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Previous research on clients’ procurement typically focuses on their procurement strategies. Research on local sustainability governance has, however, revealed that municipalities also govern construction projects through land allocations. This paper aims to explore how housing developers are governed by municipal land allocations and the implications. The purpose is to problematize the governance of sustainability during the early phases of construction projects.

A case study on an urban development project in Sweden was conducted. Empirical material consists of interviews with housing developers’ project managers, observations from seminars and meetings between the developers and municipality officials and the municipality’s policy for land allocations and sustainability program. This was analyzed using Bulkeley and Kern’s (2006) typology of modes of governing change at the local level as a framework.

The results provide examples where the municipality governs the housing developers by authority, enabling and provision. The implications for the housing developers during the early phases of their construction projects are explored.

Findings have implications for research on clients’ procurement strategies because it illustrates how they can be governed during the early phases of certain construction projects, which might limit their flexibility during procurement. However, the study is only based on housing projects in one urban development project governed by one municipality.

Findings provide support for clients when designing their procurement strategies.

This paper contributes to the understanding of how sustainability is governed in construction projects and the implications for housing developers’ flexibility.

The study aims to investigate the concept of strategy-as-practice in construction management literature has been investigated. The focus is on the link between strategizing practices and project management.

An exploratory literature review is carried out based on fifteen journal articles on strategizing practices in the construction industry.

The analysis shows how strategy-as-practice questions and contradicts project management practices as depicted in the dominant deterministic perspective. Strategy-as-practice has a focus on reacting and adapting to a chaotic and changing environment, while project management is concerned with creating and maintaining a stable working environment. The findings point to the necessity of considering the organizational and institutional context of project management practices, and hence the values the strategy-as-practice lens, when considering new avenues for improving the industry.

As the study is based on an exploratory literature review of only 15 articles, generalizations should be made with caution. The identified literature is restricted by search words and choice of database.

The differences between strategizing and project management practices are very clear, and a focus on both may offer insights into how the construction industry could improve its productivity by developing more robust management practices.

The paper illustrates the benefit of applying a strategizing perspective, which hitherto has been under-investigated in construction management research.

Identify what kind of research we need to reach extraordinary performance in value chains in construction projects.

Theory and qualitative case study (document study and interviews in the Bispevika project).

To change the collaborative game and transform the construction industry, there is a need for research on projects with extraordinary ambitions. The research needs to bridge from strategic level down into specific details in operations. We need contributions that do not follow the general tendency to limit perspectives and focus small, isolated questions. Research must be designed in a multidisciplinary fashion that includes aspects on all levels from individuals to across organisations in the project and even the industry itself. Research also needs to define a new “business model”. If not, research can become irrelevant rather than being a relevant partner producing knowledge and insights in the transformation of the construction industry.

For researchers, this result indicates that there is a need for more complex, interdisciplinary research to be able to cover both the strategic and fundamental levels.

The Bispevika project shows that both strategic direction and fundamental issues need attention and practical action.

The research raises important aspects of a research agenda for the industry. This paper argues how research can contribute with relevant insights and will help define a more ambitious research agenda where the construction industries’ challenges can become the catalyst for also transforming future research design.

The aim of this research is to increase the understanding of how strategic and long-term innovation efforts can be organised, operated and co-created within a project-based organisational setting.

A case study with a qualitative approach was chosen, showing a critical case with powerful examples rather than representative samples, to draw conclusions from. The analysis builds on the concept of absorptive capacity, which provides a multidimensional perspective on innovation activities in organisations.

The difficulties in orchestrating an interplay between innovation processes and the construction process in itself is presented. The study identifies effects from introducing new “innovation roles” as well as comprehending implications of collaborative contract forms for innovation.

Based on a single case study, and being an in-depth empirical study, a rich description of innovation processes is provided which contributes to generalisation on processes rather than outcomes. The use of the absorptive capacity construct also contributes to a theoretically informed research on innovation in construction.

The study provides valuable insights regarding how to conduct collaborative innovation in within the frame of construction projects.

The study of a novel organisational setup, where multiple innovation processes is integrated in a construction project with a partnering contract, provides an understanding on how a construction client can manage the interplay between innovation processes and the construction process in itself. Furthermore, flows of knowledge and effects from introducing new innovation roles are unfolded.

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.

This chapter insists that local cocreation projects need not only good intentions and the hard work of volunteers but also require funding and financing of the design and implementation of new solutions. It draws a conceptual distinction between funding and financing and explains who may help to provide funding and financing and why they may do so. As a part of this discussion, attention is drawn to the importance of writing good and persuasive funding applications and drawing up a strong and convincing business case to secure financing of new solutions. The new and emerging strategy for mobilizing private capital to help finance SDG projects is explained and illustrated, before closing the chapter with a discussion of the need to develop a proper system for fiscal accounting and auditing, which can prevent mismanagement and misconduct that eventually undermine popular support for local SDG projects.

This research subscribes to the on-going process school of construction project briefing. Stakeholders underrepresented in the literature are engaged with by focussing on Formula 1 motor racing circuits. Attention is given to the rationales through which stakeholders define construction projects at such venues. The aim of this paper is to understand the realities experienced by stakeholders and how these resonate with the rhetoric of briefing literatures.

A single case-based research approach, encouraged for studying informality and emergence, was used to study a heritage oriented construction project at Silverstone Formula 1 Circuit, UK. Data included field-notes, interviews and strategy documents. Stakeholder interests cannot be directly accessed; however, language used when defining projects can be. Analysis focussed on how project rationales drawn directly from data could be grouped into interpretative repertoires. These repertoires are linguistic resources, drawn upon by stakeholders, formed partly from sets of rationales oriented around a common interest.

The priorities given to competing rationales are found to fluctuate through time and depending on audience. Project advocates mobilise these conflicting rationales, from different repertoires, to different audiences simultaneously when strategically defining the heritage project. Discursive definitions emerged during analysis through studying both formal and informal briefing practices.

Conflict among stakeholders with competing agendas during briefing is widely recognised however references to discursivity are currently scant.

Coping with discursivity during briefing poses significant challenges for construction professionals.

By interpreting strategic briefing as an on-going and discursive process of project definition, researchers and practitioners can better empathise with realities experienced by stakeholders.

The purpose of the paper is 1) to address the importance of contingency at the right level when defining project control baseline, including cost reserves / “room to manoeuvre” and 2) present proactive uncertainty management as a regime to ensure cost effective management of project reserves and contribute to project success.

The paper is a combination of literature study and quantitative research on how contingency develops during the lifetime of a case project. The investigation into the case project includes document study into quantitative material from the case project. The combination of empirical material and theory makes the discussion robust.

Unrealistic low cost uncertainty will lead to unrealistic low contingency. The case study from a Norwegian mega project shows a contingency of 15 per cent in addition to expected costs. The case study shows that by continuous opportunity management and risk reduction, the needs for management reserves are systematically reduced and the contingency is controlled.

This research is limited to one case study. A higher number of cases are necessary to generalise the findings. However, the authors would claim that the systematic mapping of need for management reserve towards the project contingency, and a continuous uncertainty management system will help to obtain cost effective management. The findings from the case study could be applied on similar cases.

The case study shows a way of setting contingencies and managing contingencies through systematic uncertainty management.

Improved management of project provisions will increase the value of future projects.

This paper aims to examine how a partnering contract facilitates project values and the culture in a construction project and the consequences of said facilitation. Hence, it answers the following research questions: 1) How does the contractual framework in Bispevika facilitate relational culture? 2) What effects of this facilitation can be identified in the early phase of development?

An explorative approach is taken into a single case. A literature study into the topics of relational contracting and culture provides a backdrop for the study. The empirical work consists of a study of the construction contracts and six in-depth interviews with actors from the supply-chain.

Contractual elements affect the project organizations’ motivation. On the basis of existing literature, five contractual elements are identified explicitly in the contracts: “shared goals”, “incentives and bonus”, “open book”, “colocation”, and “design-build”.

The data collection is restricted to a single point in time in a single project. Further research is necessary both at a later stage in the same case and in similar projects.

The paper identifies the effects that proper use of contractual elements has on the relational culture in a construction project and is, therefore, important for subsequent research within the area.

In addition to identifying the existing contractual elements, the interviews also revealed two additional practices that might be useful for subsequent research: “involvement of executive management” and “subsequent contracts dependent on previous project performance”.

This paper aims to report on a new form of project insurance in the UK construction designed to improve collaborative working among project participants. It aims to examine the interprofessional collaborative endeavour under the new insurance arrangements, drawing on a structuration model of interdisciplinary collaboration developed in the field of healthcare studies.

The research employed a longitudinal, action research approach with participant observation. A novel element included a project facilitator as part of the action research team. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected using semi-structured interviews with close scrutiny of the documented project record.

Project structure emerges as a more important element in the collaboration process than is typically recognised in practice-based studies; the analysis revealing the interplay of structure, the socialising processes of participants and how facilitation helps develop interdependence among project participants. The analysis provides a basis for understanding collaboration on the trial project.

The project provides a unique context for the examination of collaboration under the new project insurance arrangements. The results have implications for the study of collaboration in highlighting the important relationship between project structure, collaboration and facilitation.

Understanding how interdependency is developed through structure, the socialising processes of collaborators and facilitation has important implications for those concerned with designing project arrangements and managing collaborative processes.

The paper reports on the first full trial of new project insurance arrangements in the UK. It highlights the significance of project structure, and the interplay between collaborators’ emerging practices and facilitation.