Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences, business and law, expertly written by the world's leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas. Taking an innovative look at how megaprojects are managed, including the important Why, What, Who and How elements, this insightful Advanced Introduction is enhanced with case studies of megaprojects from across the globe. Throughout, the authors highlight the fundamental issues in an accessible format, such as why megaprojects are undertaken, what their challenges are, how to market projects and who deals with stakeholder engagement. It also investigates key areas such as governance, social value creation, management, contractual and decision-making issues. Key features: Discusses how the creation of narratives can address uncertainty in projects Illustrates the pros and cons of a conventional approach to decision-making versus a naturalistic approach Provides a post-modernist approach to the management of megaprojects based on flexibility, versatility and ambidexterity Highlights the importance of megaproject leadership engaging with stakeholders to align interests and create value effectively This Advanced Introduction will provide essential reading for practitioners, specifically megaproject leaders, as well as academics of megaproject studies and management studies and projects. Students engaging in project and management studies will also find this enlightening and informative.

Megaproject Leaders brings together 18 prominent academics who interviewed 16 great megaproject leaders originating from 10 different countries. Based on a reflective methodological approach, these chapters investigate the managing of megaprojects from a human perspective, identify new trends in the managing of megaprojects and identify lessons learned from the personal views of the interviewees. The novel ideas presented will appeal to academics, practitioners and university students.

This cutting-edge Research Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of research on the governance of projects. Spanning different sectors, project types, and organizational hierarchies, it delves into diverse theoretical and practical approaches to the governance of projects, identifying valuable new phenomena for future study. Through diverse case studies, chapters cover all aspects of the governance of projects, including theories of governance, governance approaches, mechanisms, and situational contingencies. It examines the governance of individual projects, groups of projects, megaprojects, and inter-organizational project networks in turn. Expert contributors explore key issues such as governance for sustainable development programs, benefit management, social value creation, ethical governance, and meta-governance. Drawing insights from industry, academia and the public sector, the Research Handbook provides a toolkit of resources that can be applied in diverse contexts. Covering a wide range of approaches to the governance of projects, this Research Handbook will be a valuable guide for academics and students in governance, business, management, and organizational innovation. With extensive case studies illustrating how theories of governance can be practically applied, it will also be a useful resource for practicing managers seeking to develop their governance strategies.

Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences, business and law, expertly written by the world's leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas. Taking an innovative look at how megaprojects are managed, including the important Why, What, Who and How elements, this insightful Advanced Introduction is enhanced with case studies of megaprojects from across the globe. Throughout, the authors highlight the fundamental issues in an accessible format, such as why megaprojects are undertaken, what their challenges are, how to market projects and who deals with stakeholder engagement. It also investigates key areas such as governance, social value creation, management, contractual and decision-making issues. Key features: Discusses how the creation of narratives can address uncertainty in projects Illustrates the pros and cons of a conventional approach to decision-making versus a naturalistic approach Provides a post-modernist approach to the management of megaprojects based on flexibility, versatility and ambidexterity Highlights the importance of megaproject leadership engaging with stakeholders to align interests and create value effectively This Advanced Introduction will provide essential reading for practitioners, specifically megaproject leaders, as well as academics of megaproject studies and management studies and projects. Students engaging in project and management studies will also find this enlightening and informative.

This concise text introduces an integrated view of all project management-related activities in an organization, called Organizational Project Management (OPM). Practical cases from several organizations, as well as popular theories such as the Resource-Based Theory and Institutional Theory provide for an insightful yet realistic understanding of OPM as an integrative tool for organizations to improve their efficiency and effectiveness. The reader will learn how separate organizational functions, such as project, program and portfolio management and governance integrate in a cohesive manner. The authors describe how different approaches to competing in the marketplace link to strategies, and the ways of selecting the 'best' business opportunities for organizations and integrating them into existing workflows and structures. They develop and describe a model that shows how OPM works within organizations. The book is a valuable resource for top managers, reflective practitioners, academics, and postgraduate students in organization theory.

A new theory of balanced leadership in projects Leadership is not static. Instead, authority in projects shifts dynamically between project managers, individual team members, and sub-teams, depending on the situation. Leadership may be exercised through a vertical, horizontal, shared, or distributed leadership approach. However, balanced leadership ensures the best suitable approach is used in any given situation. Based on an award-winning global program of research studies, Balanced Leadership is a thorough investigation of balanced leadership in projects. Ralf Muller, Nathalie Drouin, and Shankar Sankaran present a project-specific leadership approach as well as a theory of balanced leadership, and the situations in which different strategies are required. They also outline the five building blocks that enable balanced leadership: nomination of team members, identification of potential leaders, selection and empowerment of leaders, empowered leadership and its governance, and leadership transition. The book explains the coordination of these building blocks through the socio-cognitive space shared by project manager and team. Using real-life case studies and clear examples, this book offers a new way of considering and utilizing dynamic leadership in project settings.

In recent years, organizational project management (OPM) has emerged as a field focused on how project, program and portfolio management practices strategically help firms realize organizational goals. There is a compelling need to address the totality of project-related work at the organizational level, providing a view of organizations as a network of projects to be coordinated among themselves, integrated by the more permanent organization, and to move away from a focus on individual projects. This comprehensive volume provides views from a wide range of international scholars researching OPM at a cross-disciplinary level. It covers concepts, theories and practices from disciplines allied to management, such as strategic management, organization sciences and behavioural science. It will be a valuable read for scholars and practitioners alike, who are looking to enrich their understanding of OPM and further investigate this new phenomenon.

This concise text introduces an integrated view of all project management-related activities in an organization, called Organizational Project Management (OPM). Practical cases from several organizations, as well as popular theories such as the Resource-Based Theory and Institutional Theory provide for an insightful yet realistic understanding of OPM as an integrative tool for organizations to improve their efficiency and effectiveness. The reader will learn how separate organizational functions, such as project, program and portfolio management and governance integrate in a cohesive manner. The authors describe how different approaches to competing in the marketplace link to strategies, and the ways of selecting the 'best' business opportunities for organizations and integrating them into existing workflows and structures. They develop and describe a model that shows how OPM works within organizations. The book is a valuable resource for top managers, reflective practitioners, academics, and postgraduate students in organization theory.

A new theory of balanced leadership in projects Leadership is not static. Instead, authority in projects shifts dynamically between project managers, individual team members, and sub-teams, depending on the situation. Leadership may be exercised through a vertical, horizontal, shared, or distributed leadership approach. However, balanced leadership ensures the best suitable approach is used in any given situation. Based on an award-winning global program of research studies, Balanced Leadership is a thorough investigation of balanced leadership in projects. Ralf Muller, Nathalie Drouin, and Shankar Sankaran present a project-specific leadership approach as well as a theory of balanced leadership, and the situations in which different strategies are required. They also outline the five building blocks that enable balanced leadership: nomination of team members, identification of potential leaders, selection and empowerment of leaders, empowered leadership and its governance, and leadership transition. The book explains the coordination of these building blocks through the socio-cognitive space shared by project manager and team. Using real-life case studies and clear examples, this book offers a new way of considering and utilizing dynamic leadership in project settings.

Project management (PM), traditionally employed to implement projects, has developed into Organizational Project Management, as organizations are increasingly using projects to deliver strategies. The emergence of program and portfolio management has also contributed to this move. PM researchers need to become more innovative in their research approaches. They need to connect with the broader currents of social science in relevant fields, such as organization theory. Outside the specific field, there is a great deal that can usefully be imported, transformed, and translated so that it is fit for project management research purposes. More trans-disciplinary, translational, and transformational approaches for conducting project-related research are required, and this book goes a long way to providing foundations for them. The book encompasses reflections on fundamental questions underlying any research, such as the type of knowledge sought, as well as the epistemological and ontological assumptions. It broadens research methods and theory perspectives, drawing on contemporary approaches, such as action research, soft systems methodology, activity theory, actor-network theory, and other approaches adopted in related scientific and technological areas that are only recently being adopted. To achieve this, the book's editors have necessarily been eclectically interdisciplinary in their contributor list. They have included contemporary research methods and designs from areas allied to project research - such as organization science, organizational studies, sociology, behavioral science, and biology - providing innovative invitations to research design and methodological choice. Overall, this book makes a significant contribution to the maturation and development of project management research as a specialty in the broader social sciences, one that is a less-reliant handmaiden or under-laborer to purely technical issues, but which appreciates that any material construction is always a social construction as well, one that implies episteme and phronesis, knowledge and wisdom, as well as techne or technique. Project managers may not realize it, but the most important aspects of what they manage are the meanings, interpretations, and politics of projects, and not merely the technical aspects. (Series: Advances in Organization Studies - Vol. 29)