John Rodney Turner

Purpose: Previous research suggests good governance is associated with improved project performance, but the link was unknown. The link may be that good governance facilitates good decision-making. A recent paper suggested good governance creates a context where good project management thrives, appointing competent people to make decisions. Design/methodology/approach: This article investigates further. A review was conducted exploring the relationship between governance and decision-making via four organizational behavior constructs. We investigate how governance influences the construct and the construct influences governance and their impact on decision-making. Findings: Four behavioral constructs both influence and are influenced by governance. These behavioral constructs influence decision-making through mental models based on both secondary (conscious) and primary (unconscious) processes. Further, institutional governance appoints actors who were mindful of the organization, self-responsible, and self-organizing to a degree that matches the goals of the organization. Good governance appoints competent people to make good decisions. Practical implications: Guidance is given about the relationship between four behavioral constructs and governance. This could lead to improved decision-making in organizations and improved project performance. This can influence people’s sense of self-responsibility and self-awareness and their willingness to take on responsibility. Originality/value: In this article, we have reviewed how governance influences the four behavioral constructs and thus how governance may lead to good decision-making and hence to improved project performance, meaning governance is the cause of good project performance.

While projects are becoming increasingly more complex in their organizational, technological, and environmental dimensions; complex systems are deemed by being unjust by nature. Previous research has suggested that heedful interconnection among the actors of the system can enhance organization’s capability in ethical coping with complexity. However, project-based organizations tend to cope with complexity through developing adaptive capacity within the borders of the organization and marginalizing the demands and concerns of some stakeholders. By investigating the controversial project of Rome Metro Line C and drawing on ethics of care and ethics of justice, this article suggests that coping with complexity is attainable by extending the organization’s border to include all stakeholders of the network. The empirical study proposes that by fostering the interrelation of a broader range of stakeholders with the organization through a decentralized decision making will improve the extended organization’s capability in identifying and absorbing complexity.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the marketing practices adopted by contractors in project-based industries to win new business and maintain relationships with existing clients.Design/methodology/approach: The authors interviewed eight such contractors, and used activity theory as a lens to analyze the results. The authors investigated project marketing activities at four stages of the project contract life cycle, and against four enablers of collaboration.Findings: The authors have identified that the service-dominant logic pervades project marketing. Through the project contract life cycle the marketing activity starts with a strategic focus, becomes tactical, then operational and returns to strategic. Project marketing involves executive managers, marketing, client or account managers and project managers. Project managers have a key responsibility for project marketing. The four enablers of collaboration, relationships, communication, going-with and trust, support each other and the entire project marketing activity.Research limitations/implications: As a contribution to theory, the authors have identified the practices adopted by contractors in project-based industries to market their competencies to clients to win new work and maintain relationships with existing clients. The authors have identified practices throughout the contract life cycle, and practices to develop collaboration. The next step will be to explain these practices in terms of traditional marketing theory.Practical implications: The results provide guidelines to contractors in project-based industries who wish to improve their marketing activity to achieve sustainable performance. Industry may also find it useful to train or coach their project managers to be conscious of their marketing role.Originality/value: Previous work has been conceptual in nature and has speculated on the nature of the project marketing performed by contractors to win new projects, and set it against marketing done by the project. This research has empirically investigated the actual marketing practices adopted by project contracting organizations, shown how it varies through the project life cycle and shown how responsibility passes from senior management to the account team and then to project managers. It has also investigated the application of the four enablers of collaboration: relationships, communication, going-with and trust.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a new model for the success of megaprojects. Megaprojects are often said to fail because they finish late and/or overspent. As megaprojects are usually complex, so small changes in input can lead to disproportionate changes in output. So the time and cost targets at the start can have little validity. They are useful targets, not values which can be used to judge success or failure. The authors suggest that a megaproject is a success if it produces a worthwhile result at a time and cost that makes it valuable. Design/methodology/approach: The authors develop a new model for the success of megaprojects, and asses its applicability against a number of case studies from well-known sources. Findings: The authors identify four dimensions of megaproject success: they produce an output at a time and cost that makes it valuable; they achieve the desired outcome and benefit at a time and cost that makes them valuable; they deliver positive net present value; and they deliver a business or public need at a time and cost which makes it valuable. Research limitations/implications: The authors propose a new model for megaproject success that moves away from the so-called iron triangle or triple constraint, which are meaningless in the context of complex projects. Time and cost to completion cannot be predicted on complex projects. However, targets are required because a megaproject must produce a valuable outcome at a time and cost that makes it valuable. Practical implications: The paper produces a new way of assessing the success of megaprojects which will lead to a larger number of megaprojects being assessed to be successful. It indicates what is truly important, that the megaproject should produce and outcome of value at a time and cost that makes it valuable. Social implications: Megaprojects often produce benefits to society over and above the financial benefits. Often an economic benefit cannot be paced on these social benefits, which makes it problematic to assess the value of the project. In one of the cases economic value was placed on the social benefits, and the benefit:cost ratio was increased from 0.85 to 2.5. Originality/value: The authors propose a new model for the success of megaprojects.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to use an organizational design perspective to determine the scope of the state-of-the art of research into project-based organizations. Design/methodology/approach: The paper follows a structured framework-based literature review approach. It uses an analytical framework from the organization design literature to assess 177 papers relevant to the design of the project-based organization that were published in four leading PM journals between 2008 and 2015. The authors determine which elements of organization design are covered in each paper and identify specific research themes for each of the element emerging from the literature. Finally, the authors examine the degree to which interdependencies among separate elements are addressed in the literature and discuss the most holistic papers in more details. Findings: The results show that the literature on project-based organizations downplays broader organizational issues (such as organizational strategy, incentive schemes and performance management systems) while emphasizing research agenda inherited from research on single project management. In addition, the study highlights limited attention in the literature to the interdependence between separate design choices. Finally, it develops a research framework to map current themes in the literature and their relative importance and discusses a prospective research agenda. Research limitations/implications: Academic implications stem from looking at the project management literature from a fresh theoretical perspective and putting project-based organization as a whole in the focus. There is a great research potential in studying organization-wide aspects and interdependencies between various organization design choices in project-based organizations. Practical implications: Reflective practitioners could benefit from a wider view on the project-based organization and its design. They could also use the developed framework in management discussions. Originality/value: The paper offers a novel way of conceptualizing research on project-based organizations by linking it to an established stream within the field of organization theory and design.