{"title":"Projecting to promote sustainability transitions through joint value creation","authors":"Marina Bos-de Vos , Miia Martinsuo , Ellen Loots","doi":"10.1016/j.ijproman.2025.102692","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijproman.2025.102692","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Actors involved in programs that promote sustainability transitions project how future value can be created and protected within the constraints of existing institutions and fields. There is a need to better understand this projecting among versatile organizational actors to support the successful advancement of sustainability transitions. Drawing upon the joint value creation employed in five circular economy programs, we identify three modes of projecting for promoting sustainability transitions: distributing, dispersing, and activating. The modes of projecting relate strongly to how programs are configured. We contribute to the sustainability transitions literature by examining niche-regime interactions through the lens of joint value creation, offering novel insights into programs’ unique ways of promoting sustainability transitions. Another contribution is to the literature on value creation in interorganizational projects and programs by revealing different approaches for joint value creation in different modes of projecting.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48429,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Project Management","volume":"43 2","pages":"Article 102692"},"PeriodicalIF":7.4,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143578124","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Design flexibility in managing infrastructure projects: Contributing factors and research avenues","authors":"Kubra Atli, Ilias Krystallis","doi":"10.1016/j.ijproman.2025.102675","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijproman.2025.102675","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Managing infrastructure projects often presents challenges in maintaining flexibility throughout their lifecycle, which limits their ability to adapt to evolving and uncertain conditions. This systematic literature review examines the factors that accelerate design flexibility in the management of infrastructure projects. Analyzing 50 articles from a dataset of 11,443, we identified several key factors, organized into seven clusters across three levels: individuals, organizations, and inter-organizational relationships and three operational dimensions of design flexibility. These factors help to expand the concept of flexibility beyond its traditional association with engineering product design to encompass managerial project design. Building on Simon's design theory, this study frames design flexibility as a proactive and strategic asset. We offer future research directions to further broaden the scope of flexibility in project management. This study contributes to ongoing debates in project management on how to enhance project performance in uncertain conditions, by addressing the challenge of balancing flexibility and control.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48429,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Project Management","volume":"43 1","pages":"Article 102675"},"PeriodicalIF":7.4,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143165836","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Francesco Di Maddaloni , Leonardo Herszon Meira , Mauricio Oliveira de Andrade , Iury Ribeiro de Melo , Armando Castro , Giorgio Locatelli
{"title":"The dark legacy of megaprojects: A case of local disengagement, missed opportunities, and social value dissipation","authors":"Francesco Di Maddaloni , Leonardo Herszon Meira , Mauricio Oliveira de Andrade , Iury Ribeiro de Melo , Armando Castro , Giorgio Locatelli","doi":"10.1016/j.ijproman.2025.102676","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijproman.2025.102676","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Megaprojects can foster modernization and enhance social and economic development but also perpetuate poverty and deprivation. This dark legacy is fostered by weak governmental structures, where local communities lack representation and social welfare is sacrificed for economic gain. Through a normative stakeholder theory and social value perspective, we examine the nuanced interplay between local authorities and the project owner organization in the controversial case of Brazil's Suape Port. The substantial economic gains triggered by the Suape megaproject did not improve the social conditions for local communities. While the original business case primarily focused on economic profitability, the disengagement of local authorities and their communities prevented benefits from materializing at the local level. By examining these missed opportunities, we introduce the concept of <em>value dissipation</em> to explain how social value diminishes over time, resulting in a shortfall in social benefits and a poor legacy for local communities.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48429,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Project Management","volume":"43 1","pages":"Article 102676"},"PeriodicalIF":7.4,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143165834","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Thinking is for doing: Project cognition as the foundation of project behaviour","authors":"Verena Stingl , Alicia Gilchrist , Ama Lawani , Rhona Flin , Ofer Zwikael","doi":"10.1016/j.ijproman.2025.102678","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijproman.2025.102678","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Cognition, understood as the way the mind acquires, processes, and enacts information, is at the root of all behaviour. Yet, while the interest in behaviour in projects is increasing, these cognitive foundations are often disregarded or only haphazardly investigated in project research. This essay calls for a stronger engagement with cognition in projects, leveraging the insights from general and applied cognition sciences to explore, explain, and predict project behaviour. We emphasise that it is not differences in the thinking itself, but differences in the context in which the thinking is applied, that makes projects a relevant and distinct area in which to study cognition. To sketch a way forward, we establish key terms, illustrate phenomena from project behaviour which might benefit from a study through a cognitive lens, and introduce appropriate theories from cognitive science. The insights generated from such research with attention to ‘project cognition’ are particularly valuable for practice as they help to design project environments that align with how people in projects make sense of their world and interact with it.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48429,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Project Management","volume":"43 1","pages":"Article 102678"},"PeriodicalIF":7.4,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143210023","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Normative violence and its implications in project scholarship","authors":"Roya Derakhshan","doi":"10.1016/j.ijproman.2025.102679","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijproman.2025.102679","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In recent years, project scholarship has increasingly focused on the dark side of projects. However, these discussions have largely overlooked extant literature on violence that is widely referenced in broader management and organizational studies. In this essay, I argue that normative violence—violence embedded in socio-cultural and legal norms accepted and practiced in broader society—provides a valuable lens through which to analyze and discuss the inequality, harm, and exploitation present in project settings. From this perspective, I argue that future research in project scholarship should investigate how norms—borrowed from external socio-cultural and legal frameworks, as well as those developed and spread within projects—can lead to the infliction of normative violence in, around, and of projects.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48429,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Project Management","volume":"43 1","pages":"Article 102679"},"PeriodicalIF":7.4,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143210202","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The local government project: A matchmaker or a troublemaker?","authors":"Grete Hagebakken, Trude Høgvold Olsen, Elsa Solstad","doi":"10.1016/j.ijproman.2025.102674","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijproman.2025.102674","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Several studies have focused on local government as project-supported organisations (PSOs) initiating projects aiming to solve non-routine activities, but we know less about the widespread practice of initiating projects to solve recurrent problems in daily operations. This paper reports findings from a qualitative, longitudinal study of how a project team in a Norwegian local authority navigated tensions in their efforts to solve a daily operations challenge. Our findings contribute to the recent debate about consequences of projects in PSOs. First, we argue that tensions in PSOs can be theorised as competition between co-existing institutional logics and understood in light of strategic owner capabilities. Further, we suggest that the perceived strength of tensions influences whether the project is interpreted as a matchmaker between different logics, or, at other times, as a troublemaker where the project team's interpretation of contextual complexity limits its ability to combine co-existing institutional logics.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48429,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Project Management","volume":"43 1","pages":"Article 102674"},"PeriodicalIF":7.4,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143165835","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Enacting project resilience: Insights from Uruguayan air force flight 571′s crash in the Andes","authors":"Kijan Vakilzadeh , Sebastian Raetze","doi":"10.1016/j.ijproman.2025.102677","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijproman.2025.102677","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In this qualitative study, we examine how project members organize for resilience amid adversity by analyzing the case of the 1972 crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571. The survivors endured 72 days in the Andes, navigating uncertainty, time pressures, interpersonal conflict, and intense emotions—challenges similar to those in modern project organizations. Using insights from the survivors' (auto-)biographies, we conclude that resilience emerges through members' daily social interactions. Our findings reveal three key elements of project resilience: (1) <em>processing contextuality</em>, where sensebreaking and adaptive sensemaking evolve as adversity unfolds; (2) <em>processing communality</em>, which forms a socio-emotional foundation for resilience; and (3) <em>shifting between different modes of emergent responding</em>, by which project organizations harness the stability of structured responses while retaining the flexibility to adapt under pressure. This study highlights the dynamic processes through which project resilience is cultivated, offering insights for managing resilience in high-stakes environments.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48429,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Project Management","volume":"43 1","pages":"Article 102677"},"PeriodicalIF":7.4,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143166433","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"IJPM invites special paper collections proposals 2026","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.ijproman.2025.102680","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijproman.2025.102680","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48429,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Project Management","volume":"43 1","pages":"Article 102680"},"PeriodicalIF":7.4,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143376505","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Christine Unterhitzenberger , Peter McKiernan , Martina Huemann
{"title":"The Relevance of Responsible Research for Project Scholars: Project Research as a Service to Society","authors":"Christine Unterhitzenberger , Peter McKiernan , Martina Huemann","doi":"10.1016/j.ijproman.2024.102665","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijproman.2024.102665","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>International Journal of Project Management (IJPM) has become a member of Responsible Research in Business and Management (RRBM) network to engage with the broader debate on responsible research in business and management towards responsible project research. We introduce Responsible Research as a Service to Society and discuss its relevance for project scholars and for IJPM. We share our commitment to support and publish research which follows seven Responsible Research principles and reflect how IJPM supports and inspires authors to adhere to them. We discuss how IJPM enables the project research community to move past the rigor-relevance gap and improve research and publication practices in the field.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48429,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Project Management","volume":"42 8","pages":"Article 102665"},"PeriodicalIF":7.4,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143101221","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}