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The purpose of this study is to explore the sustainability reporting of a public sector organisation (PSO). This study focuses on socio-environmental practices of a major agro-economic platform in Australia – the Murray–Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) to provide a unique perspective on water resource management and sustainability.

This longitudinal qualitative case study collects published data from the MDBA’s annual reports over 21 years (1998–2018) and considers economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainability using legitimacy and institutional theory.

This study finds that the MDBA’s sustainability reporting is influenced by its response to the Water Act 2007 and the Basin Plan 2012 regulations and to maintain its legitimacy with stakeholders. The MDBA wished to pursue sustainability through integrating these regulations complemented by stakeholder expectations. Although all categories increased in reporting, the environment category has the highest primacy in achieving a healthy basin through sustainable water management for the long-term benefit of the stakeholders.

This study contributes to the PSOs sustainability reporting literature. Particularly, this study provides insights of sustainability reporting patterns and practices over a long period through a longitudinal study. This study contributes new knowledge on the awareness of PSOs sustainability practice which has implications for governments, regulators, policymakers, managers and other stakeholders.

The Australian PSOs setting is under-researched from the perspective of a regulatory framework. The MDBA case provides unique insights on water resource management and sustainability which has value for many countries around the world.

The purpose of this article is to synthesize the topics, conceptualizations and measurements of value-based management (VBM) and to suggest a research agenda covering its next evolution as sustainable governance.

The authors conducted a systematic literature review of 80 seminal studies published between 1979 and 2022. The authors synthesized the studies by their conceptualizations of VBM in an inductively developed framework.

The authors find that scholars explore diverse topics related to VBM with a prevailing focus on shareholder primacy. There is a paucity of studies that focus on the integration of shareholder maximization and stakeholder management practices. The authors explain which studies will form a promising foundation for advanced research on sustainable governance that will reach beyond current VBM research.

The authors' research agenda addresses new future topics on conflicting goals within and between shareholder groups, offers specific suggestions for using new research methods and untapped data sources for VBM and paves the way to substantially extend the boundaries of the firm in VBM research to include stakeholders, strategic alignment and new sustainability measures.

The aim of this study was to appraise the delivery of information communication technology (ICT) projects and identify key determinants for stakeholder integration.

Given that empirically, little was known about stakeholder integration in the ICT sector and its influence or effect on project delivery; qualitative method was used. Forty-seven semi-structured interviews were carried out to derive senior project practitioners and policymakers' constructs of stakeholder integration and infrastructure performance improvement of ICT projects. The verification and validation of the proposed assessment tool were achieved through the use of focus group discussion.

As established in this research study, there is a need for project delivery teams to evaluate the level of stakeholder integration, the formulation of a project business case, the project processes and issues of compliance and regulation in ICT projects. What is evident in the findings of the study is that the management model adopted for the stakeholders in the Kenyan ICT sector ought to make communication the fulcrum of their engagement.

The inferences made herein are critical in contributing to knowledge regarding the ICT infrastructure project management terrain in developing countries. There is evidence in the study to conclude that the concept of stakeholder management and integration has implications for the sustainability of ICT projects. One of the issues that predominantly featured in the research was the input of stakeholder integration in terms of project sustainability.

Conventional wisdom says stakeholders matter to managers as they develop strategy – but do they? If so, what type of stakeholders matter and what can managers do?

An in-depth exploration of five deep case studies where senior executives embarked upon strategy development. Analysis revealed five significant factors for managing stakeholders effectively.

These findings include: determining the nature of a stakeholder, separating those who care about the strategy and its implementation from those who do not but still could impact it; addressing stakeholders at an appropriate level; considering internal as well as external stakeholders and attending to the stakeholders’ responses to proposed strategies and the consequent dynamics created.

(1) The research was conducted with senior managers, and the authors detail the difficulties involved in doing so within the introduction and (2) The research was specific to the healthcare sector, but has relevance to all strategy makers.

This paper explores five factors and their implications and suggests techniques to address them that are well established and available to promote the effective strategic management of stakeholders.

Empirical research in strategy formation with elites is rare because it is difficult to gain access and trust. Empirical research in stakeholder studies is even rarer. By combining the two elements, the authors gather and interpret a unique dataset.

Institutional, economic, social and technological advancements enable openness to cope with wicked public management issues. Although open innovation (OI) is becoming a new normality for public sector entities, scholarly knowledge on this topic is not fully systematized. The article fills this gap, providing a thick and integrative account of OI to inspire public management decisions.

Following the SPAR-4-SLR protocol, a domain-based literature review has been accomplished. Consistently with the study purpose, a hybrid methodology has been designed. Bibliographic coupling permitted us to discover the research streams populating the scientific debate. The core arguments addressed within and across the streams were reported through an interpretive approach.

Starting from an intellectual core of 94 contributions, 5 research streams were spotted. OI in the public sector unfolds through an evolutionary path. Public sector entities conventionally acted as “senior partners” of privately-owned companies, providing funding (yellow cluster) and data (purple cluster) to nurture OI. An advanced perspective envisages OI as a public management model purposefully enacted by public sector entities to co-create value with relevant stakeholders (red cluster). Fitting architectures (green cluster) and mechanisms (blue cluster) should be arranged to release the potential of OI in the public sector.

The role of public sector entities in enacting OI should be revised embracing a value co-creation perspective. Tailored organizational interventions and management decisions are required to make OI a reliable and dependable public value generation model.

The article originally systematizes the scholarly knowledge about OI, presenting it as a new normality for public value generation.

Stakeholder engagement in construction projects is an ingredient that contributes to project optimal performance. Many developing countries have a paucity of literature about stakeholders' engagement in construction projects. Therefore, the study investigated South Africa's shareholders' engagement in construction projects and recommended possible measures to mitigate potential limitations.

The researchers collated data from South African experts in stakeholder engagement via a phenomenology type of qualitative research design. They explored the “perceived hindrances” facing stakeholders' engagement in construction projects and proffer measures to mitigate them. The study analysed collected data via thematic analysis and achieved saturation. Three themes emerged from the analysed data.

Findings show that efficient stakeholder engagement will enhance team collaboration and integrated construction project delivery. Results identified the perceived limitations facing stakeholders' engagement in South Africa's construction projects and categorised them into individual perceived hindrances, organisational perceived hindrances and government-related perceived hindrances. Also, findings proffer measures to mitigate perceived hindrances via policies and programmes within the sector.

Besides enhancing policymakers and other stakeholders in South Africa's construction industry to understand the benefits of stakeholder engagement better, the study may stir up the construction sector's stakeholders to embrace enhanced and effective stakeholders' management.

This study contributes to construction project practice that involves stakeholders, as it reveals the underlying causes of perceived hindrances facing stakeholders' engagement in construction projects. Also, it proffers feasible solutions to mitigate these hindrances and enhance stakeholders' engagement within South Africa's construction projects.

Although the literature is clear on what comprises effective project stakeholder management, communication between key stakeholders and project managers is often ineffective. Research is silent on stakeholders' insufficient knowledge of project management terminology, which is a barrier for such effective communication. This paper aims to identify the project management concepts that key stakeholders should understand to improve effective communication.

This paper employs a three-step research design. In the first step, based on threshold concept theory, the authors identify the key project management concepts through interviews with 20 project management practitioners, trainers and trainees. In the second step, the authors confirm the findings from the first step and identify effective approaches to enhance project stakeholders' communication through seven additional interviews with project stakeholders. In the third step, the authors construct a functional model of the research findings by employing a system-level modeling tool.

This research identifies five project management threshold concepts (TC) that are challenging for project stakeholders to understand (1) project benefits, (2) the iron triangle, (3) the critical path, (4) uncertainty and (5) project leadership. Following these knowledge barriers, the paper proposes unique approaches to develop effective project stakeholder communication.

This paper advances project stakeholder management research by identifying knowledge barriers and providing project managers with more effective approaches to better engage with their stakeholders.

The present research is trying to construct the network of relationships between different department of an organization during the design and development of car engine. Analyzing the structure of the network, finding the patterns of collaborations, and determining the important departments are the main purposes of the present research.

Improving relationships during a project life is an effective way to enhance employee performance in project-oriented organizations. This paper examines the collaborative relationships between internal project stakeholders through social network analysis (SNA) in a project for the design and development of car engine. In the first step of the research, the network of internal stakeholders was studied based on collaboration in the common activities performed by the resources. Then, the network of correspondences between internal stakeholders was studied. Finally, the two networks were integrated into a single network.

In the integrated network, the “fuel and combustion department” had the largest degree centrality (i.e. highest collaboration with others). The “integration department” was found to have the highest closeness centrality (i.e. more rapid access to other nodes). Furthermore, the “procurement department” had the highest betweenness centrality (i.e. the most strategic department). Our results revealed the potential capabilities of SNA method for the project management in the vehicle industry.

The obtained results of the present research show us the value of applying SNA methods and concepts to analyze the inter-organizational network of the Project Stakeholders relationship.

The study emphasizes the importance of human perception in engaging stakeholders and sheds light on the way the often “disregarded” actors (i.e. local communities) make sense of an organization's behavior at the corporate, project and individual level.

Departing from the normative stance of stakeholder theory, this conceptual paper aims to unfold the benefits of a more holistic and inclusive organizational approach to stakeholders. The conceptual framework is elucidated through the lens of attribution theory, which points to communication as the source of stakeholders' attributional processes and thus their perception of fairness.

Focusing the authors’ attention on construction and infrastructure projects, this research suggests that early transparent and informative communication with local community stakeholders motivates them to perceive fairness, from both the process of decision-making (distributive) and the outcome of decisions (procedural), as well as the way in which they are treated (interactional). Such communications lead to less biased attributions as they reduce the influence of personal beliefs in achieving a conscious and non-biased attribution mode.

In this paper, the authors adopt attribution theory as their lens with which to interpret the process whereby individuals attempt to make sense of an organization's behavior. Focusing on secondary stakeholder engagement such as local community, the authors’ conceptualization shapes both a framework highlighting communication as the mediator for shaping human perceptions, and a process model to guide project organizations and practitioners to embrace an inclusive approach toward the often-disregarded stakeholders, which is aimed at enhancing their perception of fairness at the corporate, project and individual levels. The authors highlight the need for organization to provide clear and transparent communication to a broader range of stakeholders, such as those that have had little to say in the decision-making process (the often-disregarded voices). By seeking collaboration rather than manipulation, a project organization might promote stakeholders' non-biased perception of fairness, in terms of both the process and outcome of the project.

Policy coherence is a complex and tough task for many developing nations because their capacity to examine and deliver evidence-based inputs to policymaking is limited, and policy dialogue platforms need to be effectively used. Resolving these difficulties is a critical requirement for policy consistency. As a result, the study focuses on the level of policy coherence for climate change adaptation (CCA), disaster risk reduction (DRR) and sustainable development goals (SDG) in Sri Lanka and suggests routes for policy coherence for Resilience. This study aims to investigate the coherent approach of CCA, DRR and SDG; to identify concerns in policy documents addressing the coherence of CCA, DRR and SDG in local context; and to propose policy coherence suggestions for resilience in Sri Lanka.

Methodology comprises a review and content analysis of 17 policy and legal documents in Sri Lanka and a qualitative study. The qualitative approach consists of semistructured interviews that obtained deep and broad expertise knowledge with ten government representatives and stakeholders. Both content analysis and interview data were analyzed by using NVivo.

It was discovered that there are several issues with the coherence of policies in Sri Lanka, including the fragmented approach, lack of integration, inadequate coordination, limited resources and lack of monitoring and evaluation. The policies are inspired by international frameworks, and local implementations are not focused, leading to inadequate implementation of policies. The lack of development cooperation for the use of innovative approaches, such as climate-resilient infrastructure and environmentally friendly solutions for CCA and DRR, further aggravates the situation. Another concern is the lack of land use management and responsibility for the development of physical infrastructure for DRR integration with CCA. It is found that there is a limited community involvement which is vital for the implementation of policies. Local implementations are encouraged to fill the gaps in existing policies/acts. The analytical framework of the study is based on a preliminary examination of policy documents, a review of the literature and discussions with practitioners. The framework reflects the current situation of policy integration which addresses strategic, conceptual, institutional, operational and financial coherence. The research suggests pathways for achieving policy coherence in CCA, DRR and SDG in Sri Lanka, such as enhancing the strategic coherence by improving goals to increase the coherence within CCA, DRR and SDG; improving the credibility of the unified approach for developing DRR and CCA risk assessments; intensifying institutional cooperation and stakeholder management; improving the common monitoring and evaluation; establishing implementation strategies; and increasing the community involvement.

The study on policy coherence in Sri Lanka recommends increasing community and professional involvement, conducting more research, developing a national strategy, increasing capacity building, strengthening international collaboration and fostering multisectoral collaboration. These recommendations can help improve policy coherence between CCA, DRR and SDGs, align policies with national goals and priorities and improve implementation effectiveness. By implementing these recommendations, Sri Lanka can address the challenges of climate change and natural disasters and achieve SDGs.

The study on policy coherence for resilience in Sri Lanka has practical implications, including improved coordination and resource allocation, increased capacity building, improved reputation and sustainability. By integrating CCA, DRR and SDGs, this study can help Sri Lanka become more resilient to climate change and natural disasters, achieve SDGs and become a responsible actor in the international community. These implications can contribute to a more sustainable future and ensure that development goals are achieved in a way that is resilient to climate change and natural disasters.

Increased community participation: the study emphasizes the importance of community involvement in the policy development process. This can help build trust between communities and government agencies, improve transparency and ensure that policies are developed in a way that is responsive to local needs and priorities.

Based on the identified existing loopholes in the policies and pathways to policy coherence, the issues in policymaking could be overcome. It could be used to establish strong linkages between policies based on CCA, DRR and SDGs to achieve long-term resilience.