Project governance: the impact of environmental changes on governance adaptations in large-scale projects
International Journal of Managing Projects in Business
ISSN: 1753-8378
Article publication date: 17 September 2024
Issue publication date: 30 September 2024
Abstract
Purpose
The performance of large-scale projects is often challenged due to major environmental changes that occur during their life. However, literature has paid little attention to the governance adaptations required to respond effectively to these changes. This paper aims to study changes in the project environment over time, the corresponding governance adaptations and their impact on project performance.
Design/methodology/approach
To ensure triangulation between two sources of evidence, we used both primary and secondary data sources and examined 14 projects through 2 studies, the first focused on seven documented, illustrative case projects and the second on interviews with senior and project managers involved in seven additional projects.
Findings
We found the key environmental changes that should trigger appropriate governance adaptations to be market evolutions, technological advancements and sociopolitical events. However, we also found that these necessary governance adaptations are not commonly implemented timely, sufficiently or effectively.
Originality/value
The paper distills the dynamics of large-scale projects in achieving project effectiveness and raises theoretical propositions on the combination of environmental changes and deficient governance adaptations that, over time, turns efficient projects into ineffective projects and discusses implications for theory and practice.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the interviewees who have graciously shared their experiences on the success-to-failure projects (i.e. projects that were delivered efficiently but not effectively) they have been part of in their professional life. This research has been supported by the Major Projects Observatory of the Telfer School of Management of the University of Ottawa (Canada). The authors highly appreciate feedback from the reviewers and the Editor about the potential to publish this manuscript. A very preliminary version of the manuscript was presented at the European Operations Management Association (EUROMA)’s virtual conference on 5–7 July 2021. We have no conflict of interest.
Citation
Ika, L., Meredith, J. and Zwikael, O. (2024), "Project governance: the impact of environmental changes on governance adaptations in large-scale projects", International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, Vol. 17 No. 4/5, pp. 829-854. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMPB-03-2024-0056
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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