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This paper aims to provide insights into the role of project management associations for the projectification of society from an institutional theory perspective.

The paper is based on a mixed methods approach. It draws on the research propositions of a recently conducted qualitative study and builds on them by analyzing the empirical data of a quantitative case study.

The results indicate that the projectification of society in Germany is well advanced and continues growing. The economy plays a leading role, which resonates with other sectors of society. The actions of project management associations have only an indirect influence on the projectification of society, which cultural–cognitive institutions are mediating. Both findings are novel compared to the literature.

Taking an overall view of the findings, project management associations gain a better understanding of the projectification process and important guidance on their role.

The results offer all people interested intriguing insights into the contemporary phenomenon of the projectification of society, along with its current state and future evolution.

The application of institutional theory to the projectification of society in the framework of this case study enables an in-depth analysis of the underlying social processes and interactions between the regulative, normative and cultural–cognitive activities of project management associations on the one hand, and institutions on the other hand, at the societal level. This opens up new and promising perspectives for further research.

The universal impact of Large Scale Engineering (LSE) projects is in evidence in diverse aspects of the personal and working lives of citizens around the globe. This does not only include the direct impact of the LSE product or facility but also encompasses the effects on society resulting from new ways of working. These new ways of working have been visualized by the eLSEwise (European Large Scale Engineering Wide Integration Support Effort) project as part of its postulated vision of how LSE construction projects may be delivered in the future, fully utilizing the benefits of emergent information and communication technologies to satisfy the business needs. This paper describes different effects on society resulting from LSE construction products and processes based on the eLSEwise vision and provides recommendations for ensuring that the benefits to society can be achieved.

Corporate social responsibilities (CSRs) with social, economic, and environmental elements become of high demand in the private, public, as well as third-world sectors or so-called non-governmental organizations (NGOs). These sectors have their own identity in carrying out the CSR projects. However, the CSR initiatives to be implemented by the NGOs promised challenges due to the NGOs' identity in justifying human rights that remains dissimilar with corporation or fund provider's identity to maximize the profit with less concern on the humanitarian issues leading to tension for both parties to have CSR project alliances. NGOs face extreme difficulty to raise funds from the private sector due to their ideology in influencing the social movements that might harm society. Also, the fund raised by the NGOs for CSR projects are somehow misused by this party for its own self-interests and leads to an accountability issue. An NGO is seen as a key player in CSR projects but still there is an issue of legitimacy and mistrust amongst stakeholder groups. Underlying to these issues, this study aims to explore the challenges faced by NGOs in regards to the CSR initiatives that have been announced by the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) to be used widely and harmoniously by all sectors of the world and its future directions to successfully implement CSR in its own style of leadership. Therefore, the involvement of NGOs in CSR initiatives can be effectively employed with government intervention on economics development programmes in alleviating poverty which becomes a central issue highlighted in many countries nowadays. Extensive rules and regulations from the government towards NGOs are embedded within the CSR project developments of NGOs and are necessary in reducing the discrepancies in the roles that NGOs play.

The purpose of this paper is to explore, using fine-grained exploratory multi-case studies, organisational learning practices – and associated constraints – impacting the performance of four small- and medium-sized project organisations which deliver energy efficiency projects in South Africa and whose learning practice mixes are of wider significance for the emerging project society in the region.

The unit of analysis is the Energy Efficiency Demand Side Management (EEDSM) programme; a US$104m grant funded the initiative directed at supporting energy efficient retro-fit projects across local municipalities in South Africa. Thematic analysis is undertaken, based on multiple exploratory interviews with project practitioners working for small- and medium-sized EEDSM project organisations.

Recognising the criticality of tacit knowledge as a focus for learning, within unstructured, novel, non-routine and technically specialised learning contexts in particular, the widespread lack of organisational harnessing through linkages to strategy and performance are noted, and advocacy is offered for the development of appropriate learning cultures linked to communities of practice that bring specialists together from across regional project societies.

The socio-political context of the EEDSM programme, although briefly addressed for its organisational cultural implications, was not given detailed consideration in the exploratory interviews. This would have enhanced the idiographic complexity of the findings, while also reducing prospects for distilling generalisable organisational learning improvement opportunities for emerging project societies. However, the study does not seek to provide evidence for specific learning practice effects on performance as this was not something the interviewees felt able to comment on in significant detail.

Learning practice studies for small- and medium-sized project organisations remains sparse, so are studies of business environments within developing countries, in general, or sub-Saharan Africa, in particular. Looking beyond narrow individual project views of performance, the present study’s project society-based business environment is theorised as both constraining and benefiting from the project-learning practices discussed by the respondents.

This article provides a case study that examines the relationship between records management and change management. The study focuses on a three‐year phase of intensive change management in a leading national children's charity, The Children's Society. During this period, records management became a key tool in the change management process, generating positive benefits for all stakeholders. Change causes uncertainty, fluidity and the distortion of organisational structures that can lead to the loss of business records and information. At The Children's Society records management introduced structures and systems into the change process, ensuring the retention of records to meet the needs of good governance, accountability, research and practice learning, and provide children and young people with future access to personal case file records.

This essay summarizes the formation of the concept of “sociality” as it was developed in The Concept of the Social in Uniting the Humanities and Social Sciences. Its thesis is that if the human sciences are to have a representative discipline – in contrast with a field of largely topical studies – that defines human reality in the course of its work, then that discipline must have a concept of its distinctive reality, and the basic fact that the concept describes must be indisputable: that is, it must be irreducible and irrepressible as well as distinctively human. These qualities are satisfied by the formula “each-dependent-on-All,” where each shows itself as “intra-dependence” and, therefore, as “being-in-the-middle” of a “course of activity without immanent beginning and end.” This concept is then applied to theoretical positions presented or hinted at by the other chapters of this volume in order (1) to see how a given theory might differ from what is conventionally taught as sociological theory when the basic fact is systematically taken into account, and (2) to find among the implications of the concept a dialectic of social progress and societal change that is incompatible with received positive ideas of society, e.g., as an entity, system, or totality and compatible with the idea of such an apparent formation as a project in which the manifold (internal) relations of each-dependent-on-All present social progress as the ongoing reality of human reality.

The aim of this article is to give an overview of the development and current state of projectification research. The inquiry was driven by a threefold research question: How has projectification been understood and defined over time, what has the trajectory of the development been and what are the main trends and emerging ideas?

The article is an integrative literature review of research done on the notion of projectification to date. An interdisciplinary, integrative literature review was conducted using Scopus and Web of Science as primary sources of data collection. The full data set consists of 123 journal articles, books, book chapters and conference contributions. With the data set complete, a thematic analysis was conducted.

Among other things, the review outlines the development and scope of projectification research from 1995 until 2021 and discusses four emerging images of projectification: projectification as a managerial approach, projectification as a societal trend, projectification as a human state and projectification as a philosophical issue. These characteristics emphasize some common features of each of the images but also imply that the way projectification is understood changes depending on the paradigmatic perspective taken by the researcher, the time and place in which the observation was made and the level of observation.

The authors have outlined and discussed four images of projectification – projectification as a managerial approach, projectification as a societal trend, projectification as a human state and projectification as a philosophical issue – where each image represents a special take on projectification with some prevalent characteristics. By doing this, the authors provide a systematic categorization of research to date and thus a basis upon which other researchers can build when furthering the understanding of projectification at large.

The purpose of this article is to define a framework for projecting future leading-edge alpha societies based on the principle of requisite variety. Alpha societies are advanced as a platform for creating future forms of work and workforce preparation premised on continuous creativity, invention, design and innovation.

The principle of requisite variety is presented as the basis for a structured schema that incorporates trends and developments in anticipatory behaviors, systems thinking, creativity, design and innovation to produce a strategy for continuous leading-edge learning and performance.

Growing global hypercompetition requires real-time ability to create and deliver world-class ideas and value-adding products and services in the shortest possible timeframes. This challenge requires societies, enterprises and individuals that are capable of continuously expanding and expressing their internal variety and complexity while rapidly decreasing the gaps between learning and doing.

The principle of requisite variety has been well known to cybernetics and systems communities since 1956. However, literature linking the principle of requisite variety to the future of learning and work is not well developed.

This article establishes requisite variety generation as a valuable resource for twenty-first century societies and economies engaged in producing leading-edge outcomes.

The requisite variety framework developed in this article is intended to enhance the ability of leading-edge societies to continuously leapfrog existing educational, social and economic trajectories.

The author defines the future of education and work in terms of enhancing individual, enterprise and societal abilities to absorb, generate and exploit variety, complexity and ambiguity.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how a professional accountants' Institute has projected its changing professional identity through its annual reports. Extensive research has shown that the annual report is one of an organization's most important documents to communicate with stakeholders. The New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants celebrated its centenary year in 2008. It is therefore timely to explore how this influential professional institute has projected its evolving identity to its stakeholders over 100 years of annual reports.

The paper uses a content analysis of archival records. The type of information and the manner of presentation via textual information and visual images in the Institute's annual reports are used to track a changing professional identity.

The analysis did not find any definitive statements of professional identity by the professional accountants' Institute. Early annual reports used a singular visual image to project authenticity. Increasing use ansd complexity of visual images and mission/vision statements projected an identity of expertise, integrity and global relevance, paralleling the impacts of globalization and advances in technology. The last decade of the Institute's annual reports reveals a sophisticated use of visual images and printing to enhance textual information. This marked a dramatic turn in the projection of professional identity whilst retaining the communication of a basic reality and professional traits to its members and stakeholders.

The paper is valuable as few other research studies have investigated the projection of changing professional identities via identity statements and visual imagery in annual reports.