Collaborative Meeting as an Integrative Mechanism in a Multinational Investment Project

Abstract

In multinational and complex projects that are often implemented by multiple organizations, the entire projects need to be divided into manageable subprojects. At the same time , all subprojects are needed to be kept aligned with the project goals and targets by integration and coordination. The purpose of this article is to study the role of a particular, work-shop type, collaborative meeting by utilizing the characteristics of an integrative information processing framework. A single case study method was used to observe the practices of collaborative meetings. This study contributes to the project management research by analysing how collaborative meeting practice can be used as a mechanism to reduce uncertainty and equivocality in a large investment project. The results of this study are two fold s : Firstly, the case project’s collaborative meetings are described in detail; secondly, the perceived features and procedures of the collaborative meetings in the case project are illustrated showing the role of the collaborative meetings as an integrative tool. Moreover, the perceived integrative characteristics of the collaborative meetings reducing uncertainty and equivocality are presented. This study indicates that collaborative meeting is an integrative mechanism reducing uncertainty and equivocality in a large investment project context.