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This research endeavors to address the question of how to enhance project performance through exploring the relationships among information technology (IT) governance, project governance and project performance. The research utilizes an empirical survey methodology. The survey of 533 working professionals in various industries renders 282 usable responses or a response rate of 53.91%. The results suggest that both IT governance and project governance have a positive impact on project performance. Moreover, we found that three dimensions of IT governance (i.e., strategy setting, value delivery, and performance management) are positively associated with project performance while all three dimensions of project governance (i.e., portfolio direction, project sponsorship as well as project effectiveness & efficiency, and disclosure & reporting) are positively associated with project performance. Additionally, the alignment between IT governance and project governance is also found to be positively associated with project performance. These findings provide evidence to project management professionals in regard to IT governance and project governance being part of the operational strategy in facilitating the success of projects. It also demonstrates the importance of the alignment strategy between IT governance and project governance in enhancing project performance.

In this paper I make a personal reflection on my research and writings in the field of Project Management over the past 30 years. My research has primarily been about the management of the project-based organization. Within that I have researched governance, organizational behaviour, contingency, marketing, success and shareholder value.

This paper aims at positioning organizational design as an important phenomenon in the field of project management with a high potential of contributing to organizational theory. While organizational design has been neglected by scholars of management and organizational theory, it has been of great interest to those from the project management field. This incongruence—comprising the focus of this study—calls for new insights on theorization in context. The paper provides a preliminary theoretical framework combining contingency theory, the historical approach and social theory to understand organizational design, both as a thing and as a process . It provides empirical evidence from three case studies in healthcare. Findings confirm the specificity of each design while at the same time adopting a similar temporal pattern. We take this opportunity to highlight the seminal work of Rodney Turner on project-based organization and design. Executive summary In this day and age, it is commonplace to assert that organizations are complex and that they change continuously over time. The complexity is said to exist, for example, in large organizations dealing with multiple competing projects while at the same time performing their regular operations. The concept of organizational design refers to both the resulting organization (the thing ) and the process of performing the design. The field of project management has made many theoretical contributions to organizational design; yet it has also created confusion by introducing a plurality of terms for describing and understanding such organizations. Organizational design is increasingly a topic in the literature from management and organizational theory and, especially, from project management. A review of the literature from both fields demonstrates that contingency theory is still considered as a major theoretical foundation for situating the organization within its context. The review also points to an increasing interest in social perspectives taking into account politics, organizational dynamics, paradoxes and pluralism. In addition, it shows an opportunity for scholars in project management to contribute to management and organizational theory. This research proposes a pluralist theoretical framework for tackling contingency theory with the historical approach and social theory. The empirical setting is comprised of complex large organizations—in this case, three university hospitals engaged in major organizational transformations—that are challenged to pursue their regular operations while undertaking multiple completing projects. Interestingly, the three hospitals are from the same geographical region. The organizational design was thus a crucial question and, in light of the complexity, no one-size-fits-all type of solution was strived for. Results confirmed the prevalence of individual organizational design rather than mimetism, or homogenization, between the three hospitals. Being in the same region, the heads of the respective project management offices met on a number of occasions to exchange about their challenges and solutions. Nevertheless, in the end each hospital made an individual decision regarding its organizational design. The study also identified organizational design as an ongoing process, introducing the concept of trajectory to illustrate how projects and organizational design change over time. In doing so, we observed a pattern where reflection and sense-making took place before engaging in any specific decision regarding the organizational design. The theoretical contribution of this research is to demonstrate the potential of pluralist theoretical frameworks for understanding complex phenomena such as organizational design in the context of managing multiple projects. More specifically, the process view of organizational design was found to reveal new insights that would have remained hidden otherwise. From a practical view, our research challenges certain utopian assumptions regarding the stability and replicability of a one-size-fits-all model in organizational design. Instead, we recommend developing an in-depth understanding of an organization's specific context by means of sense-making activities. The latter should be performed in an ongoing approach to ensure that the organizational design evolves in keeping with its environment.

We explore publishing trends regarding HRM and PBO in the main journals in the field of project management to highlight key empirical and theoretical contributions during the period 1996–2016. We offer three contributions to the field of project management. The first is theoretical where we analyze twenty years of research in key project management journals by adapting and extending the framework of Wright and Boswell (2002), and identifying categories of HRM research at three levels of analysis. This analysis provides an overview integrating exemplary research to date on the HRM-PBO link at different levels, showing areas where research is well-developed and also areas that, while promising, have not been examined in a systematic manner to date. Our second contribution is that we highlight a variety of theoretical as well as methodological resources from the HRM field that can be applied in project studies and in so doing promote cross-fertilization of ideas and approaches between these two fields. Finally, a key managerial contribution is that we introduce the project as a temporary organization level of analysis, explicitly making visible HRM practices on the project. This can guide both HRM practitioners, and project managers, in terms of the importance of projects as sites for human resource management and employment activities including careers, employee participation and employment relations all of which are critical issues and deserve more attention.

Project careers typify contemporary career theories that place the individual, rather than the organisation, as the sole architect of employability and career satisfaction. However, a gap now exists between the strategic importance of projects and the ability of permanent organisations to support and develop the project management role. Using survey data (N = 207) of IT project managers our theoretical framework hypothesizes relationships between project management identity and career satisfaction, and the moderating effect of how project managers relate to their role as a job, career or calling. Findings suggest that project managers with a high level of professional identification achieve validation from external project networks reducing the reliance on internal organisational support. However, not all project managers relate to their role as a career. The article discusses the implications for project careers, professionalization and organisation support.

There is growing pressure on project managers to demonstrate the value of their projects to the funding organization. However, most projects lack a robust process for realizing such strategic value. While the literature recognizes the importance of project governance for enabling benefits realization, this research area lacks empirical evidence. Accordingly, this paper analyzes the relationships between effective project governance, benefit management, and project success. A scale for evaluating effective project governance was developed and validated based on feedback from 21 project governance experts. Subsequently, an international survey of 333 projects was used to test proposed relationships. The results indicate effective project governance improves project success both directly and through an enhanced benefit management process. Additionally, the most effective project governance and benefit management practices for improving project success are identified, such as the development and monitoring of a high quality project business case. The resulting model sets the foundations for a theory that explains how effective project governance enhances project success and enables the realization of strategic objectives through projects.

Project management plays an important role in the sustainable growth of technology-based firms. However, the fundamental relationship between the project management factors and sustainable growth of the firms has not been fully discovered. This exploratory research identifies the critical project management factors that contributing to sustainable growth of technology-based organisations. Based on literature review and demo interviews, a two-level evaluation structure is developed for further structured interview survey. Over 60 experts working in technology-based organisations are invited to the structured interview. A project management framework for organisational sustainable growth was extracted from three dimensions: personal, team and organisational levels. Furthermore, the practical implementation of these identified factors is measured by satisfaction through interview survey. The research provided researchers and practitioners of technology-based firms with an understanding of the contribution of key project management factors to organisational sustainable growth.

Construction project performance relies on different dimensions of project management. Among those, integration management is of paramount importance since effective project management starts with the integration of processes and people within a construction project. This study investigates the influence of various components of integration management on construction project management performance and quantifies the relationship between those components and integration management. The proposed components of integration management are the development of a project charter, knowledge integration, process integration, staff integration, supply chain integration, and integration of changes; whereas the dimensions of project management performance are time, cost, quality, safety, and client satisfaction. A questionnaire was designed and administered to construction professionals and data from 121 projects was analyzed using structural equation modeling. The data was analyzed by using software, called SPSS AMOS. The findings of the research indicate that integration management has a strong impact on project management performance. The study contributes to the project management body of knowledge in that it develops a conceptual framework consisting of specific components for integration management, reveals the impact of integration management on performance, and proposes several tools and strategies for enabling effective integration along the project life cycle. Industry practitioners may benefit from the framework developed by considering the components proposed and following strategies recommended for construction phases.

Sustainability is one of the most important challenges of our time. It is recognized that projects play a pivotal role in the realization of more sustainable business practices and a developing theme in project management research is the relationship between projects and sustainability. As the literature on this topic is evolving, this paper discusses the question whether the growing attention for sustainability in project management research represents a new ‘school of thought’ in project management? The study builds upon earlier work on schools of project management research, in which nine schools were identified. The question whether sustainability should be considered a new school of project management is answered by deriving the criteria for recognition as a school and performing a structured literature review on a sample of 71 articles on sustainability in project management, taken from the leading academic journals on this topic. As criteria for recognition as a school of project management, the criteria content, community and impact were found. After a content analysis of the articles in the sample, the conclusion is reached that sustainability qualifies a new, distinct and emerging school of thinking in project management. The defining characteristics of this sustainability school are: considering Projects in a societal perspective, having a Management for stakeholders approach, applying Triple bottom line criteria, and taking a Values based approach to projects and project management.

This paper empirically studies the importance of managing design changes in dealing with time delay and cost overruns in construction projects. The main objective of this paper is to identify the causes of design changes and the implications on the Malaysian construction projects measured in terms of cost and time. It also aims to determine how rework induced from the design changes is detrimental to project performance and to suggest recommendations on how to overcome the related problem with project learning and effective communication in building construction. To investigate the factors giving rise to design changes, a total of 43 causes were first identified through a comprehensive literature review. The factors are categorised into client, consultant, contractor, site and external-related themes. This is followed by a qualitative research study involving semi-structured interviews with 12 experienced industry practitioners comprising of clients, consultants, and contractors. Critical incident technique employing content analysis is used to analyse the interviews transcripts in detail to provide a rich picture of the causes of design changes, the implications for project delivery performance, enablers of effective communication, enablers of project learning and types of reusable project knowledge. The research findings were further integrated to develop a collaborative model to manage design changes using effective communication and project learning approach. This model highlights the importance of effective communication and project learning towards improving the level of competency and cohesiveness of project team in managing future projects. Capturing and sharing of reusable project experiences is essential towards maximising the benefits of past experiences (lessons learned), shortening the learning curve and adding value to future projects in design change management.

In order to improve success rates of project management, this conceptual paper proposes the inclusion of knowledge management and organisational learning through projects as core aspects of the process, from both individual and organisational perspectives. The lessons-learned process within the project management profession is scrutinised in an attempt to provide new models to overcome the difficulties that inhibit success. Empirical research data from 66 practitioners in an online qualitative survey have influenced the development of our conceptual model. We review single- and double-loop learning systems within the organisation environment, and develop a triple-loop of learning for projects that forms the basis of a new framework. This research will enable future development of processes for utilising the lessons-learned throughout the project life-cycle and the organisation.

Sustainability is becoming increasingly important in the delivery of projects as stakeholders require ethicality, eco-friendliness, and economic efficiency during a project's life cycle. Previous studies focused on the environmental aspects of sustainability in project deliverables, whereas less attention has been directed at sustainable project management during project delivery. The goal of this study is to identify the control practices that a project organization uses for sustainable project management. A qualitative single-case study was conducted on a large infrastructure project in which a road tunnel was constructed in a highly demanding environment, involving multiple stakeholders in an alliance contract. The results reveal that sustainable project management is implemented using not only indicators but a holistic control package in which control mechanisms are used differently for different sustainability dimensions. Internal project control is complemented with sustainable project governance, linking the project to its external stakeholders and regulations. The alliance contract activates the partners to exploit innovation opportunities and, thus, promotes economic, environmental, and social sustainability. acceptedVersion

Topics of project management and sustainability have been addressed by countless studies, but research focusing on the intersection of these topics are needed. This research looks at sustainability through the triple-bottom line perspective: economic, social, and environmental. It aims to identify key aspects of sustainability in project management context and to understand its importance based on project managers' lens. A systematic literature review merging bibliometric and content analysis was applied toward an understanding of the key topics. Further, a survey of project managers was performed and analyzed through exploratory factor analysis. The results show that four factors stood out: Sustainable Innovation Business Model, Stakeholders Management, Economic and Competitive Advantage, and Environmental Policies and Resources Saving.

Relationship management is recognized as a focus of the next generation of project management. As a major sector, the construction industry has increasingly embraced the concept of project-based relationship management. On the other hand, project managers have grown steadily in prominence. This research explores the contribution of construction project managers to relationship management through a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Project-based relationship management can be either internal or external. This research identifies 18 roles of project managers in internal relationship management (IRM) and 18 roles in external relationship management (ERM). As a result of data analysis, they are categorized into six internal role groups and five external role groups, respectively. In addition to role identification and categorization, this research provides evidence for the change in construction from traditional project management that concentrates on planning and control to new project management that highlights the importance of people and working relationships.

Project management success is extremely interesting topic from scientific, as well as practical point of view. Namely, different models of project management success emerged through history, indicating the level of thoughts considering management of project successful. This article differs project management from project success, gives definitions of project management success, aims to review different models of project management success, differs success of managing public and private projects and gives a special accent on present situation in context of project management in Croatia. Comprehensive literature review is given, analysis and synthesis of most interesting material is made, and applicable practical guidelines are defined.

The report examines trends in the development, construction project management systems in the overall system of the global network economy. The approaches of system developing the information tools of investment and construction project management of complex infrastructure projects is proved throughout their lifecycle from project initiation to disposal facility.

The objectives of this research were to explore risk management practices influencing the success of IT projects. Data were collected from 200 project managers, IT managers, and IT analysts in the IT firms through questionnaires and analysed using the Independent Sample t-test, One-way ANOVA, and Multiple Linear Regression at the statistical significance level of 0.05. The results demonstrated that the differences in organisational types affected the success of IT projects in all aspects, while the differences in organisational sizes affected the success of IT projects in terms of the aspect of product performance as well as total aspects.

Project management in the context of global software development (GSD) is challenging due to a number of issues. This paper has a two-fold objective: (1) to identify the factors from the literature related to the successful project management in GSD and to validate the identified factors in the real-world practice; (2) to map the identified factors to 10 project management knowledge areas of PMBOK. Our results show a positive correlation between the ranks obtained from the literature and the survey. The results of t-test (i.e., t = 1.979, p = 0.061 > 0.05) show that there is no significant difference between the findings of the literature and survey. Our mapping shows that most of the success factors are related to human resource knowledge area. It is anticipated that the identified success factors can be helpful to practitioners for developing strategic implementation of project management activities in GSD environment.

The cultural issue is obtaining more and more consideration in international project management and the risky nature of international projects reinforces this consideration. Conflict-resolving behaviour is one of the cultural behaviours that can affect project success. This paper addresses comparative research between Chinese and South African project managers in their conflict-resolving behaviour, as regards certain project activities relating to international projects. The results show that the differences between the conflict-resolving behaviours of the two groups are significant, in terms of project communication, negotiation and conflict-resolution activities. This research will fill a gap in the cross-cultural conflict resolving behaviour comparison study of the international project management arena. The results and suggestions should assist practitioners and researchers involved in international R&D and technologic project management to improve their skills in communication, collaboration and staff training.

This action-based qualitative case study explores how the project communication routines affect stakeholder engagement during change management process and evolve project culture. With an inductive design, this research studies change communication practices in two different case contexts. The results underline the fact that an effective communication ensures stakeholder participation in the change management processes through teamwork and empowerment, whereas lacking communication routines lead to a rational and straightforward project culture where task performance and efficiency are preferred over stakeholder involvement. Theoretical results suggest that project communication planning requires more attention on the know-how of stakeholders than the current stakeholder evaluation models instruct.

Around the new millennium, organisational project management maturity was a frequently occurring topic both in international conferences and professional journals. Many of the maturity models were published during this period. The response from professionals was largely positive, although there was also criticism in the literature. Many organisations, at the same time, have made investments in applying maturity models with little return in improved success rate achieved on their projects. Currently, this topic also attracts more attention coupled with challenging criticism. Central to this criticism are the inherent mechanistic approach and the subsequent narrow focus of the maturity models. The primary aim of this paper is to introduce a broader approach to project management maturity assessment, deduced from project management literature, which might address the criticism regarding the existing models, while it has the potential for developing more appropriate maturity models.

Despite continuous efforts into benchmarking over the last decades, few have focused on management efforts of project organizations who are involved in managing the capital project. This study presents a phase-based framework and 10 input measures for measuring project management efforts in a capital project. The measures are planning, organizing, leading, controlling, design efficiency, human resources, quality, sustainability, supply chain, and safety. This study quantifies and assesses the inputs and further sorts the results by industry sectors and project phases. The analyses show that traditional functions tend to have more consistent implementation than construction-specific functions. The results indicate that infrastructure sector tends to exert fewer and less consistent efforts than building and industrial sectors. This study contributes a new benchmarking framework and is the first to quantify project management inputs of a capital project systematically. Additionally, phase-focused and phase-wide benchmarking applications of the input measures are also discussed and provided.

Projects involve inter-organizational networks that are central to collaborative project-based value creation. Interest in value creation in the project lifecycle is mounting, and the front-end stage of projects is gaining increasing attention in the research literature. However, little is known about how network management activities facilitate value creation in the front-end and how such activities push a project toward higher end-states of value. The purpose of this research is to identify activities that facilitate the development of inter-organizational networks and augment value creation among multiple organizations in the front-end of projects. To this end, we conduct a qualitative empirical case study of the front-end of a health care campus development project. We identify four activities and five network attributes that explain how inter-organizational network can be managed for value creation in the front-end of the project. These findings contribute to research on management of the front-end of projects and management of inter-organizational networks in projects.

The role of top managers in firm performance is central to strategic management. Specifically, the influence of top management involvement in project and portfolio performance has been widely research. However, the nature of that influence is still unknown. Based on an international sample of firms performing projects, this paper addresses the question of how top managers influence project, portfolio, and firm performance. Results of our structural equation model show that the relation between top managers and project, portfolio, and firm performance is mediated by operational and dynamic capability building. Thus, the building of operational capabilities at project level and dynamic capabilities at the portfolio level appears as the generative mechanism for top managers' influence over firm performance.

In 21th decade, organizations are faced with changes and must know how they learn and manage the learning to be powerful in comparative market. Knowledge management is the way to improve the conditions of stability of organization. When this way is successfully implemented in organization, the appropriate cultural field has already been paved the way for this system. Different researches show that knowing these two factors as the most important necessity is the priority of activities of organizations’ mangers, and the stability of organization is assured by planning organizational strategy. According to the importance of issue, Denison model is used to investigate the dimensions of organizational culture and Conrad and Newman models are used to evaluate the dimensions of knowledge management the process of knowledge management and the relation between them have been explained after mentioning the review of literature. Finally, in order to strengthen organizational culture and successful deployment of knowledge management offered suggestions.

Risk management is the key function of project-based organizations, and its ultimate objective is to create value for the corporation. In recent years, many project-based organizations have implemented project risk management systems to measure and manage all complex risks of their projects. Previous studies in project risk management were limited to designing and implementing risk management systems. Some research has been conducted about evaluating the performance of enterprise risk management systems and disaster risk management systems. But there is a research gap in evaluating the performance of project risk management system. The purpose of this research is to fill the gap by conducting an in-depth research in identifying the key performance indicators of project risk management system and offering a framework for evaluating the performance of this system. The research methodology is based on literature review and case study in a project based organization. The validity of the framework was evaluated by interviewing risk management experts and revising and incorporating their ideas. This study offers advances on the performance evaluation of a project risk management system and provides a strong theoretical basis for future researches in this field of study.

This study proposes a conceptual framework of Project Ecosystem Competency Model that could contribute to the creation of sustainable performance in engineering organizations and industries as well as enhancing the value of project stakeholders to contribute to project sustainability. Within the engineering organizations, working processes are evolving from operational-oriented processes, which are repetitive and sustainable, to project-oriented processes, which can be defined as temporary and unique. In addition, organizational structures are changing from functional structures to project-driven structures. For example, engineering projects are becoming influential to industrial and organizational sustainability because of its performance of special features and requirements of the projects. However, engineering projects are not easily sustainable because they are only evaluated by one criterion whether the project has succeeded or failed. For many organizations or industries, more than one project is being executed simultaneously, and these multi-project environments can affect the sustainability of the organizations or industries. This study proposes a Project Ecosystem Competency Model to show how ecosystem impacts project lifecycle and understand mutual and reciprocal relationship for successful management of multiple projects. Project Ecosystem Competency Model consists of three aspects: design and maturity of the project ecosystem; project success factors and performance index; and the competency of engineering project management organization that contributes to the maturity of the project ecosystem.

Where to get qualified project managers who understand the specifics of business is relevant question for any large project-oriented company. Especially this problem is becoming more acute in terms of dynamic changes in the business environment and intensifying the processes of labour migration between competing companies. We should not forget the continuous development of the discipline of project management, the emergence of new areas of knowledge, technique and new professional Standards. In this situation, the Corporate University is becoming an important tool for organising of a process of sustainable development of organization project culture taking into account the interests of various internal and external stakeholders. An innovative model of sustainable development of IBS project culture is based on three principles. First, for the trainees, who are coming into the company directly from a University bench, it is an organisation of fundamental training on project management. Secondly, to consultants, who showed themselves as a potentially project managers, it is the ability to change the trajectory of career growth. And finally, for professional project managers, coming from other companies it is their adaptation and further personal development based on the business specifics of IBS Company. Main components of the Programme are considered in the paper - from training of Master students on the position of a graduate employee (trainee), till coaching for the Project Directors; from the study of the Project Management methodology, till practical case studies, formed on the basis of real projects of the company.

Contemporary practice of project management is rapidly developing through interaction with emerging new practices that focuses on achieving better project performances by employing complementary management practices. The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential synergetic interaction between project management and marketing management practice. The findings indicated that using marketing practices in project management is evident and that project marketing management is an emerging practice that will bust projects performances to the top. The results also suggest that further research in this field is an order for development of both project management theory and practice.

This paper explores the need for global professional standards in the project cost management field. A range of global standards and guides have been developed for the project management profession as a whole but there have not been any developed specifically for project cost management (other than as a subset of project management standards). It will be argued that project cost management (be it Quantity Surveying, Cost Engineering, Project Controls or cost management carried out by Project Managers) is a specialist technical field that requires its own specific standards. The paper will examine the various national and regional professional standards that have been developed for the Quantity Surveying, Cost Engineering and Project Controls professions by various countries and professional associations around the world. It then examines the issues surrounding the lack of global standards for these professions and explores the benefits of developing over-arching strategies to produce global standards/programs. The paper then describes current initiatives to develop these specific global standards. This will include the International Construction Measurement Standard (ICMS) that is in the early stages of development. The research methodology underpinning this study comprises a review of professional standards around the world and interviews with practitioners and members of professional cost management associations within the International Cost Engineering Council (ICEC). The paper concludes with a range of recommendations and strategies to help address these issues.

This research paper analyses three concepts that are correlated with the phenomenon of developing project management as a core competence of organizations. Project management competence is the individual's capability to support the organizational stability objective, aligning the mission and vision and optimizing the resource allocation to maintain a sustainable competitive advantage. This study reviews three concepts in relation to their assumptions and possible outputs: project management, competence management and psychological contracts. This discussion paper presents the thesis that these three concepts converge in an approach in which project management is, indeed, a core competence of the organization. To project-management-oriented enterprises, this concept can provide a fundamental research theme for business studies’ evolution. As the results of this reflexive paper, a series of possible research objectives are indicated, such as how the enterprise must stablish a psychological contract with subcontracted parties and employees in general, short-term hired professionals. Another concept concerns how companies should design a project management competence governance structure or system, using a framework of the International Project Management Association (IPMA), and how they can apply the ICB normative guide to develop project management as a core competence of Brazilian organizations.

Benefits management (BM) and project management (PM) are two interrelated approaches to the success of projects. The literature, however, still lacks empirical evidence of the value of applying BM practices. Hence, it is aimed to test the impact of BM practices on the success of investments in projects, taking into consideration the impact of PM practices on that success. Since the results, based on 200 valid responses, suggest that a significant proportion of organisations adopt PM and BM concurrently, SEM was used. PM practices were not only found to influence project management success but also to affect project investment success. However, BM is found to be less significant and to have less impact on project investment success. Nevertheless, the probability of project success is enhanced significantly when PM and BM practices are combined together. Therefore, a governance based framework is developed to uncover the interweaving relationship between the two practices.

The success of ERP has been discussed extensively throughout the last decade. However, this research offers a new lens for understanding this success through combining project management theory with institutional theory. Based on neo-institutional theory, it is proposed that the more the Project Management (PM) and Benefits Management (BM) are used as practice and governance frameworks in an organization, the more it is able to use them in ERP projects since they become part of its institutional logic in managing its projects. Therefore, ERP investment success is hypothesized to be associated with the organization's project and benefits management institutional logics. After analyzing 130 questionnaires using Structural Equation Modeling, it is found that these hypotheses are supported. Furthermore, the organizations that have both logics outperform others which have not. This research implies that project management is not responsible for the project investment success. This is the responsibility of business change management.

This study reports an empirical analysis of a hybrid management framework combining agile project management and stage-gate model implemented in a technology-driven project. The results indicate positive impact on the project and product development performance and suggest that combining these two approaches to balance stability with flexibility is a potential solution for managing innovation projects in high technology-based companies. The evidence indicated critical aspects to be considered, such as the proper diagnosis of organizational factors and implementation of practices, and the alignment of agile project tools (e.g., visual boards) with traditional information systems used in the stage-gate process.

Project management field management has neglected sustainability issues. This research investigates how companies are introducing sustainability into project management. Moreover, it aims to investigate how sustainability can impact project success. A multiple-case studies approach was conducted in four companies from Brazil and USA, from different sectors. Data were gathered from multiple sources including semi-structured interviews with to project and sustainability managers, and online questionnaires were applied to project team members. The results suggest that firms are concerned about sustainability in project management; however there is a gap between the perception of importance and the actual use in practice. Finally, companies from the public sector are more concerned about the social dimension than the others.

Literature on project marketing mainly focuses on those project-based organisations that are able to supply complex systems primarily for government agencies. Thus, current project marketing literature emphasises the central role of the milieu in which both the constructivistic approach and the associated creative offer are of outstanding importance. Although this segment represents a considerable section of the entire project business, it might be considered to be atypical. Most project-based organisations generally operate in a different segment which is referred to as typical. Consequently, the project marketing approaches propagated for complex system suppliers could not be utilised in the typical project business segment. This paper aims to highlight determinants of the market position perceived by project-based organisations in the typical project business segment. Determinants were firstly drawn from project management literature, then a qualitative empirical research was undertaken to provide empirical evidence for the determinants. The research outcomes may provide the basis for applying project marketing more purposefully in typical project-based organisations in accordance with their likely market position.

Using a sample of 177 firms with matched dyads of middle managers and senior managers, we developed a model on the antecedents and consequences of project management competence retention (PMCR). Our results reveal that providing project managers formal developmental perspectives in project management, such as a career path or qualification opportunities, as well as establishing a formal lesson learned system both positively relate to PMCR. Moreover, our results show that PMCR is positively associated with average project success of the organization. Finally, our results confirm the substantial importance of average project success for overall business success in project-oriented organizations.

The use of project management methodology for each project generates a lot of questions as well as recommendations. One group argues that the standard methodology are applicable to all projects. Another group prefers the view that reflects the project management methodology tailored to the project. In our contribution we summarize the practical views of project managers on project management issues in the area of big data management.

Project owners are important. They shall support the project manager and provide senior backing to a project. However, there are some different aspects of project ownership, which are discussed in this paper. The main research questions addressed in the paper are; how is the project owner role described in the literature, and how is the role in practice? The paper is mainly a theory review of the topic project ownership. We present a simple model for the relation between project owner, project manager and operation of the project delivery. The basis for the model and discussion is a theoretical review, but we also test the proposed model on a sample of projects. As we will see, this testing creates the need for a distinction between two types of project owners; one that is mainly concerned with supporting the project manager and enabling project delivery, the other being focused on the business case and having responsibility for both project delivery and benefit realization. There has been a development where the importance of the role as project owner has been highlighted. It is our impression that this development has had two ambitions. One is to strengthen project execution. The other ambition is to emphasize the business case perspective. These two perspectives call for different organizational positions of the persons called project owners. We urge future researchers and practitioners to clarify what type of project owner role that is referred to in different contexts. We also call for an awareness of the fact that different project owners will have different set of incentives and priorities. © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.

In this paper, a co-word method based on keywords from funded project is proposed to map the research trends. Firstly, the keywords of funded project are used to describe the rsearch topic statistically. Then, co-word analysis, including cluster analysis, social network analysis, is adopted to study the relationship of each research topic. The projects of Management Science and Engineering in National Natural Science Foundation of China during 2011-2015 are collected as the empirical data. The data is composed of General Project, Youth Project, and Regional Project. The results show that the focus of researches are Game Theory, Supply Chain Management, Complex Network, Data Mining, Optimize, Risk Management, and Data Envelopment Analysis. Moreover, Game Theory, Supply Chain Management, and Data Mining are hot topics. The research fields in Management Science and Engineering in China are varied, and the well developed and core research fields are fewer.

The engineer–procure–construct (EPC) approach has been increasingly adopted in international markets, in which contractors need to have adequate capabilities in effectively dealing with a wide range of risks in a complex environment that consists of various stakeholders. Many researchers have embraced the strategy of partnering to integrate diverse project delivery activities by meeting the needs of all project participants. However, limited research has addressed the cause–effect relationships among partnering, risk management, and organizational capability on how performance improvements can be generated from them on a holistic view. This study systematically investigates the causal relationships among these themes by establishing and testing a conceptual model. With the support of data collected from Chinese contractors with experience in delivering EPC projects by questionnaire, interview, and a case study, the results provide empirical evidences on contractors' partnering application degree, strength, and weakness of organizational capabilities, overall picture of risk management, and project performance level, which form a sound basis for contractors' decision making during project implementation. This study further reveals that partnering can not only directly facilitate organizational capability and risk management but also exert its influence on risk management through enhanced organizational capability, thereby improving project performance. The above insights suggest research and practical emphases on combining risk management with partnering principles to assist in both intra- and inter-organizational activities, and contractors' appropriate linking with involved stakeholders to obtain necessary resources and effectively transfer them for successfully delivering international EPC projects.

Project management has struggled with delivering low performing construction and information technology (IT or ICT) projects. Approximately 60% of construction projects are over budget, over schedule and have low customer satisfaction. The IT industry reports even worse performance for their projects. IT projects seem to be far less defined, leading to increased complexity. Documentation shows that companies do not have a successful methodology to track their performance and thus there is a lack of documented performance information to identify if their project management methodologies are delivering high quality and efficient projects. A literature research was performed on the most used Project Management (PM) methodologies worldwide. These PM methodologies were then compared based upon their characteristics and performance information to identify the most successful methodologies. The analysis of the results revealed that only one methodology had proven performance metrics on over 90% of its projects.

In the face of rapid technological changes, short product cycles and strong global competition, it is vital that organizations know how to optimize their scarce resources and thus profit from investments with the goal of obtaining the expected benefits and successes. One of the great difficulties facing organizations is the large number of projects that they usually have in their portfolio. Therefore, it is necessary to select and prioritize which projects become essential, to guarantee the maximum return on investments and the sustainability of the organization. Although there are several approaches to analyzing and selecting projects, there is no unanimity about which methodologies to apply. When analyzed in more detail, all approaches presented advantages and disadvantages which need to be considered. Project selection also depends on the nature and profile of the managers and on the techniques, that best fit the organization’s environment. This study analyzes and establishes the link between the academic literature and a pilot model of selection and prioritization of projects developed by the Portuguese Navy. The project was carried out to improve the support and allocation of the necessary resources and forces for the accomplishment of the Navy’s missions in the context of Portugal’s National Defense. The results obtained ensure the necessary alignment with the academic literature and reinforces the credibility of the proposal model for the selection and prioritization process. . info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

The mainstream research into project management has been criticized in the recent years for its heavy reliance on the functionalist view of projects characterized by linearity of the life cycle. Considering that instrumental approaches for project management are not sufficient for a flexible and uncertain product as software, the project success depends on how software project managers deal with the problems and make decisions. Different from the normative decision theory, which focus on how decisions should be made in order to be rational, the descriptive decision theory focus on how decisions are actually made and includes the naturalistic decision making models. Based on a systematic literature review, this paper aims to synthetize empirical studies published on journals and conferences proceedings that analyze the decision-making phenomenon in the software project management context from a naturalistic perspective. The search were conducted in five search engines: ScienceDirect, Scopus, Wiley, IEEE Xplore, and ACM Digital Library. The 27 selected papers were categorized and then synthesized into a thematic map. The categories included: agile development practices, stakeholders involvement, escalation and de-escalation of commitment factors, participatory decision-making, communication, use of rational methods, emotion, and cognitive biases. The results indicate that more studies are needed to better understand the decision-making phenomenon from this perspective.

Organizations are facing competitive and globalized markets, as well as constant environmental changes that often require an organizational restructuring of the business models in order to boost performance. Project management practices can help to achieve strategic goals and increase value of projects in organizations. The Project Management Office (PMO) is an organizational structure created in order to promote and improve project management practice, by adopting appropriate methodologies to achieve high levels of efficiency and effectiveness. In recent years several models and functions of PMO have been proposed by many authors, varying from the PMO with a sole function of reporting project execution, to the one who participates in the definition of organizational strategies. The main purpose of this article is to present a review of the typologies of PMO. Since the importance of PMO is increasing in organizations, the results of this work are useful to provide guidance to organizations on implementing or restructuring their own PMO.

Recently, research on project management has widened its scope to consider social innovation-oriented projects. However, research in this domain is still in its infancy; little empirical data has been conducted in this area and there are few comprehensive or practical guides available to project managers in this sphere. Social innovation projects are poorly understood in practice and prone to failure. We find that project management processes are poorly-defined and unwieldy in this context; control systems are lax, and consequently projects are inefficient. Social innovation projects have unique characteristics and are inherently different to typical industrial-oriented projects which must be considered by project managers. The goal of our research is to better understand this important-but-neglected area. We synthesise the literature and classify social innovation projects from key perspectives; we then present a comparative analysis of social innovation projects and industry projects in order to draw insights about what aspects from project management can be applied to the social innovation domain in order to increase levels of effectiveness and efficiency. From this analysis, we identify six key issues and challenges that social innovations are currently facing. The major contribution of this research is to gain a better understanding of the relationship between social innovation and project management. For researchers, these findings contribute to theoretical development within the field of project management; for practitioners, it provides important insights to help manage such important initiatives. The insights provided by this discussion should help in understanding some of the conceptual and practical difficulties that have prevented the effective implementation of social innovation projects.

This paper discusses the importance of properly set up of communication strategy in project management. It describes one of the lesser known methods of creativity in communication - game theory. Game theory is relatively young mathematical discipline with the wide possibility of application into lots of scientific fields. From its beginning it is connected with the economy, but today it is the essential of many of managerial fields. In presented paper we want to present the particular examples of the game theory use in economy and management, mostly in project management with the intention towards the Czech environment. We pay lots of attention to the use of the model of Prisoner´s dilemma; we will present surprising conclusions of practical problems through the game theory. Next the paper illustrates the effect of the creative methods on the success of communication with all stakeholders of the project. It defines the proper setting of the communication strategy as one of the factor in the elimination of risks in projects. It judges the relation between the game theory and creativity towards the successful finalization of the project through the presentation of practical examples. It confirms the Bitlon’s and Cumming´s (2014) hypothesis, that the use of game theory makes possible to understand the stakeholders´ needs and their interests in a better way and to finalize the project successfully. This paper arose as one of the outputs of project KEGA No. 003/DTI-4/2014 with the title Diagnose system for identifying of competencies of managers of national and international educational projects.

Present management concepts allow for the implementation of comprehensive (systemic) solutions, improving the quality of processes in the organization. One such approach is the project management method, developed in the 1940s. Currently the best known approaches are: IPMA, PMI and PRINCE2. Implementation of the project orientation is based on the complex adaptation to the smooth operation of the organization using the project as a tool to achieve a significant part of the objectives. The adoption of the project orientation is possible in any type of organization. With the rise of the concept of New Public Management in the 1990s, more and more attention is being paid to the efficiency and effectiveness of public administration institutions. The purpose of this article is to present the author's model of the project orientation in this type of organizations – PAEM (Projects in Administration Excellence Model).

Many researchers have investigated the organizational structural factors and their influence on project success. Later, researchers moved towards investigating the portfolio success and effectiveness as a new area of study. We note that all such constructs are a product of strategy, and if not aligned correctly, a dichotomy will appear between strategy (portfolio) and its translation (structure) with an effect on performance. Our literature review revealed that no research has investigated the relationship between structure and portfolio elements. In this research we present the portfolio success and the Project Portfolio Management (PPM) effectiveness in one global construct which represents business efficiency for the project-based organization. A significantly strong relationship was then established between the project manager's influence on the organization – as part of its structure/design — and the business efficiency constituent variables. We also investigated steering committee's level of involvement which successfully acted as a moderator for the research established relationships.

Little research has been conducted on how project-based organizations navigate internal and external pressures to develop and improve project competences over time. Using a cases study approach, this paper examines the development and implementation of project based organization over a period of 30 years. Overall, the evolution of project management competencies in the organization broadly followed the prevailing approaches in improving organizational management practices uncovered in review of literature. The organization’s capability to adopt and implement project management frameworks improved over time as senior managers became more masterful at matching improvement actions into the organizational context. This research also presents how a systematic approach of project management maturity models for identifying and implementing project management practices and processes can increase the effectiveness and comprehensiveness of overall management practices. The study concludes with a series of recommendations in further improving project management practices and processes in project-based organizations.