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The purpose of this paper is to explore the conceptualisation of the Smart Sustainable City (SSC) with new concepts of resilience thinking in relation to urgent societal challenges facing the built environment. The paper aims to identify novel methodologies for smart reuse of heritage sites with a pluralist past as integral to inclusive urban development.

SSC concepts in the global literature are studied to define a new reference framework for integrated urban planning strategies in which cultural resilience and co-creation matter. This framework, augmented by UNESCO’s holistic recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL), was tested in two investigative projects: the historic centre of South Africa’s capital Tshwane and the proximate former Westfort leprosy colony.

The research confirms that SSC concepts need enlargement to become more inclusive in acknowledging “cultural diversity” of communities and engaging “chrono-diversity” of extant fabric. A paradigm shift in the discourse on integrated urban (re)development and adaptive reuse of built heritage is identified, influenced by resilience and sustainability thinking. Both projects show that different architectural intervention strategies are required to modulate built fabric and its emergent qualities and to unlock embedded cultural energy.

Together with a critical review of SSC concepts and the HUL in relation to urban (re)development, this paper provides innovative methodologies on creative adaptation of urban heritage, reconciling “hard” and “soft” issues, tested in the highly resilient systems of Tshwane.

This editorial aims to introduce the special issue on leadership in projects and to highlight salient points from the background literature in this in order to place the articles contained in this special issue in context.

A summary of key findings from the literature relating to leadership in projects is provided highlighting limitations with previous research and challenges for research in this area.

Much of the literature relating to leadership in projects has adopted primarily a style perspective of leadership and the results from a number of studies show a number of inconsistencies. Generally many of the findings are additive and an overall theory of leadership in projects has yet to emerge. Findings from the review of previous studies suggest the need to examine far more mediator and moderator variables in future research using a style perspective given the variable contexts affecting project and leadership effectiveness. In addition, alternative perspectives on the nature of leadership may better accommodate the increasing environments of complexity in which projects find themselves. The contributions of each of the four papers in relation to this agenda are highlighted.

To date there have been few attempts to offer a synthesis of findings from empirical studies that have explored leadership in projects. In addition to offering a context in which to place the contribution of each of the articles that follow in this special issue, the editorial provides a summary of major findings from previous research to help inform current theorising and debates in this field.

This paper aims to advance understanding of the conditions under which shared leadership would contribute to successful outcomes in projects and factors associated with its development.

This is a conceptual paper that draws on existing research on shared leadership in teams and the literature on the characteristics of soft projects, to put forward a number of testable propositions to form the basis of future research in this area.

The assumptions underpinning style perspectives of leadership and their usefulness for projects are called into question given the ambiguity and complexity with which the majority of projects now have to contend. Instead, shared project leadership is suggested to be better suited to respond to the dynamic and changing circumstances characteristic of most projects.

Three major areas of research are proposed that focus on external factors enabling shared leadership, internal factors enabling shared leadership, and shared leadership processes. Longitudinal, qualitative studies that capture the contextual variables and conditions that influence shared leadership in projects are suggested to enhance our theoretical understanding of this systems‐level perspective on leadership.

Style leadership perspectives have dominated research on leadership in projects offering a parochial and narrow understanding of the contribution leadership perceived more broadly can make to the effectiveness of projects. The propositions put forward in this paper aim to extend our theoretical understanding of shared leadership specifically within project contexts.

Training needs analysis (TNA) refers to organisations’ data collection activities that underpin decision making, particularly in relation to whether training, can improve performance, who should receive training and training content. There are relatively few models to guide training practitioners, and the models fail to fully capture the range of factors that affect the quality of training decisions. These models are based upon a unitarist and rational view of organisational decision making, ignoring the extent to which the nature of social relationships and dynamics within organisations may influence training‐related decisions. Supporting this proposition, the article presents findings from a case study, suggesting that organisational politics as a result of self‐interest, conflict and power relations, influenced the validity of the data provided by managers and subordinates during a TNA. Presents a framework to assist practitioners in recognising when and how organisational politics may affect TNA, and attempts to map the specific political dimensions that impact on training decisions, to guide future research in the area.

This paper seeks to investigate the potential role of emotional intelligence (EI) abilities within learning in teams. The research focuses on examining how EI abilities are enacted within team contexts and how these are associated with critical reflection and team processes associated with learning.

A phenomenological approach to the investigation of EI abilities was adopted using a diary methodology to capture how EI abilities were enacted over a 14‐week team project by 80 MBA students from a range of international backgrounds. Such an approach is advocated to offer insights into the internal processes by which social action is perceived “in situ”.

The two EI abilities, emotional awareness and emotional management, were found to influence the three critical reflection processes: problem analysis, theorising cause and effect relationships, and action planning, as well as processes associated with team learning including team identification, social engagement, communication and conflict management.

EI may offer insights into how differences in the nature, direction and depth of critical reflection can occur in team learning contexts. Developmental initiatives that aim to improve the emotional abilities of team members may help individuals to better manage the emotional context of learning in teams.

Despite the increasing recognition of the role emotions play in learning, very little is known to date about how differences in the way in which emotional information is processed within social learning contexts can influence critical reflection or other learning processes. The paper fills some of the gaps.

This paper aims to identify whether relationships exist between emotional intelligence (EI) and specific teamwork behaviours that are associated with transition, action and interpersonal team processes using the ability model of EI.

A total of 68 MBA students comprising 13 randomly assigned teams completed a pencil and paper performance‐based test of emotional intelligence. Some 14 weeks later a score reflecting the extent team members engaged in a number of teamwork behaviours consistent with transition, action and interpersonal team processes was obtained from peer ratings.

Emotional intelligence was found to explain direct and unique variance in transition and interpersonal team processes. However, only three individual branches of EI were found to be of any significance, and these differed in each instance.

These findings add to the growing body of literature suggesting emotional intelligence may be an important aspect of individual difference amongst team members that can contribute to team effectiveness. Individuals with differing EI abilities may be particularly important to teams dependent upon the team's activity phase.

The paper shows that blanket assertions regarding the significance of emotional intelligence for team effectiveness are far too simplistic. Differing EI abilities are associated with particular teamwork behaviours, which in turn become important during different phases of team activity. The findings suggest a need for more sophisticated frameworks regarding how EI relates to specific cognitive, verbal and behavioural teamwork activities.

Wonders whether companies actually have employees best interests at heart across physical, mental and spiritual spheres. Posits that most organizations ignore their workforce – not even, in many cases, describing workers as assets! Describes many studies to back up this claim in theis work based on the 2002 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference, in Cardiff, Wales.

The purpose of this paper is to offer insights into how emotions can influence project manager behaviours and decisions specifically within the context of undertaking their roles in relationship management in projects. It shows that the emotional awareness of project managers may be a factor that helps to explain how project managers may arrive at decisions that affect their inter‐personal relationships on projects.

The paper is set within the context of follow‐up interviews conducted with 15 project managers who attended emotional intelligence training that provided in‐depth, rich qualitative data that was collected making use of a critical incident technique, and analysed using a semi‐emergent theme approach.

The data suggest that project managers are consistently subject to emotion generating situations during project management and their emotional awareness plays a part in determining how they potentially respond to the emotional information generated. Emotional awareness was found to be particularly significant in underpinning decisions and behaviours that were likely to affect the subsequent pattern of inter‐personal relationships in projects.

The impact of emotions in projects has received minimal attention in the literature to date. The findings suggest that project managers may respond differently in similar emotion generating circumstances dependent upon their levels of emotional awareness. This would help explain the limitations of a strictly rational and functionalist approach to fully account for effective project management practice.

The purpose of this paper is to put forward a theoretical model grounded in the literature that identifies a number of antecedent conditions associated with network commitment.

Based upon empirical data gathered from formal healthcare networks in the UK, findings are presented that suggest different forms of commitment within networks may have opposite effects on network performance.

This paper argues that commitment may play a significant role specifically associated with determining performance outcomes in networks. In so doing a theoretical model is put forward drawn from the literature to suggest possible antecedent conditions associated with commitment at the inter‐organisational level.

To date few studies have been undertaken to examine the antecedents of commitment within networks. More importantly, the recognition of commitment as a multi‐dimensional construct within networks has yet to have informed understanding of the role commitment may play at the inter‐organisational level.