Institutional Perspective in Information Systems. Although the institutional perspective is one of the prevailing theories currently used in organizational analysis no rigorous effort had yet been made to assess the extent to which the basic assumptions and precepts of the theory have been taken into consideration in IS research. We apply the methodological and conceptual insights of this first paper to the empirical study of an IS phenomenon: project management practices in IS projects. This study will be embedded in two papers.;Keywords: project management, planning, control, risk management, information systems, institutional approaches, institutionalization, strategic responses, mindfulness.;The first empirical study is titled L'institutionnalisation des pratiques de gestion de projet de SI and aims at answering the following questions: Which project management practices (PMP) are institutionalized in IS? and What are the institutionalization processes by which PMPs emerged and evolved in the IS field? We suggest that three groups of IS PMPs are institutionalized: planning and control, internal integration, and project risk management. 50 years of history (1945-2005) of these three groups of practices and the context of their institutionalization are elaborated. The second empirical study is titled Reponses strategiques des gestionnaires de projet de SI aux influences des pratiques de gestion de projet institutionnalisees. Contrary to what is suggested by traditional institutional approaches, we wish to show that institutionnalized practices are not passively adopted by project managers. They are rather at the source of diverse responses. We performed 46 interviews with IS project managers in order to identify different strarategies and tactics. Furthermore, two case studies illustrate specific strategies: acquiescence, defiance and manipulation. We show that IS project managers use many strategic responses in response to institutionalized IS PMPs, such as acquiescence, compromise, avoidance, defiance and manipulation.