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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the management challenges related to the transition from the application phase to the delivery phase of the project of being a European Capital of Culture (ECoC).

Case study based on qualitative research interviews with the management team, combined with existing research on ECoC and documents on the Aarhus 2017 project.

The first main finding is that the challenges are caused by the way in which the transition from applicant to designated ECoC includes a change in management, shifting from a project to a programme structure and change in organisation. The second main finding is that stakeholder management in relation to politicians and cultural agents is challenged by a high level of ownership and expectation.

The study focuses on just one case and one phase of the project.

Consequences for the way ECoC are managed and the programme organised could be drawn from this.

The originality of the work is in that it studies this very critical phase in the project’s life-cycle in great detail, and focuses specifically on the management of ECoC.

The fundamental challenge for project management is dealing with people and their feelings. While there has been sporadic attention to the importance of emotions in project work, project management practices tend to neglect the role of emotions and emotional reflexivity. The authors use a symbolic interaction framework to present an in-depth exploration of emotions and emotional reflexivity in projects.

Empirical data was gathered in 19 semi-structured interviews with diverse project managers to assess their experience of emotion (15 male, 4 female, early 20s to late 50s, 3–38 years of expertise). Transcribed interviews were thematically analysed using a sociology of emotions informed, grounded theory, interactional framework.

The data revealed that emotional states are framed by factors specific to project management, including organisational change, project constraints and dealing with stakeholders. Explicitly managing emotions improved team engagement and project performance by acting as a catalyst for engaging in reflective practice and intuitive decision making.

Given the widely held misconceptions of emotion as maladaptive, project management education must focus on empathy in communication and leadership if practitioners are to master valuable soft skills. Techniques for emotional reflection and learning feeling lessons must be incorporated into practice.

The authors contribute to the emerging understanding that emotions matter in project management. The authors demonstrate the centrality of emotions in projects and the substantial impact they have on the wellbeing of practitioners and staff. Emotional reflexivity in practice, which is widely acknowledged yet tends to be ignored, is an essential part of the project manager's toolkit.

The purpose of this paper is to present a cost‐benefit interpretation of academic‐practitioner research by describing and analysing several recent relevant examples of academic‐practitioner research with a focus on doctoral theses carried out at universities and business schools in clusters of research centred in North America, Australia and Europe.

Using case study examples, a value proposition framework for undertaking collaborative research for higher degree level study is developed and presented.

Value proposition benefits from this level of collaborative research can be summarised as enhancing competencies at the individual and organisational level as well as providing participating universities with high‐quality candidates/students and opportunities for industry engagement. The project management (PM) professional bodies can also extend PM knowledge but they need to be prepared to provide active support.

A model for better defining the value proposition of collaborative research from a range of stakeholder perspectives is offered that can be adapted for researchers and industry research sponsors.

Few papers offer a value proposition framework for explaining collaborative research benefits. This paper addresses that need.

This paper aims to look closely at the actuality of project formation to investigate the performance of project shaping – those acts performed by individuals to make that form of “sense” that constitutes a new project, and to propose a framework for mapping the skills of those individuals who are directly involved in shaping projects.

The paper uses a sensemaking approach from illustrative narratives in order to propose a model of how a project outcome is shaped. The analysis is based on thinking that emerged from the Rethinking Project Management Network and other academic communities.

Significant factors in project formation are: the timing of the conversion of work into controlled project form (the control model of projects), the role of factional interests and power structures (tribal power), the alignment of project scope with a need for transformation (transformation and value), the fast production of tangibles such as project mandates that embody the project essentials (enacted reality), and responsiveness to the dynamics of the wider social context (external dynamics – peripety).

It is apparent that the process of project formation, and the shape each project takes, is highly dependent on the actions of key individuals (shapers' volition). There is further scope for expanding the understanding, within the structure of the framework, of the full array of activities performed by individuals in action as “project shapers”.

The framework developed is of immediate value to those individuals who use their skills to mould a project, providing a conceptual basis they can use to learn and extend their skills.

Much of the interest to date in project formation has focused on instrumental managerial practices of governance. This paper focuses on lessons to be learned from the actuality of project formation – the conversion of work in organisations from a muddle of ambiguity and complexity into that particular form of cohesion and accepted “sense” that is a defined project or programme.

The purpose of the paper is to propose a framework for researching the possibilities for project manager identities: the multiple ways there are of being a performer, as a manager, in the world of projects.

The author's line of enquiry was to seek evidence of project manager identity within real‐life stories told by practitioners, the author's perspective being: that identity is produced through action, that action and identity are framed by social narratives, and that identities and the strategies that create and support them are therefore evident in project stories.

Two examples are discussed; they validate the proposed research framework, demonstrating how storytellers use their projects as vehicles for the performance of their personal professional “project manager identity”.

The form of the stories is crucial to what their analysis can reveal about identities. The personal stories (narrating the storyteller's own experience) must be, in essence, complete, told by individuals addressing situations that challenge them.

The primary purpose of this research is to inform personal learning and educational programmes. An enriched understanding of what it means to be a professional in the project world can enhance the awareness of individuals learning to perform roles, and making choices in this field.

The analysis of stories has been used previously as a research methodology to critique projects and power structures. This paper makes proposals to extend the use of such analysis into the realm of personal identity and its construction.

This paper reports on an action research study based optimization project related to healthcare IT implemented on the Faroe Islands. The aims were to study what constitutes value in the public healthcare setting by applying and activating existing resources in the organization, hence answering the overall research question: How can a resource-based view (RBV) improve benefits management (BM) practices?

By applying a RBV to findings from an action research study of an optimization project of an integrated health information system (HIS), a framework of capabilities needed in a public HIS setting to create value was developed.

The theoretical contribution is a framework explaining how BM practices and, hence, value can be interrelated in a public healthcare IT system.

The study shows the need for academic IT professionals to structure and facilitate value generation, especially in the form of creating an innovative and learning environment in the form of an action research based project.

This study suggests which actors should be motivated and developed in order to ensure value in healthcare IT projects. Having value creation in mind, the model could have potentially broad applicability in a variety of healthcare IT settings.

The findings leads to better usage of public healthcare resources.

The present research studies real problems in a real setting, thus providing distinct ideas on how to improve public value creation by direct engagement of researchers.

This paper investigates the framing and redefinition of innovation challenges as an approach to generate creative solutions in the field of project management.

The study applies the Innovation Challenge Canvas (ICC), a new conceptual model that redefines innovation challenges. The research undertakes a review of the literature in the field of project management, followed by seven in-depth interviews with innovation directors to ascertain the professional view. Finally, usefulness of ICC was tested in three case studies.

An innovative approach focusing on redefining a challenge instead of proposing solutions to a problem fosters creative thinking and encourages innovative proposals. This ideation challenges the organization's traditional way of managing innovation projects. The ICC provides a better means by which to manage projects that embody high uncertainty, while helping to generate more innovative solutions.

The review of the literature shows that project management has given little attention to the redefining of innovation challenges. This study aims to fill this gap by orienting and adapting the traditional literature on framing to project management. From a practical point of view, the ICC is proposed as a model that can be used to consider the most relevant elements needed to redefine an innovation challenge and enhance the management of those projects.