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The purpose of this paper is to reflect on some of the fundamental project management (PM) research issues facing PM as a discipline. It aims to pose fundamental questions about where PM research has been heading over the last five decades and how it can remain relevant in supporting the delivery of sustainable value to its clients and key stakeholders.

This is accomplished through reflection on over four decades of experience as a PM researcher and inquisitive observer of PM practice and research trends over that time.

Key findings from this process of retrospection hinges on an argument for appreciating the relevance of theoretically based and empirically grounded PM research that is focused upon project outcomes. Researchers' efforts should be directed towards developing PM practices that help PM practitioners improve their ability to both efficiently deliver projects and effectively optimise benefits; this requires managing the project definition (front‐end development) as well as execution.

As a retrospective research note, this does not specifically scrutinise or promote any specific research approach; rather it traces research themes so that the general flow of five decades of investigation of PM can be broadly appreciated.

The value of this research note lies in its discussion of ontology, epistemology, and methodology together with a useful map of PM research themes over the past 50 years.

The purpose of this paper is to review the content and contributions of the book by Morris and Hough entitled The Anatomy of Major Projects: A Study of the Reality of Project Management. The paper explores the major findings and contributions in the book and by so doing, highlights opportunities for future research and links the findings to emerging areas of interest.

The paper presents the main ideas in the book along with a number of important issues to project management theory and the management of large projects, including success, success factors, and the use of case studies to capture the actuality of project work.

The paper demonstrates that Morris and Hough addressed many of the concerns related to major projects and uncovered the implications of researching the success of projects, offering new insights and understanding related to the dynamics of projects and the temporal nature of success (and failure).

The primary implication is to demonstrate the value of revisiting the classic contributions in project management and re‐reading the findings and conclusions.

The author is especially interested in the ideas presented in the book that relate to success and to major projects, as well as with researching the actuality of projects through case studies. Many of the findings and insights remain relevant and would inform today's debates. Previous research has given limited attention to the insights presented in this book published 25 years ago.

The purpose of this paper is to review Cleland and King's Systems Analysis and Project Management, first published in 1968.

The paper takes the form of a review of the book in its historical context and with relevance to its role in establishing project management as a discipline.

The book is a classic but in retrospect it has some short‐comings. These vary from lack of critique of the material to ignoring several of the issues that research shows (and showed at the time) that managers of projects and programs need to address. Had these been covered, the discipline might have been better articulated academically and professionally (which would have been useful given that the PMBOK Guide^® was being formulated in the early 1980s).

The systems approach that informed the book, and the whole defence‐aerospace program and project world of the second half of the twentieth century, should be critically re‐examined (for example jointly with Geels' transition theory) in terms of its relevancy to the short, medium and long‐terms challenges now confronting society and the contribution that project, program and portfolio management can make to addressing these issues.

The paper shows that Cleland and King's book is immensely important as an early exposition on project management and is quite original.

Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.

Citizens are substantial stakeholders in every e-government system, thus their willingness to use and ability to access the system are critical. Unequal access and information and communication technology usage, which is known as digital divide, however has been identified as one of the major obstacles to the implementation of e-government system. As digital divide inhibits citizen’s acceptance to e-government, it should be overcome despite the lack of deep theoretical understanding on this issue. This research aimed to investigate the digital divide and its direct impact on e-government system success of local governments in Indonesia as well as indirect impact through the mediation role of trust. In order to get a comprehensive understanding of digital divide, this study introduced a new type of digital divide, the innovativeness divide.

The research problems were approached by applying two-stage sequential mixed method research approach comprising of both qualitative and quantitative studies. In the first phase, an initial research model was proposed based on a literature review. Semi-structured interview with 12 users of e-government systems was then conducted to explore and enhance this initial research model. Data collected in this phase were analyzed with a two-stage content analysis approach and the initial model was then amended based on the findings. As a result, a comprehensive research model with 16 hypotheses was proposed for examination in the second phase.

In the second phase, quantitative method was applied. A questionnaire was developed based on findings in the first phase. A pilot study was conducted to refine the questionnaire, which was then distributed in a national survey resulting in 237 useable responses. Data collected in this phase were analyzed using Partial Least Square based Structural Equation Modeling.

The results of quantitative analysis confirmed 13 hypotheses. All direct influences of the variables of digital divide on e-government system success were supported. The mediating effects of trust in e-government in the relationship between capability divide and e-government system success as well as in the relationship between innovativeness divide and e-government system success were supported, but was rejected in the relationship between access divide and e-government system success. Furthermore, the results supported the moderating effects of demographic variables of age, residential place, and education.

This research has both theoretical and practical contributions. The study contributes to the developments of literature on digital divide and e-government by providing a more comprehensive framework, and also to the implementation of e-government by local governments and the improvement of e-government Readiness Index of Indonesia.

This issue is a selected bibliography covering the subject of leadership.