International Journal of Project Management最新文献

Transferring knowledge across strategic projects is challenging. This study investigates how informal practices of members of the parent organization shape the transfer of knowledge across strategic projects. This was addressed through an in-depth case study of strategic projects in an innovation trajectory of a large public organization aiming to accelerate to transition towards circular construction. We identified five disabling practices: shaming and blaming, disconnecting, holding onto the department and project boundaries, fostering one-way relationships and avoiding internal conflict. Furthermore, we identified three enabling practices: supporting circular projects, sharing similarities across projects and integral visioning. The results contribute to the cross-project knowledge transfer literature by showing how members of partner organizations can enable or disable knowledge transfer across strategic projects. Furthermore, the results contribute to the strategic project literature by illuminating the importance of informal practices of members of the parent organization.

The discourse of social organizing in projects centres on temporary-permanent relationships across projects and between projects and embedded organizations. Less explored are temporary-temporary relationships within project ecologies. We investigate the practice of collaborative consumption in project ecologies as a form of such relationships. Specifically, we focus on tensions arising from contradictory logics of cooperation and competition in these temporary and ad-hoc strategic interactions. Based on the case of the construction industry, our results elaborate how coopetitive tensions shape the extent and forms of these ad-hoc temporary interactions among stakeholders to guide innovation in project supply chains. Beyond the limitations of broad strategic collaborations, these innovations promote the prospects for joint specializations, collective commitments, strategic resource dependences and more permeable organizational boundaries. But organizing these ad-hoc strategic interactions requires additional regulatory frameworks, as well as alternative artifacts, such as a digital platform for brokering structural holes in information relating supply and demand. Our study extends the stakeholder discourse in project studies through empirical research into emerging forms of temporary ad-hoc stakeholder interactions rather than broad strategic collaborations. Understanding these ad-hoc interactions and associated coopetitive tensions instigates a wider range of social organizing in project ecologies.

The interplay of contractual and relational governance has shown inconclusive effects on project performance, resulting in the complements versus substitutes debate. Adding nuance to this debate, this study takes a configurational perspective and examines their combined effects by conceptualizing contractual governance as design (control, coordination, and adaptation functions) and enforcement, and relational governance as trust. A qualitative comparative analysis of survey data collected from international construction projects undertaken by Chinese contractors reveals multiple pathways for high or low project performance. Contractual coordination and trust are the most critical factors, with their synergistic application proving beneficial regardless of other conditions. Although contractual governance alone can ensure high performance, trust must operate in tandem with contract-based mechanisms. Strict contract enforcement without sufficient trust results in poor performance. By connecting the transaction cost theory and social exchange theory, this study deepens the understanding of interrelations between project governance mechanisms and enhances project performance.

Modern organizational transformations increasingly rely on change programs led by the introduction of new information technology. Managing these information technology-based change programs within project-based organizations presents unique challenges due to the division between ongoing business processes and temporary project activities. This study uses an institutional logics perspective to understand how a project-based organizational context shaped and was shaped by an information technology-based change program. Through a three-year longitudinal case study on the interaction between a project-based organization and its information technology program, our findings reveal that institutional logics prevailing in the project-based organization significantly influenced the program's implementation. In turn, the information technology program acted as a catalyst for change, creating a competitive environment where two primarily segmented logics—a project organizing logic and an asset management logic—competed for dominance. The conflict between these logics led to new beliefs, values, and practices being dominant, marking a shift in balance between the two logics. Our findings contribute to increasing understanding of the dynamic interplay between project-based organizations and information technology-based change programs, shedding light on their mutual evolution over time and offering a deeper understanding of transformative change within project-based organizations.

The selection of an appropriate research design that provides a balance between rigor and relevance is a critical decision for scholars. The objective of this paper is to discuss the Design Science Research approach in project management research. The paper introduces the theoretical foundations of Design Science Research, its potential for co-creating new knowledge with practitioners, its rigor and relevance, and its challenges. It then provides examples of successful Design Science Research papers in project management research and implications for project management scholars who consider using this approach in their research.

In the context of complex and digitalized engineering projects, effectively orchestrating meta-knowledge that encompasses awareness of diverse expertise presents a significant challenge, as it requires crossing various boundaries. Situated expertise plays a critical role in this process, connecting individual or group-level meta-knowledge to wider expertise systems in projects. We report a case study exploring how group expertise boundaries influence situated expertise development in the oil and gas front-end project context. Through qualitative analysis, we underscore the role of permeable group expertise boundaries in fostering open situated expertise systems, allowing for meta-knowledge about individuals, groups, and digital technologies. This permeability is especially critical in innovative and non-contractual contexts. We identify four elements—strategy, structural design, interaction molding routines and roles, and digital boundary objects—that contribute to open situated expertise development. Our findings show that while digital boundary objects can mediate expertise boundaries by enabling communication and navigation of expertise in projects, the reach of situated expertise largely depends on interaction molding elements, particularly boundary-spanning roles. This study concludes by recommending that practitioners expand their meta-knowledge, rethink their strategic approaches to situating and utilizing expertise in projects, and carefully establish routines for using digital technologies to record and retrieve expertise.

Megaprojects are complex projects with huge investments and numerous stakeholders. Megaproject value is created by networks of multiple stakeholders conducting value exchange, which refers to the processes involved in satisfying stakeholders’ various needs reciprocally. To understand this intricate dance, by integrating the new stakeholder theory (NST) into the stakeholder value network (SVN) concept, this study proposes a theoretical framework of megaproject stakeholder value network (MSVN) to unravel the underlying processes driving reciprocal value exchange and explore how they change throughout the megaproject lifecycle. Moreover, this study adopts an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design to develop a novel network approach to qualitatively and quantitatively analyze MSVN and identify the critical value exchanges for value creation. An empirical investigation was undertaken on Chinese transportation megaprojects. The results indicate that owners and market stakeholders (especially designers) create the most value in the implementation phase, while the collaboration between owners and nonmarket stakeholders (especially governmental bodies) delivers the most value during the front-end and operation stages. Of the six categorized value flow types identified, communication/evaluation is the most significant for the front-end and operation phases. At the same time, support/opportunity comes to the fore in the implementation phase. These findings shed new light on the value exchange process of megaprojects and guide stakeholders engaged in value creation.

Multiple project team membership is a prevalent phenomenon in modern organizational life. However, is any leadership behavior in such a setting beneficial to individual team members' performance? Our study suggests that working in a multiple project team setting requires particular types of leadership. In an experimental design, we manipulated charismatic and boundary-spanning leadership behaviors in single and multiple team project settings and we studied their effects on project members’ performance. When workers are part of a single team, charismatic leadership enhances their performance to a greater extent than a boundary spanning leader. When members are part of two project teams concurrently, boundary-spanning leadership behavior becomes more beneficial for individual performance compared to charismatic leadership. The main theoretical contribution lies in the insight that different organizational project forms ask for different leadership behaviors to nurture individual performance. Practically, (future) project leaders must be prepared for operating in different project settings.

Much research on project management links clear roles and responsibilities stemming from formal job descriptions to successful project performance and processes. However, research on discretionary behavior suggests that individuals’ voluntary commitments, which are not part of the contractual tasks, such as giving help, also contribute to organizational success. Drawing on ethnographic data and a practice theoretical perspective, we investigate the role and impact of helping on the social life of an inter-organizational project. We show how actors engaging in acts of helping assume roles of receivers and givers of help. We show that the establishment of these roles prompts behavior on behalf of the actors, which may have an adversarial impact on the contractually defined roles and thus pose central challenges for the rational management of projects. We conclude by arguing that the connection between practice and social life applies to all social practices, which means that project managers should pay close attention to the actualities of project practices.

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