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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.

Water is a critical and contentious resource in California, hence any changes in reservoir management requires coordination among many basin stakeholders. The Forecast-Informed Reservoir Operations (FIRO) pilot project at Lake Mendocino, California explored the viability of using weather forecasts to alter the operations of a United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) reservoir. The pilot project demonstrated FIRO's ability to improve water supply reliability, but also revealed the key role of a collaborative Steering Committee. Because Lake Mendocino's Viability Assessment did not explore the features of the Steering Committee, this study aims to examine the relationships and interactions between Steering Committee members that supported FIRO's implementation at Lake Mendocino.

The project identified 17 key project participants who spoke at a FIRO workshop or emerged through chain-referrals. Using semi-structured interviews with these participants, the project examined the dynamics of human interactions that enabled the successful multi-institutional and multi-criteria innovation as analyzed through text-coding.

The results reveal the importance for FIRO Steering Committee members to understand the limitations and constraints of stakeholder counterparts at other organizations, the importance of building and safeguarding relationships, and the role of trust and belonging between members. The lessons learned suggest several interventions to support successful group collaboration dynamics for future FIRO projects.

This study identifies features of the Steering Committee that contributed to FIRO's success by supporting collaborative negotiations of infrastructure operations within a multi-institutional and multi-criteria context.

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 study aims to explore the set of corporate social responsibility (CSR) committee attributes that may enhance CSR performance and CSR strategy formation and reduce CSR controversies.[AQ1] Towards this end, the study also explores the differences between companies with and without CSR committees in terms of these three CSR performance facets.

The study uses a sample of financial times stock exchange (FTSE) 100 non-financial companies in 2015–2017. Kruskal-Wallis test is conducted to test the differences in CSR performance in firms with CSR board-level committee, CSR management committee and no committees. Additionally, a regression model is used to explore the attributes of CSR committees that lead to better/less CSR performance and CSR strategy/CSR controversies. A two-stage least squares regression model was used as a robustness check.

Firms with board CSR committee have better CSR performance and CSR strategy and lower CSR controversies than both firms with no CSR committees and firms with a CSR management committee. Regression results show that CSR committees that are predominantly consisting of independent board members, chaired by a female director and setting more meetings have better CSR performance. Additionally, CSR committees were found to have lower CSR controversies when having more independent directors and a chair with CSR expertise. CSR strategy was better with the CSR committee represented by a larger group of members.

This study makes several contributions to the sustainability governance literature and regulatory/guidance interfaces. There is extant literature examining audit committee attributes and their effects on various firm outcomes. The same can be said on the regulations of the audit committee. CSR committees’ composition and benefits are, by far, less regulated and largely under-researched. Hence, this paper is considered an early attempt to explore the CSR performance improvements a CSR committee may bring and the composition that would bring better CSR performance.

States that, in literature, hardly any practical methods, including both methodological and organizational aspects of implementing statistical process control (SPC), are described. Presents a method including both aspects. The methodological part consists of a ten‐step method used by multi‐disciplinary teams. The organizational part includes four phases and an organization structure to implement SPC. The method was applied successfully in various organizations. Discusses the experiences and underlying goals of the framework to enhance its applicability in various situations. Finally, attention is given to the use of SPC to set the stage for total quality management.

This is a preliminary report about experimentation with new forms of cooperation in seven firms within the Danish metal industry.