Studies of projects, project-based organisations and project organising have reached a pivotal juncture, marked by an increasing need to innovate methodologically. Project research has traditionally been dominated by survey-based quantitative approaches aimed at measuring variables and identifying statistical patterns across large samples. While these methods have advanced the foundational body of knowledge in project management, they are increasingly critiqued for their limitations in accessing the depth and complexity of lived project experiences (Green and Sergeeva, 2019). Early survey instruments often relied on close-ended, pre-categorised items, factor-based approaches, offering minimal scope for respondents to elaborate on meanings or experiences (Lupton, 1993). As project contexts become more complex, dynamic, and socially embedded, this limitation has stimulated a methodological turn in project studies towards more qualitative, interpretive, and context-sensitive research approaches. There is a need for more and novel methods which could capture the diversity in projects and the different platforms that project stakeholders are active in. This Special Issue of Project Leadership and Society brings to the forefront the importance of novel research methodologies, methods, and data that can advance our understanding of projects and project organising in contemporary society. The objective is not merely to diversify the tools available to researchers but to reimagine how knowledge is produced in a field that is inherently interdisciplinary, practice-oriented, and deeply embedded in real-world challenges (Pink et al., 2010). The special collection of papers responds to long-standing calls for more reflexive, engaged, and multi-modal research practices in the social sciences (Pierce, 2008; Arino et al., 2016). [...]

In recent years, municipalities have been recognised for their crucial role in protecting cities from climate change impacts by adopting mitigative and adaptive strategies to enhance climate resilience. However, anchoring these strategies demands multiple interventions, which are often hindered by the current siloed organization of departments and disciplines. An integrated infrastructure design approach (IIDA) can co-create a process that converges sectors, disciplines, and actors’ interests to tackle this challenge. To this end, this research explores how municipalities can effectively implement IIDA to enhance climate-resilient infrastructures. The city of Rotterdam served as a case study involving a thematic analysis of 21 interviews with internal actors of the municipality. This study identified 19 key factors influencing a municipality’s effectiveness in using an integrated design approach to enhance climate resilience. These influential factors belong to six different dimensions: Human Capacity, Organisational Culture, Governance, Communication, Project Development Process and Finance. The findings suggest that it is essential that actors within municipalities have soft skills such as proactivity and open-mindedness for collaboration. Furthermore, it is necessary to foster an innovative and collaborative culture to enable the development of pilot projects. This, in turn, helps update standards and scale up implementation by aligning integration at the three management levels: strategic, program, and project. Based on the findings, we recommend establishing a multi-dimensional baseline, setting up a communication strategy and tools, build human and institutional capacity through pilots and living labs. This can help municipalities implement an integrated infrastructure design in their organisation, offering a promising future in designing climate-resilient infrastructures.

Community engagement is pivotal for the success of infrastructure megaprojects, especially in the operations phase, where the community evaluates whether to use the service or boycott it. There is a need to understand what actions projects take for the cultural embedding of the project with stakeholders and how the community expresses their experiences in the modern era through social media. To bridge this gap, this study delves into social media exchanges during the operational phase of four metro rail projects in India—Chennai, Hyderabad, Kochi, and Nagpur—to understand their commonalities and inform future endeavors. The community in all four megaprojects accepted the focus on sustainability, cultural embedding, and inclusivity. The research underscores how attentively listening to the community via social media channels can facilitate the development of more effective megaprojects and generate greater societal value.

Infrastructure projects are undertaken as public–private partnership (PPP) projects to increase the capacity for delivering multiple projects and to bring in the expertise of the private sector. There is a need to investigate whether the community perception of an infrastructure project delivered in PPP mode differs from a similar project delivered in non-PPP mode. To address this gap, we contrast the social media exchanges of the Hyderabad and the Kochi metro rail project in India. The community in both megaprojects was concerned about accidents, parking charges, and operational issues and accepted the focus on sustainability and inclusivity. Public perceptions on social media showed that the PPP project attracted more targeted criticism – particularly concerning fare structures and operational issues – often directed specifically at the private partner rather than the government. The research shows how listening to the community through social media can help structure better PPP and non-PPP megaprojects and create more societal impact.

Enhancing sustainability in construction is a challenging endeavour, as it requires close collaboration among multiple stakeholders within a turbulent environment. This challenge is further complicated by the existing power dynamics among these stakeholders. This study aims to explore the implications of stakeholder power dynamics for solutions designed to enhance construction sustainability. Through a review of peer-reviewed journals and conference literature, followed by thematic analysis of qualitative data, we found that stakeholder power dynamics substantially influence both the implementation and post-implementation phases of interventions intended to promote sustainability within construction projects. Additionally, the introduction of these initiatives often alters the dynamics of power within project networks, necessitating continuous monitoring and analysis of the power relationships among the stakeholders. Therefore, while it is crucial to assess how stakeholder power dynamics can inhibit or facilitate the implementation, it is equally important to understand how these power relationships will be affected post-implementation and how the new dynamics may impact the long-term sustainability of the solutions. Consequently, we identify stakeholder power dynamics as a key to sustainably win the sustainability game in construction.

Migration is a defining feature of today’s world, shaping economies, cultures, and communities. In sectors such as construction renovation and textile repair, migrant workers contribute to sustainability practices, providing jobs that in the destination countries, citizens do not want or, more often, are not able to do. Yet, despite their contributions, migrant workers often face barriers to integration and recognition as skilled professionals. Depending on the context, migrants’ skills can be exploited/underpaid, scorned, underestimated, neglected but also recognized and valued.

Large infrastructure projects can often cause disruptions with those outside the immediate project area experiencing negative effects. Twitter (now X) and its ensuing online firestorms are ways these project community make themselves heard and influence the project and its societal outcome. Using the case study of the High Speed Two large infrastructure project in the U.K., this article retrieves over 950 000 tweets regarding the project from 2013 to 2019, and using dynamic topic modeling classifies 10 instances of online firestorms over this period covering environmental impacts, legislative dynamics, budget of the project, performance of the project, etc. We then theorize how online firestorms are practiced in large infrastructure projects, discussing the different topics considered in them, their sociomateriality, their difficulty in sustaining, how they can be recreated with similar new issues, how it is used as a persuasive tool, how they can change the project, and how they can be used for risk management. The findings help project managers by enabling them to understand social risks in projects and take proactive steps in addressing them.

Innovative projects, such as those for flood protection in developing countries, are urgent, stakeholder intense, and need to be carried out even in contexts where sufficient governance frameworks are not in place. This research seeks to understand how innovative projects can be implemented in weak institutional contexts by focusing on managing stakeholders in the single in-depth case study of the implementation of the SLAMDAM innovative project in the Isiolo County in Kenya. Following the analysis of 12 semi-structured interviews with 27 different stakeholders and 7 observations of stakeholder interactions, we answer the following questions: 1) what are the challenges during implementation of the innovation projects in weak-institutional contexts? 2) how are these challenges addressed through strategies? 3) how can we theorize the relationship between challenges and strategies in weak institutional contexts? The challenges include community resistance, information fragmentation, disjoined efforts, and governance inefficiency. Theoretically, we highlight how ad-hoc workarounds are operationalized in weak-institutional contexts and how they can lead to lasting changes by building governance frameworks in the long term. Practically, this research offer valuable guidance for practitioners involved in innovative projects, particularly in developing countries with weak institutional frameworks.

In this article, we discuss the concept of safetywashing defined as the strategic practice of promoting, marketing, and branding of safety practices without full disclosure of negative information to improve the image of the organization. The research seeks to answer two questions: first, what are safetywashing strategies? Second, what are the effects of safetywashing strategies? To study this, 106 news articles relating to construction safety in India, as well as 439 reader comments on them, were systematically collected and their contents analyzed to compile multiple case studies which had evidence of safetywashing. We analyze multiple instances from these case studies to build theoretical insight into these strategies and their effects, using an approach anchored in a social exchange theoretical framework. We highlight different safetywashing strategies employed in the construction sector, such as safety as a project objective, explaining safety initiatives, associating with pioneers, as well as investing in safety. These strategies lead to accepting of organizations, prioritizing safety, and diverting focus, all of which have different implications for safety practice in the construction industry.

Infrastructure projects undergo multiple changes throughout their lifecycle, adapting to new mobilities, technologies and environments. We build on the System of Systems (SoS) theoretical concept to understand the implications of such infrastructure transformations, specifically when projects move from a single purpose to hosting multiple functions. Using multiple case studies in Europe, we investigate which functions will likely be added to the original infrastructure and the rationale for adding these functions. Therefore, we expand upon the theoretical concepts of circularity, resilience, and social sustainability, wherein multifunctional infrastructure adapts, renews, and complements existing infrastructure.

In this article, co-authors Johan Ninan, Stewart Clegg, Ashwin Mahalingam, and Shankar Sankaran reflect on their research interests and the inspiration behind their recent article, “Governance Through Trust: Community Engagement in an Australian City Rebuilding Precinct,” found in the Project Management Journal.

As cities evolve, navigating the complex interplay between social and technical elements is crucial for achieving sustainable urban development. This paper uses a case-study approach and applies actor-network theory (ANT) to understand the sociotechnical complexities of urban transformation, with a specific focus on transport projects at the municipal level. ANT serves as a qualitative analytical framework to investigate the successful restoration of Catharijnesingel in Utrecht. Interviews with ten field experts have provided valuable insights into the transformation process, revealing the underlying paradigms at play. Specifically, this study used Michel Callon’s (1984) concept of translation to analyze how agency is enacted in decision-making processes. By focusing this research on actornetworks related to the theme of sustainable transport, the study has identified five transformation mechanisms involved in removing the 20th-century city highway and restoring the original canal, offering valuable lessons for similar projects in various contexts. This study contributes to the existing ANT literature by presenting a robust framework for analyzing actor-networks in transport infrastructure transformation projects, thereby opening new avenues for future research and practical applications in urban planning.

The objective of this research study was to investigate the role of narratives in shaping multiple innovations in the UK construction industry. A total of 133 innovation stories published in a year are compiled from a digital portal Infrastructure Industry Innovation Partnership (i3P). The stories are qualitatively analyzed using open coding, axial coding, and constant comparisons to understand their motivations. The resulting framework explains how narrative shapes innovation across health, safety, sustainability, and productivity. The use of online research methods has increased in the modern era with the internet becoming more interactive and ubiquitous. However, there is still limited knowledge on how to handle these large amounts of digital data. In this case study, we provide some practical steps to improve data collection, analysis and presentation of online data. All innovations for a year were collected to get a representative sample without excluding any to reduce the researcher bias of exclusion. During presentation of findings, steps were undertaken to guard the privacy of respondents.

Infrastructure megaprojects have long been a subject of debate in relation to sustainability. These massive undertakings often result in inefficiencies during project delivery, affect local communities, and contribute to carbon emissions throughout their lifecycle (Söderlund, Sankaran & Biesenthal, 2017). However, there is room for these projects to better integrate into society and create more value for society (Ninan et al., 2023). As Johan Ninan argues in this blog, taking the Port of Rotterdam as example, infrastructure megaprojects can also serve as catalysts for sustainability by actively contributing to the achievement of multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The mobilization of narratives is essential in integrating people and constructing identities that help in navigating complexity, uncertainty, and conflictuality. This paper explores how comparisons are used as a discursive tool to shape narratives and bring about changes in policy and society, using the High Speed Two megaproject in the UK as a case study. We examine the comparisons that promoters and protesters employ in an organizational setting. In particular, we explore how the narratives that result from these comparisons—on questions including the need for the megaproject, the benefits of the megaproject, alternatives to the megaproject, and issues of noise, sustainability, compensation, and branding—help their efforts to organize. The research highlights how comparisons serve as an important cue in discourse and how different forms of comparison can help to create narratives and shape policy outcomes.

This chapter considers the central role of uncertainty for cognition and action in construction project organising with a focus on how project practitioners think about the future. It takes a cognitive approach to uncertainty in the context of a broader information processing approach to decision-making in organisations. The chapter’s main concern is the failure of this approach to connect cognition through to action. The chapter presents the UnCoCoH (Un-Certain Complex Complicated Hidden) model as a tool to assist in recognising the transition from individual cognition to collective action. It also highlights the role of narratives for stabilising uncertainty through this transition. This provides a foundation for working towards the development of a projectivity perspective in construction project organising and advancing a research agenda for this program of research.

Projects are peopled at all levels, and people make sense of their lives via narrative thought as the temporal and dramatic dimension of human existence is emphasized in them. Narratives organize people’s lived experiences and create order out of random incidents and events. Such an order can help them understand the passage of events and even guide action. Narratives such as the need for the project, sustainability of the project, innovation in the project can be crafted and maintained in different ways. In this chapter we discuss how different organizational theories such as sensemaking, social identity theory, and organizational power can help understand the narrative practices in project settings. We review studies in project settings that apply narratives to shape the project vision, identity, and image to improve the project management practice.