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In his 1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation”, Maslow suggested the “Hierarchy of Needs” as a classification system that described the stimuli for human behaviour. Presently, project behaviour research, which inspired this work, encourages undertaking research on behavioural aspects within and across organisational and project settings. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to analyse project-based organisations’ (PBOs) seemingly reluctance in engaging in organisational learning from past project failures by drawing upon both institutional theory (since it focuses on how firms interact) and Maslow’s model within a project behaviour piece of research.

Interviews were held with purposively selected construction professionals from the UK construction industry, and data were analysed using thematic analysis.

Besides the need to learn from failures, PBOs’ main competing needs revolve around their “competitiveness”; “profitability and productivity”; “repeat business” and “reputation and partnering”. Mirroring these needs against Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, “competitiveness” and “profitability” are analogous to foundational “physiological” and “safety” needs. The need for “repeat business” and “reputation” is approximated with Maslow’s “affiliation” and “self-esteem” needs, and organisational learning is associated with “self-actualisation”. From an institutional theory perspective, such response to failure is influenced by the need to show legitimacy and conformity imposed by institutional factors.

Instead of taking a simplified approach to learning from failure such as the use of technological tools, PBOs and the sector at large should consider more robust approaches, by appreciating the influence of institutional factors and the external environment on their efforts to learn from failure.

Unlike past studies that present organisational learning within PBOs as a straightforward process, this study instead highlights the need of understanding various competing needs within a PBO and the external pressure.

The purpose of this research is to identify the constraints and restrictions and their impact on the construction projects in Saudi Arabia from three key participants' perspectives for the planning stage.

Using a descriptive-analytical approach, this research described and analyzed the frequency and severity of failure factors in construction projects in the planning stage using a five-Likert scale questionnaire in Saudi Arabia construction between 2019 and 2020. A total of 100 experts from contractors, consultants and owners were included in the study.

The findings have shown that time dispute was the major factor affecting the projects to be failed. Similarly, cost overrun and total abandonment have an impact on project failures. The findings have indicated that government officials were involved in delaying the projects while contractors also failed in the project deliveries.

Further research is needed to investigate the relationship between failure characteristics and project success measures in the same stage, in addition to, factors of failure for construction projects' life-cycle stages.

The findings have indicated that government officials were involved in delaying the projects while contractors also failed in the project deliveries.

The purpose of this study is to develop an appropriate new product development (NPD) process of Company “T”, a medium-sized firm, by analyzing the existing NPD process and failure cases of the Company.

The proposed research framework is as follows: first, prospective studies of the NPD process are performed using the existing literature and preliminary references; second, comparative analysis between the current processes and a NPD process is performed; third, phase-based evaluations upon failed product cases are conducted with a NPD process so as to identify the abridged steps and root-causes of failures; finally, renewed priorities are set forth by utilizing the analytic hierarchy process analysis and questionnaire analysis upon the above identified causes of failures.

The resulting accomplishments include the establishment of NPD processes that resonates with the current states of Company “T”, which, in turn, ensures the increase of efficiency, the decrease in development duration and the strategy of capacity-concentration and priority-selection.

As Company “T”’s development process is outdated and products are developed without adequate market information research and feasibility analysis, the percentage of failed development project is as high as 87 per cent. Thus, this study aims to develop an appropriate NPD process of Company “T” by analyzing the existing NPD process and failure cases of the Company.

Managing projects is an important part of operations management, but many projects fail. This study focuses on attribution processes of such disruption from the underrepresented perspective of the project manager. The authors consider two types of causes: the more frequently researched environmental uncertainty (i.e. uncontrollable events) and the scarcely researched uncertainty imposed by non-collaborative project sponsors (i.e. other-controllable events).

The authors test conceptual arguments grounded in attribution theory and the notion of psychological contracts in a scenario-based experiment among 325 practicing project managers.

The findings indicate that non-collaborative project sponsors negatively affect project managers' motivation, whereas uncontrollable disruptions leave hope to achieve positive future outcomes. This latter effect is further strengthened when project managers have an internal attribution style. They tend to blame the disruption on themselves and generally feel in control of achieving success even if they are not.

These socio-psychological insights nuance the economic idea that uncertainty reduces motivation per se in the context of project disruption appraisal. The authors contribute to the behavioral project management literature and general attribution theory and help guide the allocation of resources during the recovery of failed projects.

According to the Project Management Institute, 70% of projects fail globally. The causes of project failure in many instances can be identified as non-technical or behavioral in nature arising from interactions between participants. These intangible risks can emerge in any project setting but especially in project settings having diversity of cultures, customs, beliefs and traditions of various companies or countries. This paper provides an objective framework to address these intangible risks.

This paper presents a structured approach to identify, assess and manage intangible risks to enhance a project team’s ability to meet its objectives. The authors propose a user-friendly framework, Intangible Risk Assessment Methodology for Projects (IRAMP), to address these risks and the factors that cause them. Meta-network (e.g., a network of networks) simulation and established social network analysis (SNA) measures provide a quantitative assessment and ranking of causal events and their influence on the intangible behavior centric risks.

The proposed IRAMP and meta-network approach were utilized to examine the project delivery process of an international energy firm. Data were gathered using structured interviews, surveys and project team workshops. The use of the IRAMP to highlight intangible risk areas underpinned by the SNA measures led to changes in the company’s organizational structure to enhance project delivery effectiveness.

This work extends the existing project risk management literature by providing a novel objective approach to identify and quantify behavior centric intangible risks and the conditions that cause them to emerge.

This study attempts to create new insights into innovation management through the integration of innovation management processes and sustainable, iterative circles. Through the exploration of the use of sustainable, iterative circles in a manufacturing environment, this paper explores their role in facilitating customer-focused innovation practices. Other supporting antecedences for innovative behavior are reviewed, and their combined effect upon delivering cost-effective product developments are assessed.

Data were collected through semi-structured interviews in manufacturing organizations from the automotive industry. Interviews were conducted with senior functional managers to interpret the application of sustainable, iterative development circles. Analysis of the data was undertaken via thematic analysis based upon pertinent and emergent themes.

Sustainable, iterative development circles overcame the inherent path-dependency of traditional linear development approaches, whereas, traditional approaches structure the involvement of key business functions, iterative circles facilitate more flexible approaches to product development that more closely met the requirements of the customer, especially when those requirements are in a state of flux.

This iterative, customer-centric approach to product development reflects the increasingly dynamic market environments in which manufacturing organizations operate. Using this approach helps to focus the organization’s attention upon customer requirements rather than the challenges of adhering to the rigid dogma of a chosen development methodology.

This study proposes a new approach toward the development of innovations in manufacturing organizations utilizing the sustainable, iterative circles, and therefore, contrasts with the traditional, linear development methodologies that are usually employed.

The purpose of this paper is to study public project governance frameworks in various ministries and agencies in Norway, following the introduction of such a framework on the topmost level (i.e. the cabinet) which applies to the very largest projects.

The study is methodologically designed as a qualitative assessment of project governance frameworks that apply to state-funded investment projects in selected sectors, based on data gathered through document reviews and interviews.

The study finds that all of the agencies have introduced their own project governance frameworks, which are basically consistent with the recommendations from the project management literature and with the cabinet’s overall requirements in Norway. By contrast, only one ministry has taken a formalized role as a project owner. Governance tasks thus seem to be extensively delegated to the subordinate agencies. This even includes strategic tasks such as project selection and portfolio management, and implies there is a risk that public project governance has a narrow and internal focus.

The paper is a first step toward a better understanding of public project governance as a hierarchical system and the relationship between project owners on three levels, the cabinet, the sectoral ministry, and the government agency.

This study aims to propose a method known as the fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (fuzzy TOPSIS) for complex project selection in organizations. To fulfill study objectives, the factors responsible for making a project complex are collected through literature review, which is then analyzed by fuzzy TOPSIS, based on three decision-makers’ opinions.

The selection of complex projects is a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) process for global organizations. Traditional procedures for selecting complex projects are not adequate due to the limitations of linguistic assessment. To crossover such limitation, this study proposes the fuzzy MCDM method to select complex projects in organizations.

A large-scale engine manufacturing company, engaged in the energy business, is studied to validate the suitability of the fuzzy TOPSIS method and rank eight projects of the case company based on project complexity. Out of these eight projects, the closeness coefficient of the most complex project is found to be 0.817 and that of the least complex project is found to be 0.274. Finally, study outcomes are concluded in the conclusion section, along with study limitations and future works.

The outcomes from this research may not be generalized sufficiently due to the subjectivity of the interviewers. The study outcomes support project managers to optimize their project selection processes, especially to select complex projects. The presented methodology can be used extensively used by the project planners/managers to find the driving factors related to project complexity.

The presented study deliberately explained how complex projects in an organization could be select efficiently. This selection methodology supports top management to maintain their proposed projects with optimum resource allocations and maximum productivity.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the adverse incentives at the front end of government-funded projects with concentrated benefits and no liabilities for the privileged groups. In particular, the author discusses the risk of perverse incentives of the types typically found in the development aid sector that results in counterproductive outcomes.

The paper uses a simple conceptual framework based on agency theory. A qualitative, case-based approach with purposive sampling was chosen for the empirical part of the study. Eight Norwegian projects were selected because incentive problems were to be expected, and one development aid project served as a reference case.

The paper finds that low strategic project success corresponded well with the terms of financing. There were clear indications of agency problems, in three cases to the extent that the incentives turned perverse. The paper concludes with a discussion of relevant measures to prevent the emergence of perverse incentives.

The paper contributes to an improved understanding of the incentives related to public project initiation and selection, which is an under-researched topic and generally not included in formal project governance schemes. The research should therefore be useful to scholars as well as practitioners within the field of project governance.

The aim of the study is to explore how the different combinations of traditional and agile project management (APM) enhance project success under different levels of teamwork quality.

The study used system approach, using cluster analysis, to examine the relationships between project success and traditional project management (TPM) and APM under different levels of teamwork quality. A cluster analysis approach provides a method to examine how the entire range of variables combine to improve project success.

The results of the study revealed three profiles of project managers’ differences in teamwork quality and type of project management used: pure agile, TPM leaning hybrid and APM (APM) leaning hybrid. The results found evidence that TPM leaning hybrid received the highest score in project success.

Organizations should develop teamwork skills to learn to use both TPM and APM so that specific risks presented by one approach use are compensated by the use of other. Finally, organizations should have good TPM practices before planning to implement agile practices.

The findings of this study suggest that TPM with high teamwork quality supported by APM can enhance project success. APM supported by TPM contributes to improved project success.