What is project governance and what are its origins?

Negotiating healthy food retail initiatives in the research project Healthier Choices in Supermarkets: an ethnographic study of a partnership between health intervention researchers, food retailers, and public health advocates

BACKGROUND

Partnerships between researchers and food retailers are advocated as necessary for developing sustainable and effective health-promotion initiatives in supermarkets. However, little is known about how such partnerships evolve and influence different phases of intervention research. This study explores how partnerships between researchers and food retailers develop during the pre-intervention phase and examines the factors that influence both the partnerships and the initiatives they produce.

METHODS

The empirical case used in the study is a partnership between intervention researchers, food retailers, and public health advocates that aimed to develop and test healthy food retail initiatives to make healthy food choices easy for customers. We conducted an ethnographic study covering the pre-intervention phase from the establishment of the partnership in 2019 to the feasibility test of the initiatives in 2021. We used participant observation of meetings and intervention development activities, qualitative interviews with partners, and document analysis of email correspondence and project materials. We analysed the data abductively, drawing on a narrative analytical approach and theoretical concepts of institutional logics and negotiation.

FINDINGS

We present a narrative in six chapters illustrating how market logic dominated the selection and development of healthy food retail initiatives, ultimately compromising the researchers' original research interests. Furthermore, the pre-intervention phase was challenged by an unclear division of roles and responsibilities, misaligned expectations, high staff turnover in the retail organisation, and the Covid-19 pandemic. These challenges resulted in growing mistrust and an asymmetric partnership that undermined the progress and potential of the project.

CONCLUSIONS

Using the lens of institutional logics, we show how differing interests and perspectives between partners - for example regarding health and consumer behaviour - can make it difficult to realize the original research ideas and build a trusting relationship. Overall, this study illustrates the complexity of research partnerships with commercial actors such as food retailers. To develop and implement effective health-promotion initiatives in a food retail setting, researchers must stay mindful of their initial research interest, integrity, and study design, ensuring they are not compromised in the collaboration.

Definitely Not a Walk in the Park: Coping with Competing Values in Complex Project Networks

Complex project networks confront project actors, with value pluralism originating from a plethora of competing organizational and institutional systems related to the project environment. Using a single urban redevelopment case study, we present a dynamic understanding of the emergence and nature of conflicts in different conflict arenas of collaborative project networks. We identify seven coping patterns to reduce and engage with this complexity in the process of delivering value throughout projects. The coping patterns enable a more dynamic and flexible approach toward conflict management in project networks with a high degree of conflicting project interests.

Network Governance for Interorganizational Temporary Organizations: A Systematic Literature Review and Research Agenda

Governance of interorganizational networks for joint project execution has become a popular research theme in recent years. However, little is known about how the knowledge in this field is structured and how to further develop it based on the given structure. This systematic literature review identifies three main categories of literature in this field: design of network governance, network performance, and theory in network governance. Each of these categories is further divided into subcategories, which are assessed for the timely development and current state of knowledge. This provides the foundation for the development of a research agenda, which includes configurational understanding of network governance design, governing for temporary organizing particularities, and level-crossing theoretical development.

Institutionalization of a collaborative governance model to deliver large, inter-organizational projects

Purpose

In this study, we develop further understanding of how institutional change is created within a mature and local industry. In this pursuit, we examine how a collaborative large project governance model was institutionalized at an industrial sector-level through both industry-level activities and “institutional projects”.

Design/methodology/approach

This study builds on the foundations of institutional fields and institutional change, suggesting that projects are not only shaped by their contexts but also produce institutional change themselves. We conducted extensive fieldwork on the institutionalization of a collaborative project governance model in Finland.

Findings

The findings illustrate how institutional change in governance of large and complex inter-organizational projects is created at the institutional field level. The institutionalized collaborative project governance model includes aspects of both relational and contractual governance. The change was facilitated by temporal links between the institutional projects as well as vertical links between the institutional projects and the field-level development programs.

Originality/value

This is one of the first studies to address how a collaborative large project governance model becomes the norm at the institutional field level beyond the boundaries of an individual project or organization.

By the fjord: successful public and private collaboration in a neighbourhood redevelopment project in Norway

The purpose of this paper is to investigate and study the green procurement processes in the new and ongoing neighbourhood-building project named ‘Fjordbyen’ in Norway. The purpose behind this study is to look at how Fjordbyen approached these processes in order to contribute to the pool of knowledge on this topic. The Fjordbyen project is located on the shoreline in the Drammensfjord and represents in effect the development of a new neighbourhood. This new development aims to settle at least 16 000 new residents and 16 000 jobs in a zero-emission urban area that is green and future oriented. The topic is addressed by using a case study approach. The data for this paper were collected through a combination of desk research, a study of secondary data such as document studies (reports, documents from websites etc.), two citizen surveys and four interviews with the key personnel involved in the front-end planning process of the Fjordbyen project. Through a combination of urban planning and typological considerations, green procurement was conducted in the context of ensuring that not just greener products were purchased but also green supply chains were managed, as were the ‘grassroots’ development processes themselves. The finding of this study has an impact on the consideration of processes leading towards green procurement in urban and city development projects. This is particularly the case with regard to pushing even further research on the value and challenges associated with green procurement processes.

Fall Seven Times, Stand Up Eight: Linking Project Management Innovation, Project Governance, and High-Performance Work Practices to Project Success

Project managers seem to be puzzled in resolving the global dilemma of project failures across industries. Hence, the present study introduces project management innovation (PMI) as a determinant of project success (PS) and explores whether project governance (PG) and high-performance work practices (HPWPs), strengthen this relationship. To confirm these propositions, study data using adapted scales were collected from project professionals representing software development companies in the emerging IT industry in Pakistan. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to examine the hypothesized relationships and encourage PMI-guided solutions for project failures. SEM results statistically validated that project success is positively influenced by PMI, whereas this relationship is significantly strengthened through the moderating influence of PG and HPWPs, respectively. Theoretically, the present research is the first of its kind to introduce and empirically examine these untested relationships between PMI, PG, HPWPs, and PS in a single framework. These novel findings hold strategic value for both project managers and organizational leaders who oversee a range of project portfolios. Long-lasting advantages and superior achievements can be reinvigorated through PMI, after departure from traditional approaches and answering calls for new solutions to new problems in managing projects. Moreover, project governance and HPWPs should be reconfigured to oversee, as well as meet the special needs of each unique project.

Facilitating Building Projects’ Short-Term and Long-Term Value Creation

Real estate and buildings are some of facility managers’ most costly resources. Thus, knowledge about how to get the most out of building or renovation projects both in the short term and in the long term are of great importance for facility managers. This paper investigates which factors are most important for building and renovation projects’ output or short-term value creation, and outcome or long-term value creation, i.e., the completed building’s effect for owners and users. Thus, the focus is not primarily financial and the buildings’ asset value. The study is based on a national questionnaire survey in Norway (550 respondents). Multivariate statistics (Principal Component Analysis and Linear Multiple Regressions validated with bootstrapping) were used to test the hypotheses. Short-term project management priorities, such as early involvement of technical contractors and FM providers, contract strategy and involvement of owners and users largely decide the qualities of the building, and thus the potential for long-term value creation. The most important factors for long-term value creation, i.e., buildings that facilitate the demand organisation’s value creation are the qualities of the completed building, project governance and involvement of owners and users during early phase planning.

Project Governance in State-Owned Enterprises: The Case of Major Public Projects’ Governance Arrangements and Quality Assurance Schemes

Societal development is increasingly undertaken as major public projects in different sectors. Project governance is important for strategically successful outcomes; thus, a broad societal perspective should be kept throughout the governance process. State ownership exists in many forms, and major public projects’ governance arrangements differ. Quality assurance is a recommended part of the arrangements, yet knowledge of them is limited. This study investigates relatively recent governance arrangements in state-owned enterprises in Norway, emphasizing their content and organization of quality assurance. The arrangements are compared with the more established “State Project Model”, a governance arrangement set up by the Ministry of Finance in 2000, including major public projects with budgets exceeding USD 110 million. Through case studies, comprising documents and interviews, and using the State Project Model as a reference frame, differences in the studied arrangements’ comprehensiveness were found. Finding the appropriate level of governance is challenging, yet potential for mutual learning and improvement across different arrangements is revealed. For state-owned enterprises with sectoral policy objectives, the government should ensure that political control is not undermined. This study provides recommendations for further improvement of governance arrangements and adds to the general understanding of state-owned enterprises and major public projects’ front-end phase.

Governança de projetos na administração pública: uma revisão sistemática da literatura internacional

O objetivo desta revisão sistemática foi verificar os estudos existentes acerca da governança de projetos na administração pública. Para isso, utilizou-se uma adaptação do protocolo de Tranfield, Denyer e Smart (2003) como norteador da execução da revisão, originalmente com três estágios e nove fases. Os dados foram coletados em duas bases de dados internacionais, a Scopus e a Web of Sience. Após aplicação dos critérios de inclusão e exclusão, com auxílio do software EndNote®, chegou-se a uma amostra com 13 trabalhos para análise. Foi elaborada uma caracterização geral dessas publicações, em que se apresentam os periódicos onde estes trabalhos foram publicados, autores, Qualis CAPES, ano de publicação e forma de abordagem. Na sequência, foi realizada uma análise destes trabalhos de maneira que se constatou sete temas principais de pesquisa: interface governança-gerenciamento, propriedade, estruturas de governança, práticas de governança, garantias de qualidade, desempenho e interação governança contratual-relacional. A principal contribuição deste trabalho foi ter verificado o estado da arte sobre a temática e ressaltado que, embora este tema não seja incipiente, a produção sobre ele ainda é escassa e que há um vasto campo para exploração.

Corruption in Construction Projects: Bibliometric Analysis of Global Research

Corruption has been identified as a major problem in construction projects. It can jeopardize the success of these projects. Consequently, corruption has garnered significant attention in the construction industry over the past two decades, and several studies on corruption in construction projects (CICP) have been conducted. Previous efforts to analyze and review this body of knowledge have been manual, qualitative and subjective, thus prone to bias and limited in the number of reviewed studies. There remains a lack of inclusive, quantitative, objective and computational analysis of global CICP research to inform future research, policy and practice. This study aims to address this lack by providing the first inclusive bibliometric study exploring the state-of-the-art of global CICP research. To this end, a quantitative and objective technique aided by CiteSpace was used to systematically and computationally analyze a large corpus of 542 studies retrieved from the Web of Science and published from 2000 to 2020. The findings revealed major and influential CICP research journals, persons, institutions, countries, references and areas of focus, as well as revealing how these interact with each other in research networks. This study contributes to the in-depth understanding of global research on CICP. By highlighting the principal research areas, gaps, emerging trends and directions, as well as patterns in CICP research, the findings could help researchers, practitioners and policy makers position their future CICP research and/or mitigation strategies.

An Indicator System for Evaluating Operation and Maintenance Management of Mega Infrastructure Projects in China

Mega infrastructure projects provide a basic guarantee for social development, economic construction, and livelihood improvement. Their operation and maintenance (O&M) management are of great significance for the smooth operation and the realization of the value created by the projects. In order to provide an approach for effectively evaluating O&M management, this study develops a holistic indicator system using a mixed-review method from the national macro perspective in China. In this study, literature analysis, policy texts, expert interviews, and grounded theory were used to collect relevant data at home and abroad, and establish an initial evaluation indicator system with 23 indicators covering two dimensions and five aspects. Then the questionnaire survey and factor analysis were used to score and categorize the indicators, and finally an evaluation indicator system for O&M management of mega infrastructure projects was formed. The results show that social relations, environmental benefits, macro policy, and operational capacities play an important role in the evaluation of the O&M of mega infrastructure projects. This study helps the management team to avoid negative impacts in the O&M management of mega infrastructure projects and lays a theoretical foundation for future research. The indicator system in this study is based on the Chinese context, and it remains to be verified whether the indicator system is applicable to other countries due to the differences in political and cultural backgrounds in different regions.

Incentive Mechanism for Municipal Solid Waste Disposal PPP Projects in China

In municipal solid waste disposal public–private-partnership (PPP) projects, economic benefits, as well as social and ecological benefits, are critical in sustaining sustainability development. However, private investors may make more efforts for economic benefits than for social and ecological benefits out of self-interest. Because the government does not have the same information that the investors have, information asymmetry leads to opportunistic behavior. To solve these problems, principal–agent models were established to analyze the incentive mechanism for encouraging investors to adopt a positive attitude toward both economic benefits and social and ecological benefits, inhibiting investors’ opportunistic behavior. In particular, numerical simulation was carried out to analyze the relationships between related parameters (c1,c2,ct,a,β,k,λ,p). The results show that the investors with higher comprehensive abilities are more willing to make efforts for social and ecological benefits. An increase in incentive and governance intensity would help to encourage investors to make more efforts for project benefits and to lower the level of opportunistic behavior adopted by investors. The complexity of the task and the fuzziness of the perception of effort input results aggravate the uncertainty and risk of the projects due to information asymmetry. Therefore, real-time and positive incentives are important. In order to ensure the social and ecological benefits of a project, performance standards should be set according to the actual situation; investors prefer fixed compensation with lower risk, but fixed compensation does not have incentive effect, and the proportion should not be too high.

How Does Governance Influence Decision Making on Projects and in Project-Based Organizations?

Research on the governance of project management suggests governmentality and governance are associated with improved project performance. However, the mechanism is unknown. We propose that they influence decision making, which, in turn, improves performance. Few articles on governance comment directly on how governance influences decision making. We identify six areas of organizational psychology that influence decision making, and study what research on the governance of project management suggests about how governance influences those six areas. We review 36 articles on the governance of project management published in the past six years in the three main journals in project management.

Evolution of Governance in a Collaborative University–Industry Program

This article presents the emergence and evolution of actors and institutions in a collaborative program from the strategic planning to the execution and delivery phase. The ethnographic study of a collaboration revealed that, while formal regulations are prerequisites for initiating collaborations, further drivers of the interactions between program participants are oriented by path dependency, cultural familiarities, and goal sharing. This article shows that many microdynamics exist among actors and institutions inside the governance structure, co-evolving in parallel with the transition through the program’s phases. There are, however, two main drivers orienting these dynamics: formal regulations and trust.

Conceptualizing Sustainability Governance Implementation for Infrastructure Delivery Systems in Developing Countries: Success Factors

Infrastructure delivery processes possess the potential to negatively influence sustainability. To curb the incidence of these processes within infrastructure delivery systems, the enthronement of an effective project management and governance framework becomes imperative. This led to the emergence of literature on sustainable project management practice. However, studies seeking to modify existing project governance structures in like manner remain limited. This study contributes to this emerging discourse on the utility of project governance competencies in facilitating sustainable infrastructure delivery. To achieve this objective, this study identifies critical success factors central to the design of effective sustainability governance structures of a typical infrastructure delivery (ID) system with the assistance of a cybernetic system framework—the viable infrastructure delivery systems model (VIDM). Adopting a qualitative multi-case study research design, this study deploys semi-structured interviews for data elicitation through purposively sampled interviewees within the identified cases and a document review. Qualitative content analysis (QCA) was deployed for data analysis. Findings from this study provide success factors for designing effective sustainability governance structures for ID systems. It is expected that the findings from this study will contribute to the emerging discourse concerning sustainability governance of ID systems.

Governing Government-Project Owner Relationships in Water Megaprojects: a Concession Game Analysis on Allocation of Control Rights

Studying megaprojects from the micro-foundations rooted in organizational action and interaction, this research started with an extensive literature review and therefore proposed a conceptual model for governing government-project owner relationships. A cooperative game model was further developed based on the conceptual model and concession game theory. The results showed that the relationships between government and project owner could be indeed improved by considering the allocation of control rights within a certain range (0, \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$ \frac{A_1-{A}_2+2{B}_2}{2{B}_1+2{B}_2} $$\end{document}A1−A2+2B22B1+2B2). Also, it was shown in two cases that project value was increased by over 10% on average when achieving the concession equilibrium, which could bring gains to both the government and project owner by redistributing the added value. This study contributes to existing research on top-level inter-organizational relationships in water megaprojects, provides important implications for maintaining cooperation between megaproject stakeholders, and suggests interesting trajectories for future research.

Contractual and Relational Governance as Positioned-Practices in Ongoing Public–Private Partnership Projects

This article introduces a process framework based on the realist social theory for studying governing in ongoing public–private partnerships (PPPs). Contractual and relational practices are defined as activities enacted and re-created by virtue of actors’ dual positions: at both the partnership and the parent organizational levels. In PPPs, complementarities and contradictions between public, rule-bureaucratic logic and private, market-oriented logic define structural demands on actors. Nonpredictive and innovative governing activities emerge from the actors’ reflexive capacity to balance different demands. The framework allows the examination of the complex interplay of relational and contractual practices, illustrated in a PPP Dutch case.

The responsibilities of the project owner in benefits realization

Purpose

Recent research has proposed the position of a project owner as the individual accountable for realizing target benefits. However, there is a lack of understanding in the literature of this role – in particular, the specific responsibilities of the project owner that can enhance benefits realization and operations performance. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper identifies these responsibilities in practice through two studies – a qualitative study, which includes interviews with senior executives who fund projects, and an in-depth longitudinal case study, which describes a company that continuously realizes the benefits from its projects.

Findings

The results suggest that a project owner should have 22 key responsibilities across four project phases and that an operations manager is often the most suitable candidate to fulfill this role in operations improvement projects. When performing these project responsibilities effectively, operations managers enhance benefits realization and operations improvement. Finally, the paper proposes five hypotheses for future research.

Originality/value

Based on agency theory, the paper increases our knowledge of the role of the project owner in practice. This new knowledge can enhance the realization of target benefits from projects and ensure a smooth transition from the project to the operations environment.

Deficiencies in Project Governance: An Analysis of Infrastructure Development Program

The governance of public sector infrastructure projects became an important topic of interest in the project, program, and portfolio management literature during the last decade. Today, it is becoming a central focus for policymakers seeking to ensure success in selecting, designing, and implementing government-sponsored programs of multi-projects. Due to the multiple underlying risks and complexities, the governance of infrastructure programs constitutes a critical element in strategic planning in developing countries. This paper has analyzed the infrastructure development program in Gilgit-Baltistan (Northern Pakistan), and revealed major shortcomings in the areas of decision-making, stakeholder management, and role ambiguity. Approaches to remedy these shortcomings have, thus, been proposed.

Toward an Improved Understanding of Agile Project Governance

The purpose of this study is to provide understanding of project governance practices in agile projects. A systematic review of the previous agile literature is conducted to identify and categorize agile project governance practices, which are synthesized in a six-dimensional framework. The study contributes to the literature by contrasting traditional and agile project governance practices and by identifying new practices emerging in agile projects, while also noting remaining gaps in knowledge. The implications of this study enable managers to identify and apply feasible governance practices that can support better agile project performance.

Classification and Measurement of the Firms’ Resources and Capabilities Applied to Eco-Innovation Projects from a Resource-Based View Perspective

Interest from academics, policy–makers and practitioners in eco-innovation has increased as it enables the optimization of the use of natural resources improving competitiveness and it provides a conceptual framework for corporate sustainability. In this context, this paper provides an in-depth analysis and a wide classification of the specific indicators for the integrated measurement of eco-innovation projects in business from a resource-based view (RBV). The specific metrics were tested to measure the economic-financial and environmental resources and capabilities applied by five Spanish firms to eco-innovation projects, selected as case studies.

Projects and Networks: Understanding Resource Flows and Governance of Temporary Organizations with Quantitative and Qualitative Research Methods

Project-based organizing is becoming increasingly common, but projects are challenging for managers because they must coordinate resources, including people and information, under time pressure to achieve a one-off outcome. In this article, we suggest that a network lens is ideal for researching project coordination because it enables the interested party to study the flows of resources and the structures that allow the project to be effectively governed. Both qualitative and quantitative, including graph-theoretic methods for analyzing networks are suitable for examining project network governance and network resource flows. However, governance tends to be studied more with qualitative methods, and resource flows are more commonly researched with social network analysis. The article concludes with considerations regarding multi-method approaches to the study of project networks.