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This work aims to understand how social value is created and delivered using community-based water supply projects. It examines social value creation given the enabling concepts – value co-creation and service ecosystems as business models for infrastructure.

Inductive reasoning, including qualitative research design, was applied to two water supply projects. The qualitative stage created social value co-creation features using the purposive sampling of 72 semi-structured interviews.

The qualitative analysis features social value co-creation, which includes a sense of social unity, end-user empowerment, Behavioural transformation, and knowledge transfer. Although value destruction also emerged while examining social value co-creation, the research identifies the “red flags” and value contradictions that must be avoided.

The enablers of sustainable infrastructure projects should include social value, service ecosystems and value co-creation.

There is a need for the government and non-governmental organisations to create enabling platforms that involve a planned dialogical communication process supporting the development and enhancement of relationships of stakeholders to maximise social value from infrastructure projects.

The work offers a widened perspective of social value creation and a new framework called “Social value co-creation/destruction” (SVCC/SVCD) as the business model for sustainable infrastructure projects. It is the first attempt to illustrate social value creation in construction from service ecosystems and value co-creation perspectives.

This study aims to further the understanding of multi-level analysis in inter-organisational relationships by investigating the interplay of governance, cooperation and coordination in inter-organisational projects (IOPs) on sub-system and project levels.

The authors use the Viable Systems Model as a framework to analyse inter-organisational project governance, cooperation and coordination by adopting a multiple-case study.

The findings illustrate how governance and coordination mechanisms exhibit a filter-down effect on lower sub-systems while cooperation influence is confined within each sub-system. While remarking the importance of specific sub-systems on the overall project performance, the interplay of governance, cooperation and coordination across sub-systems appears to be complex, with governance influencing cooperation and coordination, whereas cooperation and coordination influence each other with an incremental effect.

This study defines two propositions that explain how multiple levels of analysis (project and sub-systems) can support the governance of large inter-organisational projects. The authors elaborate theory on the interplay of inter-organisational project governance, cooperation and coordination.

Lord Carter’s (2015) “Review of Operational Productivity in NHS providers” stated that to improve National Health Service (NHS) England’s efficiency, operational productivity should be targeted in four main areas, one being estates management. NHS England’s estate includes a variety of buildings some of which are considered no longer fit-for-purpose, thus creating risk to patients and staff. These built assets require continuous maintenance, adding pressures to NHS England’s precarious financial situation. The purpose of this paper is to identify positive strategies and major constraints to achieving sustainable management of backlog maintenance (BM) across the NHS assets, and thus suggest balanced actions.

The research adopts a qualitative approach and combines: literature review of current BM methodologies; interviews with estates and facilities directors from seven NHS trusts on BM strategies; and a NHS trust detailed case study.

The major finding is that sustainable management of BM is achievable if there is a consistent, pro-active and long-term strategic approach where critical levels of BM are prioritised. Additional issues (i.e. appropriate methodology, performance metrics and links with clinical service delivery strategies) also need to be considered.

This study is relevant to the management of the NHS estate including development and adoption of sustainable strategies.

This paper offers original insights to the factors influencing healthcare estates’ BM at a time when the UK policy agenda is targeting infrastructure operational efficiency and organisations are seeking more comprehensive methodologies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the idea that the ideal manager is a social construct that is a product of the context within which it exists. The context chosen to illustrate this idea is that of the first two decades of the Cold War (1945‐1965) in the USA.

The methodology used is an analysis of 17 management textbooks published between 1945 and 1965 in the USA.

The analysis of the textbooks shows a typification of the ideal manager as an educated male who wielded authority effectively and accepted social responsibility. These four characteristics can all be tied to the social and political context of the early Cold War years.

Limited by its focus on management theory in the USA during the early Cold War era, and a selection of textbooks based on available resources. Future research could analyze the ideal manager construct during social and political contexts other than the Cold War, and across other social formations (e.g. the UK, Canada, France, etc.).

Practical implications apply to both organizations and academic institutions. Management educators should be attempting to use textbooks that present management theory in a problematic way and organizations should be aware of the impact of social and political context on the construct of the manager in order to determine the qualities and characteristics that are most needed today.

The paper looks at the ideal manager as a social construct, rather than an ideal that was created void of outside influence and assumed to be ideal for all contexts. It also uses the context of the Cold War period, which has been a neglected context in management research.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how Drucker's work has been disseminated through the North American management textbook since 1940, and what this tells people about the wider issue of the social construction and dissemination of management knowledge.

The paper is a critical hermeneutic analysis of the presence and use of Drucker in over 500 management textbooks and the socio‐political context in which both Drucker's work and North American textbooks were written.

Paradoxically, while Drucker's work was found to be the most‐referenced of any management writer in the textbooks studied, his theories – apart from discussions of “Management by objectives” and the “Knowledge economy” – were rarely discussed. It is argued that the referencing of Drucker served more to legitimize selected points made by textbook authors than to discuss and build on Drucker's work. Explanation of the paradox is explored through the socio‐political contexts in which Drucker was writing, strongly suggesting that the North American textbook has developed a dominant scientivistic trope that construct business “knowledge” through the narrow lens of behavioural science.

While much writing can be found on the influence of Drucker on the business world and his status as a management guru, little is found on Drucker's body of work in the management textbook, which plays a key role in management education in North American business schools. The paper builds on recent management research on the role of socio‐political context in the shaping of management theory and knowledge, and makes a new contribution to one's understanding of the shaping and contours of management knowledge.