Reconceptualising mega project success in Australian Defence: Recognising the importance of value co-creation

Recent literature in project management has urged a re-conceptualisation of projects as a value co-creation process. Contrary to the traditional output-focused project methodology, the value creation perspective argues for the importance of creating new knowledge, processes, and systems for suppliers and customers. Stakeholder involvement is important in this new perspective, as the balancing of competing needs of stakeholders in mega projects becomes a major challenge in managing the value co-creation process. In this study we present interview data from three Australian defence mega projects to demonstrate that senior executives have a more complex understanding of project success than traditional iron triangle measures. In these mega defence projects, customers and other stakeholders actively engage in the value creation process, and over time both content and process value are created to increase defence and national capability. Value created and captured during and post projects are the key to true success.     

Project training evaluation: Reshaping boundary objects and assumptions

Training evaluation is an important component of personal development which has received insufficient attention by project managers, members of project teams and their organisations, making training a target for cut-back at times of tightening budgets. Assessing training has historically been operationally oriented, emphasising financial justification, content and quality of the training rather than the potential of improved project performance or organisational transformation. This qualitative, multi-case study demonstrates the limitations of normative boundary objects (the processes, artefacts, documents or technical language or vocabulary in common use within the project community) such as ‘best practise’ models and ‘bodies of knowledge’ as the driver and basis for training. The paper proposes using alternate boundary objects to incorporate reflective practises which can increase the utilisation of learning by embedding it in specific contexts. Study findings are of relevance to project workers by helping them think differently about the purpose and outcome of training attendance, and for managers charged with developing the project and programme talent pool within the organisation.     

Antecedents to bounce forward: A case study tracing the resilience of inter-organisational projects in the face of disruptions

Inter-organisational projects depend on stakeholder interactions and joint decision-making to perform and continually adjust to variations. This paper examines the emergence of transformative resilience (i.e., dynamic project capabilities to pursue fundamentally new strategies and practices) when facing external disruptions. A process-orientated case study was conducted within a culturally diverse project network of disaster risk management actors from Sweden and four Asian countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study found three crucial interactional considerations in the premise of project resilience during challenging times. These considerations concern contextual (through proactivity for a common picture and centralisation of linkages), behavioural (through stakeholders’ willingness to engage, commit and distribute agency), and cognitive embeddedness (through appreciation of diversity and reflexivity of actions). The findings enrich our understanding of resilience with new insights into the sequential and antecedent role of social embeddedness in projects’ organisational transformation and the complexity of inter-organisational relationships in uncertain times.     

Governance performance in complex environment: The case of a major transformation in a university hospital

Project-based organisations have emerged as new forms of organisation in the last few decades. However, hierarchy persists. Both serve their own purpose, but entail different sets of values. This is particularly true in relation to the contribution of project management to organisational performance. The competing values framework has been used to highlight different sets of values and preferences underlying the evaluation of PMO performance and emphasizes the competing aspect. The research adopted a participatory action research approach in a university hospital where a major organisational transformation is taking place. Findings reveal the existence of paradoxes between the executives and the PMO regarding the PMO performance and show how these paradoxes evolved over time. This sheds light not only on the paradoxes, but also on the dynamic process related to performance evaluation within a transformation project.     

Response strategies for community stakeholder engagement on social media: A case study of a large infrastructure project

Social media offer new opportunities for project community stakeholder engagement due to its spatial and temporal independency. This study reveals implications for project stakeholder identification, assessment, and response strategies in the social media context. It analysed Facebook communication sequences in two cases related to establishing the Western Sydney International Airport. The analysis showed that existing stakeholder identification and assessment guidelines only apply to social media to some extent. Information about stakeholders and their concerns is limited. We suggest identifying and addressing thematic issues shared across stakeholders. Regarding possible response strategies, the project in the case study surprisingly often refrained from responding to community stakeholder comments, foregoing the opportunity to engage with community stakeholders and acknowledging supportive comments. We suggest that projects consciously apply an ‘always respond’ response strategy on social media and extend response strategies to cover engagement with an 'acknowledgement' response strategy.     

Communicating about organizational culture in the briefing process: case study of a hospital project

A new hospital building represents a rare opportunity to align the physical environment of healthcare with contemporary healthcare needs and models of healthcare delivery to help ensure optimal health outcomes. The effectiveness of interaction between project stakeholders from the hospital and design teams during the briefing process of any hospital project is critical in ensuring this alignment occurs. Therefore it is important to explore the process of knowledge sharing during this project briefing stage. Using thematic content analysis to explore communication exchanges between these project stakeholders, we show that knowledge exchanged during the briefing process is acquired not only explicitly but implicitly through social processes whereby participants attempt to socially construct a common understanding of the project. In particular, the importance of constructive conflict in driving this process is critical. This has implications for health planners, project managers, facilities managers and health professions engaged in the briefing process of hospital projects. In particular, it highlights the importance of providing the correct environment and enough time for culturally conducive social interaction and knowledge sharing to occur between the many stakeholders involved.     

Enhancing value co-creation in professional service projects: The roles of professionals,clients and their effective interactions

Projects are value creation mechanisms for organizations. In this paper, we build on service-dominant logic theory to theorize how value is perceived and co-created by service providers and clients in professional service projects. From two studies, we found that for service providers to create their value, particularly non-monetary value (e.g., enhanced reputation), client values (e.g., solving a business problem) must first be generated. The results further highlight the importance of reciprocal interactions between service providers and their clients in co-creating value for both parties. Service providers' professional knowledge and competence and their clients' levels of professional knowledge and motivation to interact are critical to enable effective interactions. However, the influence of service providers' professional ethics and clients' trust in professionals on project value co-creation is more complex than theoretically predicted. This paper advances the project value creation literature by providing a more holistic view of what value means for different stakeholders, how it is created, and by whom.     

Connecting landscapes: examining and enhancing the relationship between stakeholder values and cultural landscape management in England

In England’s post-Brexit environment, as the nation’s approach to cultural landscapes is reassessed, understanding what stakeholders value and how they currently engage with landscape management is likely to be increasingly important. This study explores this at a localised scale. Examining the value of an ecosystems services perspective, it focuses on two case-study landscapes in Gloucestershire. Using interviews, focus groups, mapping tasks and questionnaires it examines how stakeholder values intersect with current policies and practices. Based on this analysis, it suggests the need for greater integration and knowledge exchange between stakeholders to ensure the sustainability of landscape management. It suggests new strategies, such as a centralised e-portal of resources, are required to ensure awareness and dialogue between stakeholders. This study is part of a larger European project comparing how the values of stakeholders in heritage landscapes can be better integrated into cultural landscape management.     

The co-creation of values-in-use at the front end of infrastructure development programs

There has been recent academic interest in programs as value creation processes. Scholars focus particularly on the front end of programs as opportunities for clients to create value. At the front end, client and market partners can actively co-produce value through co-creation sessions. This paper investigates what stakeholders do in co-creation sessions and how this contributes to the co-creation of value at the front end of programs. We used an action research approach combined with participant observation, document analysis, and interviews with participants to study stakeholder engagement in co-creation sessions at the front end of a Dutch infrastructure development program. The findings show that the client intended to realize a value (value-for-firm) that was competing with market partners' values. By engaging in co-creation sessions with the client, market partners and knowledge partners co-created three sets of values (value-in-use) as follows: commercial, intellectual and collaborative values. The findings contribute to the academic debate on value creation in programs with an in-depth understanding of co-creation sessions at the front end.     

The effects of shared vision on value co-creation in megaprojects: A multigroup analysis between clients and main contractors

Value co-creation is a new and important organisational strategy for addressing complex and fragmented practices in megaprojects. However, the existing literature rarely explores the influences of shared vision on value co-creation in megaprojects. Hence, this study aims to explore the relationship between shared vision and value co-creation, and the main factors that moderate it from the perspectives of clients and main contractors. The results reveal that shared vision can improve value co-creation and that its influence is moderated by requirements risk and dysfunctional competition, which serve as environmental and institutional factors. Specifically, for main contractors, requirements risk strengthens the positive effect of shared vision and value co-creation, whereas dysfunctional competition mitigates it. For clients, dysfunctional competition attenuates this relationship, while requirements risk exerts no significant moderating effect. This research contributes to the knowledge advancement and managerial implications of value co-creation for both clients and main contractors in megaprojects.     

Balancing employee needs,project requirements and organisational priorities in team deployment

The ‘people and performance’ model asserts that performance is a sum of employee ability, motivation and opportunity (AMO). Despite extensive evidence of this people–performance link within manufacturing and many service sectors, studies within the construction industry are limited. Thus, a recent research project set out to explore the team deployment strategies of a large construction company with the view of establishing how a balance could be achieved between organisational strategic priorities, operational project requirements and individual employee needs and preferences. The findings suggested that project priorities often took precedence over the delivery of the strategic intentions of the organisation in meeting employees’ individual needs. This approach is not sustainable in the long term because of the negative implications that such a policy had in relation to employee stress and staff turnover. It is suggested that a resourcing structure that takes into account the multiple facets of AMO may provide a more effective approach for balancing organisational strategic priorities, operational project requirements and individual employee needs and preferences more appropriately in the future.     

Placemaking as co-creation – professional roles and attitudes in practice

Abstract

Citizens around the world are becoming more and more involved in the creation processes of various fields. However, the extent to which citizen initiatives and involvement are possible depends on the way in which professionals work. How do professional practices affect the involvement of other actors in urban development projects? The paper reviews current literature on placemaking and co-creation in order to identify suggested professional roles. Manzini’s maps of participant involvement and interaction quality, and Arnstein’s ladder of citizen participation are presented as a framework for understanding different kinds of engagement. A case study in Berlin is analysed regarding how the suggested roles work in practice. Through semi-structured interviews with initiators and participants, the paper explores how the professionals experienced working with co-creation, as well as the other participants’ experiences of the professionals’ part in the process. The concluding discussion highlights the challenges that were experienced and suggests ways to move forward toward truly co-creative placemaking.     

Co-creation of value outcomes: A client perspective on service provision in projects

Client organisations, as financiers, owners, and users, face the challenge of generating and delivering value outcomes for a wide range of stakeholders. However, research has demonstrated that projects constantly fall short of providing valuable outcomes in the medium- and long-term. The value outcomes start to appear in the latter stages of a project, yet, they have a link back to the project definition phase, where value outcomes can be purposely designed for the long-term. Value outcomes per se have been historically researched from a supplier and financial perspective. However, the research around the client perspective has been scarce, particularly the exploration of the co-creation of value outcomes for the long-term. To this end, the Service-Dominant Logic is an established framework to analyse the co-creation of value outcomes in the long-term from a client perspective. Thus, this framework is being used in this research to analyse six project case studies from two public sector client organisations in the United Kingdom. The results show eight managerial value interactions, which may enhance a set of five value outcomes from a client perspective in the medium- and long-term. Additionally, tensions around the co-creation process have been identified, which require management attention to secure and to defend the value outcomes. Overall, this study may prompt project practitioners to undertake a set of co-creation practices in order to formulate projects as service provision, as well as to avoid negative financial impacts to business models.     

Governance of Projects: Generating value by linking projects with their permanent organisation

There exists little research into how value is effectively generated by temporary projects from the wider perspective of a permanent organisation. This paper investigates empirically how ‘Governance of Projects’ – the way in which a single, permanent organisation identifies, creates, and subsequently harvests value through multiple projects – occurs in four private-sector case companies. Data were collected from in-depth interviews with a wide range of employees and from internal operational documents. These data were codified and analysed as evidence of the types and intensity of links between organisational elements. The results illuminate the complex interplay of links that are imperative if the permanent organisation is to derive value from its projects, and shows that these links are context-dependent and vary between organisations. It is that the links exist, and not what the type of link is, that matters most. That these links extend beyond the project's execution is critical for maximising value. The paper demonstrates the advantages of adopting an organisational perspective in order to properly understand how Governance of Projects generates value within a permanent organisation.     

Value-oriented stakeholder influence on infrastructure projects

Project stakeholder management deals with managing and fulfilling stakeholder expectations and has tended to focus on the viewpoint of the focal firm or the project rather than that of the project stakeholders. The stakeholders' perspective is important because they can significantly influence projects, particularly infrastructure delivery involving both public and private actors. This study focuses on the ways that stakeholders pursue influence on projects through their expectation of project value. The goal is to identify the value-oriented reasons for stakeholders to utilize specific influence strategies. A multiple case study was implemented in three transport infrastructure projects. The study argues that stakeholders' expectations of project value creation explain the stakeholder influence strategies utilized. The findings link project value with stakeholder influence strategies and reveal four influence strategies in transport infrastructure projects, differentiated according to their different value priorities. The unique value-influence combinations of public infrastructure projects are revealed and discussed.     

Design error management: interaction of people,organisation and the project environment in construction

Design errors can have a negative impact on the cost, schedule and safety performance of construction projects. They can also have an adverse effect on an organisation's profitability, as additional work requires resources and time to rectify the error that has occurred. The reduction (i.e. measures designed to limit the occurrence of failures) and containment (i.e. measures designed to increase the detection and accelerate the recovery of errors) of design errors can therefore ameliorate organisational and project performance as well as improve safety. A systemic framework that classifies design error reduction and containment strategies according to people, organisation and project is propagated. It is suggested that when people, organisational and project strategies are implemented, incongruence then the propensity for design error reduction will significantly increase. The proposed framework can be used as a point for reference for implementing error management strategies to anticipate for ‘what might go wrong’ in construction projects.     

Sizing up ‘the box’ in order to fit in

Participants in design processes make an effort to come up with solutions that will be deemed acceptable, while accomplishing to ‘think out of the box’. Thinking ‘outside the box’ is often announced as a challenge to and for design teams. ‘The box’ is a metaphor often used in creative processes, and in organisational practices, as a term for rules and regulations, everyday routines and tacit knowledge of ‘how things usually are’ and ‘what we know about the world’. Such a challenge is meant to encourage participants to approach a situation with an open mind, challenge the most basic assumptions and be willing to do things differently. Basically, something different is being called for. Studies have shown that it is striking, how much the participants orient to actually ‘fit’ the box, even when asked to develop it. This paper shows how participants in design processes are ‘sizing up the box’, while participating in meetings or workshops in order to develop a design. They identify key stakeholders of the designated design project; they share their own expectations of these key stakeholders' possible perceptions, discuss the success criteria and negotiate the values that are to govern the design team in the development process.     

Challenging industry conceptions with provotypes

Design researchers have an important role to play when engaged with user-driven design projects in industry. Design researchers can craft ethnographic material to facilitate transfers of user-knowledge to industry, and demonstrate how this material can be used in the design of new products and services. However, ethnographic findings can reveal issues that are in tension with conceptions of the project members from industry. Instead of brushing these tensions aside, we propose provotyping (provocative prototyping) as an approach to constructively build on them as a resource for change. Provotypes are ethnographically rooted, technically working, robust artefacts that deliberately challenge stakeholder conceptions by reifying and exposing tensions that surround a field of organisational interest. The daily and local experience of provotypes aims to stir dialectical processes of reflection on how conceptions currently are, and fuel the front end of a development process by speculating how conceptions could be different. In this article we start by making explicit the relation between provotypes, practices of critical design and organisational sense-making. We then illustrate, through a multi-stakeholder project concerning the field of indoor climate, how provotypes facilitate transfers of user knowledge to industry, and how they contribute to the development of new products and services. We end by framing the role of the design researcher and discuss the politics that are inherent to design provocations.     

Individual,project and organizational learning flows within a global project-based organization: exploring what,how and who

Project learning is a function of individuals’ internal cognitive processes, interpretation and integration of learning at the team and project level, and the organization's ability to institutionalize learning into practices. However, understanding of how learning unfolds between these levels remains limited. Using a single in-depth case study, this paper reports on how learning occurs between levels in a global project-based organization (PBO). Six bridging mechanisms are identified: (1) networks, (2) organizational initiatives, (3) power and politics, (4) coaching and mentoring, (5) culture of empowerment, and (6) temporality. The temporal nature of the projects paired with the global context offers the opportunity for a stable workforce to be deployed across geographical regions to form formal and informal networks that offer a parallel organizational structure for multilevel learning. Project managers (PMs), senior leaders and the project management office (PMO) engage differently in the learning process, depending on their degree of connectivity and power within the global organization.     

In favor or against: The influence of skeptical stakeholders in urban innovation projects for green transformation

Skeptical stakeholder involvement – collaborating with stakeholders who may harbor negative attitudes - is a complex, uncertain process that poses substantial challenges for innovation project management. Developing complex innovations like those in urban spaces requires engagement with knowledge, behavioral shifts, and resources from both public and private stakeholders. As a result, these stakeholders might oppose the project's objectives, thereby exerting a significant influence on the project. However, scant attention has been directed toward investigating the role of skeptical stakeholder involvement. The goal of this research is to address this research gap by examining the underexplored impact of skeptical stakeholder involvement on the project front end, thereby underscoring the importance of innovativeness and implementation intention as outcomes during these initial project stages. The study draws on a unique combination of text mining, text analysis, and survey data derived from 107 publicly funded urban innovation projects in Germany. These projects encompass diverse innovation types and technologies that may affect nearly all stakeholders within a given city district, thus making the context an ideal empirical terrain for investigation. The study's findings reveal that (i) skeptical stakeholder involvement positively influences innovativeness and implementation intention, and (ii) a robust reservoir of project management resources, coupled with moderate levels of formal management, facilitates the integration of skeptical stakeholders. The study advances current literature on project stakeholder management and project front-end dynamics by highlighting the positive influences of skeptical stakeholder involvement. Consequently, these outcomes contribute to the broader literature on sustainable urban transformation and enhance our understanding of stakeholder management mechanisms in the realm of urban innovation projects.