Philosophical Stances and Theoretical Perspectives in Submissions to Project Management Journal®

We continue the series of editorials with guidance for future submissions to Project Management Journal (PMJ). The series started in the October 2018 issue with recommendations to help authors establish a theoretical contribution relevant to project studies. Many other subjects followed and are available at https://journals.sagepub.com/topic/collections-pmx/pmx-1author_resources/pmx. This editorial continues this discussion and focuses on the information required to interpret research findings or theories: philosophical stance and the theoretical lens taken during the study. With this editorial, we want to encourage prospective authors to unambiguously report their onto-epistemological choices and chosen theoretical perspective(s) in their submissions to PMJ. We (the editors) acknowledge our research community’s varying levels of knowledge about ontology and epistemology due to differences in cultures and traditions in scientific fields such as natural versus social science. No matter the scientific tradition a submission emerges from, the impact of onto-epistemological choices on study design and interpretation of research results should be clearly presented and justified in the paper. We have split this editorial into two parts. The first part discusses the need to clarify underlying philosophy and theoretical perspectives and is written for all potential readers of this editorial. The second part describes the concepts of ontology and epistemology in more detail, thus providing an update for readers feeling less familiar with these concepts. For those readers, we also provide some Recommended Readings at the end of this editorial.