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For a number of years, the construction industry has seen an ongoing shift from design-bid-build to design-build contracts. This transition in contract type entails changes for both the organizations and the individuals involved. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how the client manages the transition between the different contract types from an organizational change perspective in a project-led organization.

A multiple case study of six infrastructure projects with DB contracts, all managed by the Swedish Transport Administration, was conducted. The major source of data is semi-structured interviews with respondents from both the client and the contractors.

Results suggest that the transition has resulted in a mix of design-bid-build and design-build as contract type owing to issues when changing in a project-led organization. A change in vision also requires a concomitant change in culture, systems and roles.

The study only includes cases from the Swedish transport infrastructure sector, which limits the generalizability. The findings are also indicative owing to the small number of cases.

The findings further our understanding of managing change in complex projects, which might help practitioners to manage change in a more integrated way.

The findings enrich our understanding of the systemic change that a switch in contract types can have in inter-organizational complex projects such as transport infrastructure projects. Furthermore, it emphasizes the intricate task of change management in project-led organizations and its effects on roles and responsibilities.

The flow of human capital into and out of organizations is a crucial aspect of organizational functioning, yet the bulk of the theory and research adopts a US-centric perspective. The purpose of this edited volume is for scholars embedded in contexts around the world to describe the relevance and implications (or lack thereof) of turnover theories in their particular context. We take a broad view of talent, focusing on the departure of human capital in general without necessarily restricting the analysis to those who disproportionately contribute to organizational success, and the authors focus on institutional contexts and culture because of their role in shaping employee norms and behaviors. We partnered with author teams embedded in countries and regions with a focus on capturing variance in contexts across the GLOBE clusters: Anglo (England), Confucian Asian (China; South Korea), Eastern European (Bulgaria), Germanic European (Germany), Latin American (Mexico), Latin European (Spain), Middle Eastern (Turkey), Nordic European (Denmark), Southern Asian (India), and Sub-Saharan African (South Africa). We provided each author team discretion to express their own voice, while also providing a common set of goals across chapters for consistency of contribution: a description of the institutional, legal, and cultural context as it relates to employee mobility, a review of context-specific research literature leading to a description of how the mechanisms and processes in prominent turnover theories may operate differently in a particular context, and implications for research and practice related to talent turnover and retention. Considering the contributions as a set, we identify important themes and overarching recommendations for scholars interested in studying employee retention and turnover around the globe.