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The purpose of this paper is to assess how we implement new ways of managing relational risk at the operational level of outsourced projects and to provide guidance to project management (PM) policy makers and practitioners seeking to ensure project operations consistently deliver project relational risk management (PRRM) strategies.

Through exploratory study data were obtained from a panel of six experts in PM and from a pilot survey of PM practitioners. The data reveal future directions and vectors for scholarship and research activity in terms of the impact of PRMM-related mechanisms and deliverables on project success and the implementation process to enhance PRRM as a key PM capability.

Deliverables for PRRM need to part of a multidimensional framework that includes mechanisms besides the contract. Such a framework enables the codification of PM knowledge so that PRRM contributes to project success. With knowledge codified, PRRM strategies can be consistently delivered at the operational level. The framework is novel in that it integrates hereto disparate elements that are encompassed under the broad umbrella of relational governance mechanisms.

PM policy makers and practitioners recognise the importance of effective relationships to deliver projects successfully, yet they lack practical solutions to address the negative effects of dysfunctional relationships. The authors provide a list of PM deliverables for effective PRRM, including deliverables besides those related to the contract, which can be used in practice to bring the gap between PRRM strategy development and implementation. This will enable client organisations that outsource their projects to an external contractor to enhance their PRRM capability and increase the likelihood of project success.

The authors provide insights into how PRRM is practised at the project operations’ level where PM is outsourced. These insights lead to three pathways of impactful Operations Management (OM)/PM scholarship and research, namely, the following: 1) How PM deliverables act as a key success factor for effective PRRM? 2) How the duality of roles carried out by PM actors influences PRMM practices? 3) How companies innovate to enhance their PRMM capability? These pathways will enable PM research and scholarship to address disconnects between PRMM strategy and operations and hence go beyond answering “what” PRMM is to encompass “how” it is implemented.

The globalisation of supply chains has contributed to modern slavery by degrading labour standards and work practices. The inherent difficulties involved in monitoring extremely fragmented production processes also render workers in and from developing countries vulnerable to labour exploitation. This research adopts a benchmark methodology that will help examine the inherent modern slavery challenges.

This study examines how the benchmark model, including governance, risk assessment, purchasing practice, recruitment and remedy of victims, addresses supply chain modern slavery challenges. The proposed hypotheses are tested based on the reoccurring issues of modern slavery in global supply chains.

Estimations suggest that modern slavery is a growing and increasingly prominent international problem, indicating that it is the second largest and fastest growing criminal enterprise worldwide except for narcotics trafficking. These social issues in global supply chains have drawn attention to the importance of verifying, monitoring and mapping supply chains, especially in lengthy and complex supply chains. However, the advent of digital technologies and benchmarking methodologies has become one of the existing key performance indicators (KPIs) for measuring the effectiveness of modern slavery initiatives in supply chains.

This review provides an understanding of the current situation of global supply chains concerning the growing social issue of modern slavery. However, this includes various individual specialities relating to global supply chains, modern slavery, socially sustainable supply chain management (SCM), logistic social responsibility, corporate social responsibility and digitalisation. Furthermore, the review provided important implications for researchers examining the activities on benchmarking the effectiveness of the existing initiatives to prevent modern slavery in the supply chains.

Currently there is no universally accepted approach to supply chain risk management and assurance. To begin to shed more light on the practical operational challenges presented when considering supply chain risk mitigation through the sharing of information, this paper discusses the results of an empirical study conducted with manufacturing supply chain professionals. The study examines state-of-the-art challenges to managing risk in today's supply chains by reporting on data collected in 2021.

To develop a rich picture of the challenges of information sharing in multi-tier supply chains, the authors adopted a qualitative research design. The authors conducted 14 interviews with supply chain professionals and ran two focus groups that were industry specific: one focused on the nuclear industry and the other on automotive.

The study identifies contemporary practical challenges to information sharing in supply chains – specifically challenges related to data quality and the acceptance of sub-optimal normative supply chain practices, which have consequences for supplier assurance fatigue and supply chain transparency.

The topical and contemporary study shows how an acceptance of the normative practices of a supply chain can have a cumulative effect on the likelihood of supply chain disruption due to shortcomings in approaches to information sharing. The notion of the acceptance of the status quo in this context has received limited research attention, and hence offers an extension to current discourse on supply chain risk and resilience.

Draws on the experiences of the author working in various project management positions to illustrate the application of TQM to the process of modern project management. Provides guidance on the application of five fundamental quality principles in project management. Emphasizes that a focus on customer requirements is essential.Charts the journey organizations and project managers may take in implementing quality project management.

The purpose of this paper is to report on a field-level examination of the adoption of sustainable procurement in social housing. It explores the role of regulation and procurement consortia in sustainable procurement.

The study employs a case study of the UK social housing sector and uses an online survey (n=116) of UK Housing Associations. Factor analysis identifies three parsimonious dimensions of sustainable procurement. Attitudinal data are analysed to explore the field-level adoption of sustainable procurement and the role of consortia.

The results delineate sustainable procurement activities into three factors; direction setting, supplier-centric assurance and local socially oriented supply. High yet sup-optimal levels of sustainable procurement activity are revealed. Prevailing attitudes identify positive commitments to sustainable procurement at individual, organisational and sector levels. The value of network collaboration is identified. Tenants as critical stakeholders do not prioritise sustainable procurement creating challenge for inclusivity. Regulators are seen to a have low level of sustainable procurement knowledge and procurement consortia a high perceived knowledge.

Results provide insight into the effect of sustainable procurement policy, the role of regulators and network structures and consortia, raising issues around legitimacy, coopetition, stakeholder engagement, performance measurement, and functional/sectoral maturity.

The identification of the potential exclusion of tenants in sustainability debates is particularly significant to deliver social value.

The relative newness of the social housing sector and its quasi-public sector status provides an original contribution to the consortia and sustainable procurement literatures.

Describes research into attitudinal differences between small‐sized and medium/large‐sized organisations towards the benefits/limitations of obtaining certification for a quality management system (QMS) and differences between small‐sized and medium/large‐sized organisations in terms of the pressures driving organisations to seek certification. Presents details of prototype model building of characteristics of organisations either positive or negative towards a certified QMS approach. Fifty organisations were surveyed using a postal questionnaire. Finds some evidence of smaller‐sized organisations having more negative attitudes to QMS certification than medium/large‐sized organisations. Finds both small‐sized and medium/large‐sized organisations attach importance to internal reasons (i.e. a desire to improve internal efficiency) and external reasons (i.e. pressure from customers) in influencing the decision to seek certification. Suggests small‐sized manufacturing companies currently in the process of seeking certification are more likely to fit the model profile of organisations hostile to the QMS certification approach.

The COVID-19 crisis has created enormous strain in global supply chains. The disruption has caused severe shortages of critical items, including personal protective equipment (e.g. face masks), ventilators and diagnostics. The failure of the industry to meet the sudden demand for these necessary items has caused a severe humanitarian crisis. These situations, resulting from the COVID-19, crisis have led to the informal growth of frugal innovation in sustainable global supply chains. This paper aims to provide a detailed overview of drivers of frugal-oriented sustainable global supply chains, following lessons acquired from emerging countries’ attempts to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authors used a focused group approach to identify the drivers and this paper further validated them using existing literature published in international peer-reviewed journals and reports. The authors adopted total interpretive structural modeling (TISM) to analyze the complex relationships among identified drivers.

The authors present a theoretical framework to explain how the drivers are interlinked. This paper has developed the framework through a synthesis of the TISM modeling and Matrice d’impacts croisés multiplication appliquée á un classment analysis. This paper observed that government financial support, policies and regulations, under the mediating effect of leadership and the moderating effect of national culture and international rules and regulations, has a significant effect on the adoption of emerging technology, volunteering initiatives and values and ethics. Further, emerging technology, volunteering initiative and values and ethics have a significant effect on supply chain talent and frugal engineering. These results provide some useful theoretical insights that may help in further investigating the role of frugal innovations in other contexts.

The authors find that outcomes of the methodical contributions and the resulting managerial insights can be categorized into four levels. Industry and researchers alike can use the study to develop the decision-support systems guiding frugal-oriented sustainable global supply chains amid the COVID-19 pandemic and in recovering them thereafter. Suggestions for future research directions are offered and discussed.

Research into project success (PS) has a long pedigree as has research into the impact of building information modelling (BIM) on projects. Yet, despite the many revealed advantages BIM is known to deliver to projects, the relationship between the level of BIM application within a project, BIM's ability to impact a project at that level and the consequent effectiveness and range of success factors BIM is able to bestow across levels remains unmapped. Given the importance of evaluating the success of BIM-based construction projects (BBCPs) and the necessity to ensure the continual improvement of the BIM process, there is a need to identify the relationship between the level of BIM employed on a project and the specific PS factors that BIM is able to impact at that level.

This study puts forward a conceptual model for evaluating the success of BBCPs. A thematic synthesis approach is taken, using Scopus and other databases, and retrieving relevant articles from some 50 journals.

Eight success criteria for BBCPs were extracted and categorised according to BIM's ability to impact them across four levels of project application. Mapping BIM's variable impact at these four levels against the eight success factors produces a model for evaluating the PS of BBCPs. The model posits that the success of a BBCP is a function of the extent to which BIM is applied to the project. Moreover, the findings indicate that an increase in the number of PS criteria (PSC) for a BBCP is a derivative of BIM effectiveness, and not BIM impact.

This work constitutes seminal research to examine the concept of PS and PSC for BBCPs with the view to developing a model for evaluating the PS of BBCPs.

The purpose of the paper is to explore the influence of a total quality management (TQM) programme on the level of focus in project management practices.

Prior literature was used to develop a construct indicating the degree of focus on customers, time/cost/quality (iron/golden triangle) and other stakeholders. A questionnaire was mailed to a random selection of UK organizations to obtain data on the degree of focus and on whether a TQM programme existed.

The results from an analysis of completed questionnaires show that those in organizations with a TQM programme in place are more customer‐focused in their project management practices than those in organizations with no TQM programme. No such relationship was found between the level of iron/golden triangle and other stakeholder focus and a TQM programme.

Given the exploratory nature of the research reported in this paper there is the opportunity for further work on larger populations to confirm the generalizability of the findings. Also, this research has highlighted an association between the level of focus of project management practice and the existence of a TQM programme, and this requires further investigation in terms of confirming suggested cause and effect relationships.

The existence of a link between a TQM programme and customer‐focused project management practice provides a potential route for those looking to improve project performance through placing a greater emphasis on satisfying the customer. The absence of a link between TQM and a focus on other stakeholders suggest that the elements of TQM that facilitate an increase in customer‐focus are not able to overcome the barriers to high levels of stakeholder‐focus on project management practice.

The exploratory research in this paper focuses on the link between TQM and an area of operational practices, namely, project management‐related, that has received limited attention in prior studies.