An investigation of uncertainty dynamics within project management: theoretical and empirical insights

Traditional normative approaches to managing uncertainty in projects have proven to be unable to support the uncertainty conditions in novel projects today. While practitioners have developed pragmatic new approaches to handling projects with volatile boundary conditions and large inherent volumes of uncertainty, for example through agile project management, scholars are searching for a stronger theoretical foundation for project and project uncertainty management which can explain and advance these empirical approaches. This thesis exposes a link between uncertainty and the concept of information. Using detailed definitions of information, a stratified information layer instrument was constructed, which forms the basis for the presentation of a theoretical model of uncertainty. Following the confirmation of the utility of the information paradigm and the layer model through a series of semi-structured interviews, the information paradigm lens is applied to overt non-participant observational research under the Critical Realist paradigm. This produced empirical findings of uncertainty symptoms, indicators and coping mechanisms, and resulted in the abstraction of six information themes, which appear to offer a more precise understanding of underlying uncertainty dynamics in projects than previous academic contributions. These theoretical and empirical foundations are used to inform a paradigm switch from task to information, and the subsequent redefinition of projects under the information paradigm. A conceptual framework was constructed from the six information concepts and the information layer model, which creates a more precise understanding of project uncertainty dynamics, and makes uncertainty an intrinsic consideration of project management.