International Journal of Project Management最新文献

Managing projects increasingly involves digital technologies, yet it remains unclear how project participants use digital technologies for accountability. Based on data from a qualitative field study in a software consultancy organization, this article examines how accountability is shaped by project teams’ use of digital project management tools. The findings reveal that project teams actualize visibility and association affordances to configure accountability and reinforce shared accountability in client relationships. However, they are constrained by persistence affordance, which requires consistent and aligned digital transparency. This study demonstrates that the impacts of digital technologies on project accountability emerge from the actualization of affordances in specific technology practices, co-determined by the technology materiality and the accountability goals of project participants. Through visibility and association affordances, digital technologies can reinforce both hierarchical and socializing forms of accountability. However, this requires project participants to form a consensus on technology usage, binding them to each other's digital practices.

Heterogeneous individual participants are embedded within multiple dynamic intra-project relationship networks, which can both shape and be shaped by individual behaviors through social influence and selection processes, respectively. Yet empirical research on these complex interrelationships within projects remains lacking. This study fills this lacuna by investigating how formal task-oriented communication and informal knowledge-oriented advice networks coevolve with individual resistance behaviors for building information modeling (BIM) implementation in construction projects through social selection and influence processes. Stochastic actor-oriented network models and longitudinal data on project-level BIM implementation practices are used to examine this question. After controlling for related covariate and structural effects, the results provide clear evidence for the social selection process in which communication and advice ties in the networks are both more frequently formed between project participants with more similar resistance behaviors. Concerning the social influence process, the results show that compared with knowledge-oriented advice ties, task-oriented communication ties tend to more significantly influence the assimilation of resistance behaviors. The network-behavior coevolution process is simultaneously associated with the covariate effects related to individual experience as well as the structural effects related to reciprocity and triadic closure. As a pioneering effort of using longitudinal network modeling methods to empirically characterize network-behavior dynamics in projects, this study provides a deepened understanding of how social selection and influence processes collectively shape the dynamic interactions among heterogeneous project participants as a complex adaptive system.

Despite the importance of motivation in driving the formation of collaborative risk management, the existing literature lacks recognition of stakeholders’ motivations to participate in the collaborative risk management of mega infrastructure projects. By combining interview data with the theoretical framework based on previous literature, this study constructs a motivation framework for stakeholders to participate in collaborative risk management of mega infrastructure projects, comprising four groups of motivations formed by glue identity logic (organizational or individual level) and interest logic (intrinsic drive or extrinsic stimulus). Motivational differences between project owners and contractors are discussed based on the case study of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, indicating that these differences are closely related to the identity of stakeholders and project progress. This study contributes a systematic perspective to recognize the motivations behind participation in collaborative risk management of mega infrastructure projects, aligns managerial intentions with actual motivations, and uncovers new insights into collaborative risk management. It enriches the collaborative risk management theory in mega infrastructure projects and provides guidance and inspiration for practitioners in decision-making and collaborative risk management in such projects.

This paper analyses the complexities involved in planning and managing infrastructural megaprojects under changing regulatory environments. Through the case of the megaprojects by Autostrade, a motorway construction company, the paper illustrates that the notion of success is problematic and not easily defined when changes in regulations by regulatory bodies become sources of overflows, inducing changes in plans that had been previously agreed upon.

Since regulations are dynamic, there may be a limit to which the initial planning parameters are legitimate benchmarks for the actualized megaproject's cost, time, and quality. It follows that a megaproject's success can result in orchestrating actions and reactions that involve both the capability of envisioning boundaries and demolishing them. This has severe implications for the notion of success itself, which does not easily fall into the traditional perspective of goal fulfillment but rather is linked to the inability to perceive the project's incompleteness.

Project-based organizations (PBOs) increasingly initiate the strategic change to work in interorganizational programs. Establishing such a change is challenging due to the short-term focus, high levels of autonomy, and the varying involvement of interorganizational actors in projects. We adopt a boundary work lens to study how public PBOs operating in infrastructure address the parent organization – program, parent organization – project, and project – project boundaries that emerge when organizing work in programs. Based on two in-depth qualitative case studies, we identified the importance of establishing a continuous and predictable flow in projects, processes, and learning in achieving effective collaboration in interorganizational programs. We find that boundary work at any individual boundary is insufficient to reap the benefits of such programmatic collaboration. Our study offers novel insights into boundary work and program management literature by shedding light on the interdependent nature of boundaries in the strategic change to work in interorganizational programs in PBOs.

Innovation can provide new opportunities to improve project efficiency. However, enabling innovation is challenging, especially in public infrastructure development projects. Several impeding factors, such as limited contractual incentives and complexity, are prevalent in contract-based collaborative environments. Literature suggests that boundary spanners play an important role in driving innovation by seizing opportunities. This study aims to identify configurations of boundary spanning roles in typical project situations— varying in contract type and complexity— to facilitate innovation. The empirical data is from 58 projects and analyzed using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA). Results show that depending on the project conditions in terms of contract type and complexity, different combinations of boundary spanning roles can be taken up by project managers or other team members to facilitate innovation. This study highlights that in high-complexity situations, boundary spanning roles play a critical role in maintaining good relationships with collaborators, which is instrumental in developing innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate legitimacy building narratives of project managers in flexible work projects and their articulation with institutional, organizational, and individual narratives. We use Greimas actantial model to analyze four case studies, collecting data from 27 interviews of project managers, employees and line managers as well as extensive secondary data. This study contributes to project management literature by identifying legitimacy building mechanisms that project managers use in their narratives: on one hand, they build on institutional and organizational narrative components to produce their own project narratives; on the other hand, they perform identity work through heroification to build their own legitimacy as project managers. We also show how some of these narratological components are challenged by other organizational actors (employees and line managers). On a methodological level, we also reflect on Greimas’ actantial model as a tool to analyze and compare project narratives at different levels and from different groups of actors.

Programs are frequently highlighted for their ability to enable the implementation of strategic transformation amidst rapidly changing and unpredictable business environments. This study explores the creation of routines within a strategic program in the Danish construction industry and the subsequent transfer of these routines to the parent organizations. It identifies three sequential patterns of action: entrenching, dis-embedding, and re-embedding routines. Through an interpretive case study, the study reveals how these routines emerge and adapt in alignment with diverse organizational capabilities and relations. The findings highlight the importance of routine transfer and integration in parent organizations, emphasizing their adaptability to distinct needs and their significance for achieving strategic objectives. The discussion presents a process model and elaborates on the three sequential patterns of action. The paper contributes to the program literature by exploring the dynamics of how routines emerge through their own enactment and in relation to other actions at the program level.