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Trust in how projects are managed is important because leaders have the power to make decisions that impact project outcomes. Steering committees provide strategic direction and governance for projects and they support the project manager. The purpose of this paper is to study how steering committees contribute to governance and trust. More specifically, the aim is to explore, which steering committee features and governance mechanisms are important for building trust.

Empirical data were collected using in-depth interviews. The studied case concerns the Norwegian Navy’s experience with a steering committee in the project of building new frigates.

Findings show that the steering committee had a significant impact on governance and trust in the project. The identified governance mechanisms performed by the steering committee included: control and performance measurement, support, decision-making, relationship management, reporting, resource management, risk management and strategic focus.

Despite the limitations of studying only a single case, the findings may provide general learning, as well as important practical information and experience to managers interested in the role of the project steering committee.

The paper provides key managerial implications that project owners should take into account when organizing a steering committee. The analysis identifies composition, competence, authority, responsibility, commitment and continuity as steering committee features that contribute to building trust. Findings particularly highlight the choice to include external steering committee members to be successful.

This research extends the current understanding of how through different features and governance mechanisms a steering committee can build trust in the management of projects.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the confusion among project management practitioners about the role of steering committees.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with highly experienced participants selected from a range of industries and disciplines in Queensland, Australia.

Six separate confusions on the role of steering committees were identified within that practitioner community. However, despite participants expressing various opposing views, they had actually come to the same working arrangements for their committees; all that was missing was a common conceptualisation of these working arrangements and consistent terminology.

The paper provides clear evidence to the academic literature that confusion over the role of steering committees actually exists within the practitioner community and identifies six separate ways in which this occurs. It also identifies a problematic error in the widely used PRINCE2 governance model. Clarity in committee governance arrangements will facilitate future research endeavours through the removal of confusion surrounding committee labelling and accountability.

A committee decision tree model that guards against all six confusions is proposed for practitioner use, providing a means of avoiding unnecessary internal conflict within organisational governance arrangements. It can be used to check terms of reference of existing or proposed committees, facilitating organisational efficiency and effectiveness. The suggested renaming of project control groups to project coordination groups, and discontinuance of the practice of labelling committees that cannot authorise their decisions as either steering committees or boards, further supports this.

Reconciliation of terminology with actual practice and the consequent clarity of governance arrangements can facilitate building social and physical systems and infrastructure, benefitting organisations, whether public, charitable or private.

Clarity regarding committee accountability can avoid confusion, misunderstanding and their consequent waste of time, resources and money.

To determine if there is confusion in governance terminology amongst experienced management and project management practitioners.

Practitioner interviews and subsequent analysis.

Significant differences in governance terminology were found. The participants had nevertheless arrived at similar operating arrangements for their committees, even though they came from different segments of different industries and did not agree on the definition of governance. It was possible to develop a list of working parameters for operation of these committees from their responses. The labelling of committees associated with governance as steering or decision-making was found to be problematic and various causes/motivations for the differing definitions of governance having arisen were detected. These ranged from altruism, through dogmatic belief in particular frameworks, to enhancing career prospects/ego.

The sample came from organisations and industries in one state in one country. The need for review of governance terminology used in various project management practitioner reference documents and methodologies was identified.

Projects and business alike can potentially achieve improvements in efficiency and effectiveness through consistency of terminology and the clarity this brings to governance arrangements and committee operations.

Creation of a unifying feature within the project and management literature, shifting the understanding of governance and its boundaries and limitations. This will help progress governance from complexity to simplicity, from an art to an understandable practice, from a concept that has been hijacked for partisan and political gain to a lean social tool which can be put to use for the benefit of organisations, whether public, charitable or private.

The value is clarity – resulting in the avoidance of confusion and misunderstanding together with their consequent waste of time, resources and money.

One thing is to get a project organization in place. Another thing is to bring it alive. This is the subject of this chapter. Most project work is teamwork, in the core teams and work groups, and also in the steering committee, reference groups, and focus groups.

Because projects are temporary, it is a challenge quickly to establish effective cooperation in the groups and teams of the project organization, internal as well as external with surrounding organizations. Five elements of cooperation in the project team will be presented, including collaboration, coordination, communication, coalition, and control. Different work patterns will be discussed, and methods for carrying out project work will be presented, e.g., coping with limited rationality and handling project complexity.

A section will deal with work patterns in the steering committee, and a section will discuss cooperation with interested parties (stakeholders). Also, the maturity of the project organization will be treated.

A final section will discuss learning in the project organization.

The purpose of this paper is to address the concept of participatory research (PR) in terms of its values and challenges in project work.

A participative research approach was used in which researchers worked collaboratively with key stakeholders involved in the development of a digital network model for expert diagnostics. The approach involved research and data gathering in six work packages: first, participation at workshops, including the presentation of a preliminary research agenda; second, presentation of a revised research agenda; third, interviews with project managers and steering committee members; fourth, feedback sessions; fifth, participation at a project conference, including additional feedback sessions; and sixth, concluding interviews with project managers.

The findings suggest that PR might strengthen project work through challenging interview questions and clear feedback. PR might empower the project manager by illuminating challenges and possibilities in the project process.

Project managers may use PR as one strategy to empower project work.

Despite the vast research on projects and project management, researchers and practitioners are still looking for ways to advance project work. This paper contributes with knowledge on how PR may advance project work.

A research project which began with specific intentions and ended by doing something entirely different is presented as a case history and evaluative report in Part I of this monograph. The report narrates and comments on the events which led to changes in direction; attempts to identify and explore factors which influenced outcomes, and derived generalisations applicable to other funded research. Part II — a series of guidelines and check‐lists on the conduct of research and the presentation of business reports — is based on Applied Business Research courseware produced by the Faculty of Professional Studies of the International Management Centre from Buckingham.

This paper aims to explore how different motives for implementing activity based‐costing may affect the implementation process. It focuses on the factors that affect different stages of the implementation process.

The paper uses case studies of two different business units of the same company which approached ABC implementation with different motivations. It is informed by administrative theory and institutionalist framework which draws on concepts from both old institutional economics and new institutional sociologists theory.

The paper shows how administrative and institutional factors affect different stages of the ABC implementation process and that the importance of success factors for implementation may depend on the level of implementation stage, and motivation for change. For instance, the quality of information system is very important at the adaptation and infusion stage.

The paper uses case studies that focus on two types of motivation for change. Further research work is needed that would examine other types of motivation for adopting accounting innovation to support the findings.

The empirical evidence results of this study can provide guidelines for companies either planning or implementing ABC.

The theoretical framework developed suggests that administrative theory reveals the practice (action) involved in the implementation, whereas institutional theory reveals the broader (macro) factors which shape the internal (micro) processes of implementation.

Washington's Statewide Virtual Reference (VRS) Project began in 2001, following some early adapters, but also at a time when most libraries and states still were considering the merits, possibilities, and pitfalls of the service. This chapter follows the development and implementation of a virtual reference (VR) service, along with support activities such as training, marketing, and assessment, in several collaborative library alliances across Washington State; describes unexpected opportunities, and plans for future sustainability. It ends with an analysis of experiences, successes, and failures, along with plans for the future based on the many things that were learned.

Health-care systems currently face great challenges, including an increasing elderly population. To respond to this problem, a hospital emergency department, three municipalities, and self-employed general practitioners in Denmark decided to collaborate with the aim of reorganizing treatment of elderly acute ill patients. By establishing a small-scale collaborative community and through an action research process, we show, how to jointly explore and develop a new organization design for in-home hospital treatment that enables the health professionals to collaborate in new ways, and at the same time to investigate and improve this cocreation process and codesign of knowledge among multiple different stakeholders.

The purpose of this research is to study the ad hoc problem of developing capabilities for knowledge transfer between various constituencies of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation project. The paper studies how an ERP project develops ability to network, link, and integrate its various knowledge resources over time.

The paper conducted a case study of an ERP project, from its initiation in 2008 to its completion in 2011.

The case demonstrates the dynamics of development of knowledge transfer capacities through ad hoc problem solving. The paper identifies five mechanisms used in this case for the development of knowledge transfer capacities.

Ad hoc problem solving mechanisms demonstrated in this paper can be intentionally planned and utilized in similar projects to enable interaction, integration, and institutionalization.

Even though ad hoc problem solving as a model for change is prevalent in many organizations, studies of ad hoc problem solving capabilities as a mechanism for change are not extensive. This case describes ad hoc mechanisms that foster change and development of knowledge transfer capacities during large IT project implementations.