International Journal of Project Management最新文献

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.

The purpose of this research was to explore organizational identity crafting and maintaining processes in a temporary organization where multiple organizations are involved. We collected data using interviews, archival documents, and visual data to study the case of Tideway (Bazalgette Tunnel Limited) in the United Kingdom. A thematic analysis with visual representation was used. Findings provide evidence that both organizational identity crafting and maintaining processes are integrated in temporary organization. We identified five dimensions of organizational identity crafting: encouraging socialization; showing leadership behavior; communicating with internal and external stakeholders; doing citizenship behavior; and developing and implementing legacy strategy. The study also provided evidence of four elements of organizational identity maintaining: hybrid working as the new normal; providing support system; additional resource utilizing; and adapting to the next normal. Our developed model of organizational identity mapping has a number of implications for ongoing research on organizational identity narrative in temporary organizations.

For projects to contribute to sustainability transitions, traditional roles of project actors need to be challenged. This paper focus on the changing role of demolishers in circular construction projects. We explore the role changes needed and the tactics adopted to negotiate these changes. Therefore, we collected data across 10 demolishers and two construction projects in the Netherlands. We identified required changes related to task, timing, position, and image. The studied demolishers adopted six different tactics to negotiate these changes. These findings contribute to the sustainability transitions literature by highlighting the important function of projects in operationalizing role changes and enabling change in the roles of incumbent actors. Furthermore, the results contribute to the debate on roles in sustainable projects, and on the roles of demolishers in particular, showing the different elements and non-linear nature of role change, including the unique challenges and tactics adopted by demolishers to negotiate these changes.

Understanding the current state of a complex project is challenging but essential for project teams to make effective management decisions. This research explores whether the indirect elicitation and comparison of mental models measured through individual level perceptions can encourage project team double loop learning about a complex project to inform management decisions. The best-worst scaling object case method was applied at the individual level to measure system-wide perceptions of two case study projects, demonstrating its efficacy in capturing team and stakeholder perceptions, and measuring how these change over time. Analysis of the case studies showed that highlighting the differences in mental models uncovered using the best-worst scaling object case method at the individual level can facilitate double loop learning and prompt management decisions about complex projects.

Implementing strategy through an innovation project portfolio starts with project portfolio formation. The routine of project portfolio formation is especially influential, as it includes identifying, screening, and prioritizing the projects that shape the eventual portfolio. Comprehensive understanding of the project portfolio formation routine is important for addressing the simultaneous pressures for continuity and renewal when implementing innovation strategy. This study explores portfolio actors’ behavioral patterns in the project portfolio formation routine to understand their contextuality and implications on innovation strategy implementation. A multiple-case study with innovative companies reveals a comprehensive framework of governing and empowering actions and organization-specific patterns of actions. Differences between organizations in the combination of governing and empowering actions may be explained by innovation types, and the size and history of the organization. The behavioral patterns of project portfolio formation can provide organizations with a foundation for implementing both continuity- and renewal-oriented innovation strategies.

Megaprojects are commonly exposed to multiple, conflicting institutional demands, making them notoriously difficult to manage. Drawing on organizational institutional theory, the paper explores organizational responses to deal with institutional complexity on a transnational pipeline project spanning China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. The findings show how conflicting institutional demands across the involved countries were dealt with through the establishment of distinct organizational strategies and structures when a large Chinese petroleum organization entered into two separate project companies, each responsible for a section of the pipeline. One relied on a manipulation strategy where institutional complexity was reconciled by selectively coupling to certain institutional demands. The other handled competing demands through a compromise strategy involving the creation of a compartmentalized organizational structure. While these results confirm findings from prior work that the nature and internal representation of demands exerted on an organization shape its response strategy, we contribute further by showing how distinct contextual characteristics of megaprojects influence the specific responses adopted to deal with institutional complexity.

Empathy is receiving increasing attention as it can contribute to the collaboration and connectedness required for today's global challenges. A similar trend reveals itself at the scale of project management, given the change from technological to integration-driven challenges in projects. The necessary integrated approach affects the key competencies sought in project team participants. Since empathy enhances one's feeling for and understanding of the project participants’ interests, it could support the integration assignment. Therefore, focusing on the Dutch civil engineering industry, this study investigated whether the project team's empathic ability drives project performance. The results suggest a positive correlation between the team's empathic abilities and performance. Additionally, the study provides insights into the industry's current level of empathic ability, prompting the conclusion that there is room to improve performance by increasing the project teams’ empathic abilities.