From the Editor
Authors: C. Bredillet
Year: 2011

Intelligence and context, knowledge, competence, and performance and results summarize the content of the papers presented to readers in this issue of the Journal. This is a very relevant series of papers as, for the past 50 years, project management has become a well-accepted way to manage organizations. The field of project management has evolved from operational research techniques and tools to a discipline of management encompassing various schools of thought (Söderlund, 2002; Turner, Huemann, Anbari, & Bredillet, 2010). Projects, as strategic processes, modify the conditions of the organization in its environment (Morris & Jamieson, 2005). Through them, resources and competencies are mobilized to create competitive advantage and other sources of value. As resources are easily shared by many organizations, the organization’s competencies are the most important relevant driver. Thus, through the organization’s processes or projects, past action is actualized as experience; present action reveals and proves competencies; future action generates and tries out new competencies (Lorino & Tarondeau, 1998). Competencies are at the source of competitive advantage and the creation of value. Research is being done on the assumption that the more competent the project managers, teams, or organizations (maturity), the more efficiently they will perform, the more effective will be the performance of the projects, and the more successful will be the organization (Crawford, 1998; Lindner & Wald, 2010). Turner (1998) shows the influence of the project managers’ competencies on the value of shares of a company. But performance also comes from the maturity of the organization’s ability to deal with projects. And in respect of maturity, learning is especially significant (Fincher & Levin, 1997). Furthermore, as demonstrated by Lundin and Midler (1998), projects offer unique “arenas for renewal and learning processes.” To develop competencies, an individual needs knowledge. Two main views of competence development may be considered. One traditional view is that it involves applying a body of knowledge to known situations in order to produce rational solutions to problems (what I call the “have’’ or “quantitative’’ perspective). However, in a rapidly changing world and information-based society, practitioners and organizations increasingly need to respond intelligently to unknown situations and go beyond established knowledge to create unique interpretations and outcomes ( Ackoff, 1974; Reich, 1991; Schön, 1971) (what I call the “be’’ or “quality’’ perspective). As a result, it is no longer adequate to base professional development only on transmitting existing knowledge and developing a predefined range of competences on the basis that one problem equals one solution. Instead, practitioners need to be able to construct and reconstruct the knowledge they need and continually evolve their practice (Schön, 1987, pp. 35, 36), thereby leading to a systemic and dynamic development of their competencies. These alternative approaches of going beyond traditional models of production and knowledge use while recognizing its validity in some areas are based more on the reflecting, questioning, and creating processes. The term “epistemology’’ refers to the study of the nature and grounds of knowledge, including how we define or recognize it. Most of the works on organizational learning, learning organizations, knowledge management, knowledge-creating organizations, and so on, are based on a traditional understanding of the nature of knowledge. We could name this understanding the “positivist epistemology’’ perspective, since it treats knowledge as something people have. But this perspective alone does not reflect the knowing found in individual and team practice. This knowing can be described as “intelligent’’ action, “ingenium’’—this mental faculty that makes it possible to connect in a fast, suitable, and satisfying way those “separate things’’ as stated by Le Moigne (1995), quoting Giambattista Vico (1708) in calling for a “constructivist epistemology’’ perspective. We can mention as well a more “subjectivist” epistemology link to spiritual and/or inspired and/or intuitive knowledge (here closely related to experience) for instance, Spender and Scherer (2007). The “positivist epistemology’’ tends to promote explicit over tacit knowledge, and individual knowledge over team or organizational knowledge (Bredillet, 2004). An integrative epistemological approach for project management suggests that organizations will be better understood if explicit, tacit, individual, and team/ organizational knowledge are treated as four distinct forms From the Editor Christophe N. Bredillet, PhD, DSc, CASR 3PM, Dakar, Senegal