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A behavioral perspective on IT project risk management: a three-essay thesis

thesis
posted on 2023-06-09, 01:50 authored by Mohammad Moeini Aghkariz
This thesis studies information technology (IT) project risk management from a behavioral perspective. Prior studies suggest that IT project managers’ perceived risk exposure (i.e., subjective assessment of threats to projects’ objectives) and risk response decisions (i.e., subjective plans to perform project management activities in order to reduce risks) are sometimes different from the prescriptions in the literature. Based on the premise that a better understanding of IT project managers’ actual risk management behavior can help develop risk management practices that are better suited to their needs, this thesis aims to take a step in this direction. To do so, the thesis comprises three standalone but interrelated essays. Essay 1—a problematization-based literature review—studies what the previous IT project risk management literature, as a whole, assumes for normative purposes. It first invokes the premise that alternative conceptual assumptions about the same concepts could coexist in the literature to enable alternative research objectives. It then develops an alternative assumption set for the purpose of behavioral theory building and offers a number of directions for future research. Essay 2—a qualitative piece—examines two types of risk assessment processes: experiential and analytical processes. It sheds some light on the use of experiential risk assessment processes, including the use of heuristics and relying upon expertise-based intuition. It offers several propositions on the determinants of preferring experiential or analytical risk assessment processes in IT projects. Essay 3—a survey—develops a model of the antecedents of IT project managers’ intention to enact certain specific risk responses. It then instantiates the model for three specific risk responses, enriches each instance with the salient beliefs of a sample of IT project managers, and tests each instance using a separate survey. This thesis contributes by 1) proposing a set of decision-making assumptions that can be used in behavioral theories of risk management and offering several avenues for future research in the form of research questions, 2) developing propositions on the determinants of preferring experiential or analytical risk assessment processes, and 3) developing and validating a model that revisits the effect of perceived risk exposure on the risk-response intention of IT project managers.

History

Pages

206.0

Department affiliated with

  • Business and Management Theses

Qualification level

  • doctoral

Qualification name

  • phd

Institution

HEC Montreal

Full text available

  • No

Legacy Posted Date

2016-06-22

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