Project temporalities: how frogs can become stakeholders
International Journal of Managing Projects in Business
ISSN: 1753-8378
Article publication date: 18 January 2013
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how animals can become stakeholders in interaction with project management technologies and what happens with project temporalities when new and surprising stakeholders become part of a project and a recognized matter of concern to be taken into account.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on a qualitative case study of a project in the building industry. The authors use actor‐network theory (ANT) to analyze the emergence of animal stakeholders, stakes and temporalities.
Findings
The study shows how project temporalities can multiply in interaction with project management technologies and how conventional linear conceptions of project time may be contested with the emergence of new non‐human stakeholders and temporalities.
Research limitations/implications
The study draws on ANT to show how animals can become stakeholders during the project. Other approaches to animal stakeholders may provide other valuable insights.
Practical implications
Rather than taking the linear time conception for granted, the management challenge and practical implication is to re‐conceptualize time by taking heterogeneous temporalities into account. This may require investments in new project management technologies.
Originality/value
This paper adds to the literatures on project temporalities and stakeholder theory by connecting them to the question of non‐human stakeholders and to project management technologies.
Keywords
Citation
Tryggestad, K., Justesen, L. and Mouritsen, J. (2013), "Project temporalities: how frogs can become stakeholders", International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, Vol. 6 No. 1, pp. 69-87. https://doi.org/10.1108/17538371311291035
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2013, Emerald Group Publishing Limited