Elmar Kutsch

Being uncomfortable is both a challenge and an opportunity for Elmar. As a passionate Skydiver his interests, both privately and professionally, revolve around management of the unexpected. Elmar's first real exposure to the rather paradox world of uncertainty began in 1998, when he held a variety of commercial and senior management positions within the Information Technology (IT) industry. Working for one of the biggest ITservice providers in Germany he was responsible for the successful delivery of a number of large projects, including major roll-out and outsourcing strategies. Clients included the Commerzbank, the Deutsche Börse (German Stock Exchange) and the Polizei Rheinland Pfalz (State Police Rheinland Pfalz).His passion for the management of risk and uncertainty in projects then led him to pursue a career in academia. He served as a Lecturer in Operations Management at the University of Surrey and has been at Cranfield since 2007.

Current activities

In order to raise enthusiasm for his expertise in managing risk and uncertainty,and establishing ways of resilient organising, Elmar engages widely with industry and advocates of risk management and organisational resilience. This includes organisations such as the Airmic (https://www.airmic.com/) or the Business Continuity Programme (BCI, http://www.thebci.org/) to further the development of behavioral capabilities for managing risk and uncertainty.

Over the past few years Elmar has become involved in the development of Graduate Programmes and Customised Executive Development, providing intuitive and deliverable-based learning methods. In 2017, he received the Cranfield SOM Teaching and Learning Faculty award for excellence in researching, developing, delivering and publishing impactful case studies. He is a visiting Professor at IéSEG (France) and is also associated with Umeå University (Sweden) as a guest researcher. He publishes widely on aspects of Risk Management, Resilience and High Reliability Organisations.

Publications

Articles In Journals

• Kutsch E. (2017) High reliability banking - a tug of war, Risk & Compliance, Oct - Dec 165-169.
• Kutsch E & Turner E (2016) The Fall of France 1940: The role of mindful leadership, Project Manager Today (January/February) 14-17.
• Kutsch E & Turner N (2016) Breaking the Rules: How mindfulness, rather than rule based project management, can benefit certain projects, Pm Network (August 26-27).
• Turner N, Kutsch E & Leybourne S (2016) Rethinking project reliability using the ambidexterity and mindfulness perspectives, International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 9 (4) 845-864.
• Kutsch E & Turner N (2015) Are you taking the right approach to managing projects?, Management Focus, 2015 (38) 10-11.
• Kutsch E, Ward J, Hall M & Algar J (2015) The contribution of the Project Management Office: A Balanced Scorecard Perspective, Information Systems Management, 32 (2) 105-118.
• Kutsch E, Browning TR & Hall M (2014) Bridging the Risk Gap The Failure of Risk Management in Information Systems Projects, Research-Technology Management, 57 (2) 26-32.
• Erkoyuncu JA, Roy R, Shebab E & Kutsch E (2014) An Innovative Uncertainty Management Framework to Support Contracting for Product-Service Availability, Journal of Service Management, 25 (5) 603-638.
• Kutsch E & Turner N (2014) Managing the unknown - Modern challenges in IT development and operations, IT Elite 1-3.
• Turner N, Maylor H, Lee-Kelley L, Brady T, Kutsch E & Carver S (2014) Ambidexterity and Knowledge Strategy in Major Projects: A Framework and Illustrative Case Study, Project Management Journal, 45 (5) 44-55.
• Kutsch E, Denyer D, Hall M & Lee-Kelley E (2013) Does risk matter? Disengagement from risk management practices in information systems projects, European Journal of Information Systems, 22 (6) 637-649.
• Hall M, Kutsch E & Partington D (2012) Removing the cultural and managerial barriers in project-to-project learning: A case from the UK public sector, Public Administration, 90 (3) 664-684.
• Kutsch E & Ward J (2012) The Fallacies of Modern Project Risk Management: A Process Worth Disengaging From?, Cutter It Journal, 25 (7) 33-39.
• Kutsch E, Maylor H, Weyer B & Lupson J (2011) Performers, trackers, lemmings and the lost: Sustained false optimism in forecasting project outcomes - Evidence from a quasi-experiment, International Journal of Project Management, 29 (8) 1070-1081.
• Geraldi JG, Kutsch E & Turner N (2011) Towards a conceptualisation of quality in information technology projects, International Journal of Project Management, 29 (5) 557-567.
• Kutsch E & Hall M (2011) The illusion of certainty, Project, July/August.
• Denyer D & Kutsch E (2011) The snowball effect, Pm Network (March) 22-23.
• Denyer D, Kutsch E, Lee-Kelley L & Hall M (2011) Exploring reliability in information systems programmes, International Journal of Project Management, 29 (4) 442-454.
• Kutsch E & Maylor H (2011) Risk and error in IS/IT projects: going beyond process, International Journal of Project Organisation and Management., 3 (2) 107-126.
• Kutsch E & Hall M (2010) Deliberate ignorance in project risk management, International Journal of Project Management, 28 (3) 245-255.
• Denyer D & Kutsch E (2010) They think it's all over ... isn't it?, Project (Aug/Sep) 36-38.
• Woerndl M, Powell P, Vidgen R & Kutsch E (2010) From ASP To SaaS: Diffusion And The Software Rental Market, Information and Communication Technologies for the Advanced Enterprise: An International Journal, 1 (1) 13-29.
• Zainol NA, Lockwood A & Kutsch E (2010) Relating the zone of tolerance to service failure in the hospitality industry, Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing, 27 (3) 324-333.
• Geraldi JG, Lee-Kelley L & Kutsch E (2010) The Titanic sunk, so what? Project manager response to unexpected events, International Journal of Project Management, 28 (6) 547-558.
• Kutsch E & Maylor H (2009) From failure to success: An investigation into managers' criteria for assessing the outcome of IT projects, International Journal of Manufacturing Technology and Management, 16 (3) 265-282.
• Kutsch E & Hall M (2009) The rational choice of not applying project risk management in information technology projects, Project Management Journal, 40 (3) 72-81.
• Kutsch E (2008) The effect of intervening conditions on the management of project risk, International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 1 (4) 602-610.
• Kutsch E (2007) The measurement of performance in IT projects, International Journal of Electronic Business, 5 (4) 415-426.
• Kutsch E & Hall M (2005) Intervening conditions on the management of project risk: Dealing with uncertainty in information technology projects, International Journal of Project Management, 23 (8) 591-599.

Conference Papers

• Kutsch E, Denyer D & Turner N (2017) A case of dying leadership: Examining the K2 disaster of 2008. In: 77th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, 2017, Atlanta GA, 4-8 August 2017.
• Turner, N, Kutsch E, Swart & J (2016) Learning to be resilient? Taking the ambidexterity view. In: Organizational Learning, Knowledge and Capabilities conference (OLKC 2016), St. Andrews, Scotland, 26 April 2016.
• Turner N & Kutsch E (2016) Understanding resilience in organizational operations – an ambidexterity perspective. In: 2016 Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Anaheim, CA, 5 August 2016.
• Gallagher P, Kutsch E & Turner N (2015) The diversity of routines: Towards resilient performance in defence projects. In: EGOS - European Group for Organizational Studies 2015, Athens, 2 July 2015.
• Kutsch E & Turner N (2015) The internalization of mindfulness at 28,000 feet: Revisiting the K2 2008 disaster. In: EGOS - European Group for Organizational Studies 2015, Athens, 2 July 2015.
• Hall M, Kutsch E & Hussels S (2014) Making sense of uncertainty in start-up companies: the resilience funnel. In: EURAM 2014: 14th European Academy of Management Annual Conference, Valencia, 4-7 June 2014.
• Hall M, Kutsch E & Eastment R (2014) Sensemaking: risk and opportunity. In: EURAM 2014: 14th European Academy of Management Annual Conference, Valencia, 4-7 June 2014.
• Kutsch E & Hallgren M (2014) The mindful organisation: A breakdown at 28,000 feet. In: British Academy of Management Conference 2014 (BAM2014)*, Belfast, 9-11 September 2014.
• Kutsch E, Denyer D & Hall M (2014) Sensebreaking and meaning voids in IS change initiatives. In: British Academy of Management Conference 2014 (BAM2014)*, Belfast, 9-11 September 2014.
• Runswick F & Kutsch E (2014) When there is no plan B: Business team improvised response to an urgent incident. In: British Academy of Management Conference 2014 (BAM2014)*, Belfast, 9-11 September 2014.
• Joy S, Hall M & Kutsch E (2013) Decision making in projects - The use of expertise to generate High Reliability. In: EURAM 2013 - 13th European Academy of Management Conference, Istanbul, 26 June 2013.
• Kutsch E & Hall M (2012) From process-based risk analysis to organisational attention - Learning from Fall of France 1940 and K2 2008. In: Society for Risk Analysis 2012 Annual Meeting, San Francisco, 9 December 2012.
• Koryak O, Hussels S & Kutsch E (2012) Resource Orchestration: Internal Governance as a Mechanism of Synchronization. In: EURAM 2012 - 12th European Academy of Management Conference, Rotterdam, 6 June 2012.
• Kutsch E & Hall M (2011) Centralisation in temporary organisations: The importance of operational common sense during the Fall of France 1940. In: EURAM 2011 - 11th European Academy of Management Annual Conference, Tallinn, 1 June 2011.
• Hussels S, Tobias J, Reinnoeller P & Kutsch E (2011) Entrepreneurial mindfulness - An exploratory study. In: G-Forum 2011: 15th annual interdisciplinary entrepreneurship conference, St Gallen/Zurich, 2 November 2011.
• Dickel H, Turner N, Lee-Kelley L & Kutsch E (2011) Going for Gold? Knowledge management and learning at the London 2012 Olympics. In: EURAM 2011 - 11th European Academy of Management Annual Conference, Tallinn, 1 June 2011.
• Kutsch E, Lee-Kelley L, Hall M & Denyer D (2010) Overcoming paralysis: Aspects of reliability in information systems projects. In: EURAM 2010 - 10th European Academy of Management Annual Conference, Rome, 19 May 2010.
• Kutsch E, Geraldi J, Hall M & Lee-Kelley L (2009) The (non-) adoption of risk management processes in projects. In: EURAM 2009, Liverpool, 11 May 2009.
• Kutsch E, Maylor H, Lupson J & Partington D (2009) Performers, trackers, lemmings and the lost: sustained false optimism in forecasting project outcomes - evidence from a quasi-experiment. In: IRNOP IX, Berlin.
• Partington D, Maylor H, Kutsch E & Lupson J (2008) Sustained false optimism in project performance tracking: Evidence from an MBA project management simulation. In: 19th Annual Conference of the Production and Operations Management Society, La Jolla.
• Kutsch E & Lupson J (2008) Ignorance and uncertainty: The case of irrelevance in project management. In: 19th Annual Conference of the Production and Operations Management Society, La Jolla.
• Partington D & Kutsch E (2008) How project failure can remove cultural barriers to future project success. In: Academy of Management Annual Meeting, 2008, Anaheim, 8 August 2008.
• Kutsch E & Hall M (2007) A culture of fatalism in IT projects? The curious case of (the lack of) risk management. In: International Critical Management Studies Conference, Leeds.
• Kutsch E (2007) Over- and underestimation of risk: How effective are project managers in managing risks in information technology projects?. In: EURAM 2007 - 7th European Academy of Management Conference, Paris, 16 May 2007.
• Kutsch E (2006) The influence of intervening conditions on the over- and underestimation of risk. In: European Conference on Information Systems, Gteborg.
• Kutsch E & Maylor H (2005) If it ain't broke ... Recognising failure as a first step to realising improvement opportunities in IT project processes. In: EurOMA annual conference, Budapest.

Books

• Kutsch E & Turner N (2016) The Internalization of Attention at 28,000 Feet: Revisiting the K2 2008 Disaster. In: Managing Project Risks for Competitive Advantage in Changing Business Environments. Bodea CN, Purnus A, Huermann M, and Hajdu M (ed.), IGI Global, p. 196-215.
• Kutsch E, Hall M & Turner N (2015) Project Resilience - The art of noticing, interpreting, preparing, containing and recovering. Farnham: Gower.
• Kutsch & E (2008) Barriers to Project Risk Management: Processes, Techniques and Insights. Saarbruecken: VDM Verlag.