Project Management Journal

In today's high-pressure work environment, project managers are often forced to “do more with less.” We argue that this imperative can lead project managers to engage in either high-performance or abusive supervision behaviors. To understand this process, we develop a model and associated propositions linking a project manager's cognitive appraisal of project-related demands to high-performance work practices versus abusive supervision behaviors—both of which impact three project outcomes: stakeholder relationships, people-related project success factors, and employee well-being. We propose that the choice between high-performance work practices and abusive supervision behaviors is moderated by a project manager's personal resources (psychological capital, emotional intelligence, and dark triad personality).

High reliability organizations claim to be special organizations that have consistently demonstrated safe performance in operating environments, which are simultaneously of high technical complexity, high consequence, and high tempo. This article argues that the literature on high reliability organizing, which emerged through studying day-to-day operations in the nuclear industry, air traffic control industry, and U.S. navy aircraft carriers, might hold important lessons for how the project management community can approach the management of safety-critical projects–projects in which safety is of paramount importance. Its aim is to consider how high reliability organizing might be realized in these safety-critical projects.

Focusing on new product development projects, this study suggests that the effect of a market orientation on innovation performance relationships may differ depending on whether the market orientation is responsive or proactive. This study also argues that process-based and outcome-based rewards moderate the effect. Based on a survey of 186 new product development projects in 122 high-tech firms, this study found that responsive and proactive market orientations have positive influences on incremental innovation performance and radical innovation performance, respectively. In addition, the positive effect of a proactive market orientation on performance is strengthened by process-based rewards, whereas the positive effect of a responsive market orientation on performance is positively moderated by outcome-based rewards. This study provides practical implications and directions for future research.

This article draws on theories from knowledge and project management to develop an understanding of how knowledge sharing is encouraged and hindered in the context of a multifirm network assembled to execute an innovative shipbuilding project. The empirical data are based on a qualitative case study, collected from in-depth face-to-face interviews in China and Norway, with the key people from a ship owner, shipbuilder, and ship technology supplier. The research indicates three interesting findings: First, differences in organizational culture (not national culture) hamper knowledge sharing. Second, a strategic misalignment made knowledge sharing difficult. Third, protecting knowledge by patenting and secrecy barely influenced the knowledge sharing processes. Based on previous research and lessons learned from case study experience, we suggest a framework to analyze challenges and links in project networks.

Although researchers have over the years highlighted the importance of managing and supporting learning in project-based settings, it still seems to be problematic. New project management capabilities are needed, such as systems thinking, which will allow project-based organizations to better cope with learning in the organizations. This article explores how Swedish project-based organizations within an engineering and construction context manage and support learning activities today and discusses, with the support of process management literature, how an “organizational-wide project learning process” could improve the prerequisites for learning in project-based organizations. Our findings from three project-based organizations indicate a lack of a holistic perspective on project learning. A conceptual model is proposed, with the aim of validating and promoting process thinking by introducing, for example, new roles responsible for intra-and inter-project learning, respectively.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) systems are increasingly used in construction projects. Theoretically, these systems provide greater transparency and access to construction project information and, in doing so, should reduce the information asymmetry that commonly arises in construction contracting relationships. This typically occurs when suppliers of products and services opportunistically take advantage of the client due to the imbalance in information. The article therefore explores whether or not the high level of information content offered by BIM and the potential for sharing that information among contracting parties means that the information asymmetry can be alleviated using BIM. In order to investigate this, evidence was collected through three purposively sampled case studies of large principal organizations undertaking projects in Australia—each representing a different type of customer in the supply chain on construction projects. Our findings suggest a gap between the theoretical potential and practical application of BIM to reduce information asymmetry. The study found that, although BIM has the capability to reduce information asymmetry, it has not reached a mature enough stage in the Australian construction industry to clearly confirm that it actually reduces the problem. There is even a degree of evidence that, under certain circumstances, a reverse asymmetry may exist in which a client has the technical knowledge to more successfully analyze the BIM model (relative to the organizations they contract with) and then use the resulting information to their own opportunistic advantage.

This article describes how the management and organization of the South African 2010 FIFA World Cup stadium program shaped the current legacy of an oversupply of overdesigned and underutilized stadiums. The article identifies seven key factors that explain the differences between expected benefits and the actual legacy. Identification of these factors contributes to the increasing academic interest in explaining the poor legacy outcomes of mega-events. In conclusion, we recommend that future host country governments defragment their stadium programs by establishing a World Cup Delivery Authority (WCDA), with responsibility for the leadership and coordination of the stadium program.