Book review: Research handbook on the governance of projects

Citation

Walker, D. (2024), "Book review: Research handbook on the governance of projects", International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, Vol. 17 No. 2, pp. 385-394. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMPB-03-2024-393

Introduction

In their final chapter 36 of the book, the authors point out how the scholarship field of governance and governmentality has seen the scope and range of contributions explode over recent years. They point out that in the 1980s the main questions asked was “what is in the contract?”, in the 1990s organisational processes and structures were studied and since then interest and understanding has embraced links to strategy, psychology, philosophy and other social science perspectives. We have a more holistic view of the practical mechanisms to plan, monitor and steer how projects and programs are delivered. This book draws together a bundle of governance threads into a comprehensive research handbook that helps guide further development and traces a historical path from original governance concepts to current theories and practice.

So, what is the value of a book review potential readers? What is the reviewer’s value proposition in undertaking the task of reading and carefully critiquing a book? These are questions that will be addressed in this paper.

This review is structured as follows. The next section sets the context for scholarly publications and briefly explains the place of conference, journal and book/book chapter contributions because different publication types generally have different purposes. This is followed by an explanation of the value proposition that scholarly contributions present. A brief outline of the book, taken from this book reviewer’s perspective follows and conclusions are drawn.

The scholarly publication context

Before conducting the book review, I felt it important for readers to understand the context of a research handbook and where it fits with other scholarly contributions. One main difference between scholarly contributions is content scope. Generally, we see a hierarchy of value and effort required for readers to read, reflect and extract new insights from different types of scholarly contributions.

Conference papers for example, are often the first versions of a contribution and may be based on incomplete research, literature review, analysis and written composition. The upside is immediacy of unveiling the work’s findings and their originality, the downside is that without all data analysed, results reflected upon and finalised, the contribution remains somewhat tentative. Scope may also be limited by the conference academic board to short papers, three to five thousand words or about 6–10 pages, but other conferences accept papers of 10,000 or more words. A lot depends on the conference guidelines.

When the issue of completing research or improving and expanding conference papers is remedied, through the full peer-reviewed process of research results in an academic/scientific paper, the paper’s contribution may be reasonably considered rigorous and a valuable contribution. Much is gained in the output rigour and content clarity from a peer-review process that often takes two, three or more iterations of review and revision, but this may result in research results may now be at least one year on from the completion of the research. New literature will appear during that time and circumstances will change, perhaps radically, as occurred with implications for research and its communication due to Covid-19. Scholars generally rely on scientific papers such as those appearing in this journal, to make sense of research findings and to explain contextual differences between their research findings and relevant extant literature.

A third valuable source of scholarly content is book publications. In judging scholarly value, we see a continuum between so-called “guru-airport” books and books written and/or edited, by acknowledged scholars. The guru-airport type books often are interesting but contain little or no citations or references supporting claims and assertions made. They are often written by popular authors (including distinguished scholars) but their book’s tone implies that the guru-expert is presenting undisputed facts, that it contains pearls of refined wisdom. In contrast, the edited or wholly written “more academic” book, is often chock-a-block with cited references of research cases, theoretical concepts, contested ideas and explanation of research approaches supporting the work. The content is usually highly credible and reliable. Contributors (chapters or whole books) may often cite their own research publications as well as refer to other relevant authoritative publications. Chapter content may largely summarise previously published findings, however, publishers often constrain books chapter contributors to only about ten pages. Consequently, chapters may be less “valuable” than the scientific papers cited. This is partially true, but often book chapter contributions are written later than their cited references, so the benefit of reflection on changed circumstances or new insights/findings can add new insights about the topic in question. Additionally, when writing peer-reviewed content, authors must often constrain scope and abandon valuable content to get through the review process. Book chapters offer opportunities to rectify that suppression of content. Edited books, such as this one, may also have a purpose of introducing readers to valuable research insights and not necessarily be a conduit for new knowledge contributions. Regular book monographs may fulfil that role.

The value of a book review and its benefits for readers

This book’s context, from the introduction and section preceding Part I, and the short introductions before Part II, III, IV and V and Chapter 36 “A look ahead”, demonstrates a wide scope and scale of research findings and literature on project and program governance. However, chapters are kept short (most are around ten pages) but they effectively use their cited references to support contributors’ assertions and these references provide a valuable pathway to discover more about a chapter’s topic. The value of this book, therefore, as suggested by its title is to be a research handbook, a reference for scholars and practitioners that summarises topic content and provides valuable references to readers for more substantive and authoritative research and practice work being discussed.

As a book (and journal paper) reviewer, I personally gain enormous value from undertaking a review. First, I get to read the publication at its initial publication. This book is 460 pages long, so while that task is daunting, it is also intellectually stimulating. I have written numerous book reviews over the years and I have learnt something new in each case. This enhances my understanding of topics, either by exposing me to new ways of thinking or be alerted to completely new ideas. Mainly, I find the value in following up cited references that provide a richer understanding about cited research. This deeper understanding may be about the research’s context and methodology, the literature review, analysis techniques or detailed findings. Short 10-page chapters lack that depth but provide (and point to) the references where deeper analysis and discussion can be found. This provides a valuable research-assistant type benefit.

Review of this book’s content

First and foremost, this is a research handbook. The above context section explained what most handbooks aim to present. The book’s editorial team have a wide and extensive network of global academic experts in the project management/organising and governance research field. This network of researchers has been active for well over a quarter of a century through regular conferences hosted by International Research Network on Organizing by Projects (IRNOP) established in 1994, the European Academy of Management Project Organizing Special Interest Group and is supported by the Project Management Institute and Association for Project Management. So, the pedigree of book editors and the chapter contributors is assured.

The book is extensive in its scope and scale of content. Contributors include leaders in their field that are well-known and well-respected authorities. This means that they have intimate knowledge of their cited previous research work with far more than content than appears in their publications. These additional insights add context and relevance to a discussion. The book is written clearly with concepts and technical terms explained to enable readers to follow the discussion effectively.

Access to cited references may prove a problem for many practitioners who do not have subscriptions to scientific journals. Buying these can pose barriers to gaining full value from any publication that widely cites the literature. My advice is to use your networks to help you access literature you do not have easy access to. Universities in Australia for example, form a purchasing network to subscribe to many scientific journal publishers, leveraging a substantial discount on individual source subscription or item purchase price. All staff and students at RMIT University for example, have access to tens of thousands of journals, magazines, e-books and magazines. Working from home, a hotel or office space, I can log into my RMIT e-library, download a publication pdf and its citation into my Endnote library. I have 8000 entries, virtually all with attached pdfs. Any practitioner or general reader would almost certainly know, employ or be a colleague of a university student who could have access to an amazing array of university library resources to make papers, etc. available to you.

Book content in part I

The book begins with seven chapters about the theoretical, philosophical and conceptual foundations of project governance (PG) and governmentality.

Chapter 1, by Efrosyni Konstantinou, has its emphasis on human agency and power that can be harnessed. The chapter makes an interesting argument that governance is unable to control but to be effective, it needs to use guiding principles that convince people of its legitimacy and purpose. She states on page 11 that “Only confident consent, based on deep understanding and purpose of the project and how it fits in its context … ” This links to articulation of a project’s purpose. This chapter is important because it sets a humanist as well as practical setting of what PG means. Konstantinou stresses the point that effective PG is not all about control and compliance. Rather it needs to convince people of its legitimacy and purpose to guide and enable people to creatively interpret governance rules and guidelines to achieve the agreed project’s purpose. This presents a shift in emphasis on the nature of effective governance from command and control towards collaboration and empowerment.

Chapter 2, by Ralf Müller, concentrates on the basics of governance, pointing out that it should be designed as project context specific. As such, PG is about the levels and articulation of transparency, accountability, responsibility and fairness at the various organisational levels and natural cultural dispositions. The chapter cites and explains the 13 APM’s principles. This sets the book’s tone, along with Chapter 1.

Chapter 3, by Tuomas Ahola, provides a useful reference source on background assumptions and views on PG found in the past several decades of PG research. His literature review focuses on transaction cost theory (TCE), agency theory (AT), and stewardship theory (ST) as a framework for PG research. Readers, less familiar with this project organising theme, should find this is a welcomed topic primer. Ahola, who has a deep knowledge of the field, provides a clearly and succinctly presented reminder about the three perspectives presented in Table 3.1, and the Discussion and Conclusion sections. His references cite numerous authorities on pages 40–41 worth following up on.

Readers familiar with Müller’s longstanding contribution to this field will find Chapter 4 useful as a brief and current version of much of his PG research that explains how PG design may vary according to the project’s purpose and context (see also Müller, 2017 for a comprehensive discussion). Is governance expected to deliver shareholder benefits through the project output or is it meant to deliver commercial or/and social value? Legitimacy of project purpose and intended benefit should inform the PG design. This chapter provides a brief but eloquent overview of PG through shareholder and stakeholder eyes and explains why and how perspectives differ.

Chapter 5, by Shankar Sankaran, discusses systems thinking as an important PG element in addressing potential unintended consequences. Sankaran draws upon the literature with several relevant case study sources to this book. The Locatelli et al. (2014) cited paper, for example, provides a solid background to systems thinking and systems engineering tools. As Sankaran points out, drawing upon the critical systems heuristics concept, systems thinking prompts PG designers to consider knock-on impacts and interface interactions and how soft system methodology (SSM) helps address thinking through potential stakeholder impact issues. PG designers need to consider project outcome as well as product delivery in designing the PG system.

Chapter 6, by Chmieliauskas et al., posits a theory, on how PG operates at a two-dimensional level. The vertical level (Type 1 Governance) is explained Chapter 3. Type 2 Governance is described as a horizontal (non-hierarchical) structure being facilitated by collaboration, trust and commitment to manage the optimum project outcome while project participants retain agency negotiated action at the task level to fulfil their responsibilities.

Their Northern Europe case study illustrates the functioning of informal and semi-formal task-level network governance on complex projects, where many unexpected issues arise that affect all participants. Often issues are not covered by formal PG mechanisms, so participant-mutual adjustment needs to be organised through favours and various forms of swapped resources. Type 2 PG is theorised as being enabled through informal collaboration “clubs”, and more semi-structured agencies and formal boards.

Chapter 7, by Stewart Clegg and Johan Ninan, in line with previous chapters highlighting the humane and human side of PG, explains the concept of governmentality illustrated by two case study examples of how public and internal stakeholder governmentality through social media influences project perceived success or failure. Cited references provide readers with more detailed further readings to follow up on how governmentality may help engagement with concerned external stakeholders, Pitsis et al. (2003) for example, on an Alliance Australian project and Ninan et al. (2020) on other megaprojects.

Book content in part II

Part II of the book addresses PG through three theoretical lenses. Lens 1 focusses on PG as strategic implementation of value creation through more well-known formal mechanisms. Lens 2 focus on how this is generally implemented and Lens 3 concentrates on megaproject governance.

Lens 1 PG in general

Chapter 8, by Ata Ul Musawir, focusses on the differences between the interface of the governance of projects and PG. Primarily, it argues that differences affect the level of required alignment with the organisation’s (or several organisations working on a project) corporate governance that relate to an organisation’s internal projects in a program, megaproject governance and more integrated programs of projects.

Chapter 9, by Ang et al. briefly discusses important emerging areas of research being undertaken on megaprojects. The recent book by Drouin and Turner (2022) addresses this topic more fully and is cited in this chapter, so interested readers have a solid source of information with which to follow up on. Similarly, the concept of value and benefits is well referenced for readers to delve more deeply into this topic. The chapter makes it clear that most megaprojects (often infrastructure), have a social responsibility and obligation to a broad range of stakeholders who include both directly and indirectly impacted. This perspective is vitally important to governance system designers because it links closely with recent stakeholder theory literature.

Chapter 10, by Lynn Crawford, explores the somewhat neglected research topic of the role and functions of steering committees. The literature, where it exists, tends not to differentiate between how these PG mechanisms are used on single projects, programs or on megaprojects. This chapter addresses that gap and cited references provides readers with further literature references. The chapter also provides insights into the purpose and design of a steering committee’s composition.

Chapter 11, by Monique Aubry, discusses PMOs as important parts of many PG systems. This chapter provides insights taking a governance, governmentality and organisational design theoretical lens. It posits the PMO as a governance integrative device and ends with a brief discussion of the role of a PMO in an agile world, suggesting PMO toolbox elements.

Lens 2 PG implementation

Chapters focussing through a PG implementation lens begin with Chapter 12, by Graham Winch who is a leading authority on this topic. It provides insights into the historical background to outsourcing and competitive contracting. For readers interested in the origins of partnering and alliancing, this chapter provides a brief overview with some useful references to follow up on. It touches on how new contract forms such as NEC4, T5 and alliancing, impacts the problems of gaining fair value and commercial returns that justify investment and taking on the risk of project delivery.

Chapter 13, by Thounaojan et al. follows, briefly discussing PPP normative and sustainability governance in India, mainly about the relationship’s less formal aspects based on an airport project, but the authors also discusses PPP governance in general.

Chapter 14, by Miia Martinsuo, discusses governance through PM methodologies taking a pragmatic approach to explaining the role of PM methodologies (PMMs). She cautions that all too often, less confident project owners either ignore them or adhere to them inflexibly. The chapter stresses that it is important to seriously consider their use, adoption-adaptation, and relevance and this requires reflection and organisational learning to ensure balancing formal approaches to governance using accredited PMMs with ensuring that PMMs are used effectively for the project’s purpose and context.

Chapter 15, by Jeffry Pinto and Kate Davis, discusses PG deviance using clear and persuasive arguments, citing relevant literature. They differentiate deviance from deviation. Deviation can often be a sign or responsiveness and resilience while deviance has sinister governmentality overtones. The authors cite their previous work where interested readers can access more relevant in-depth insights. This chapter provides a very useful adjunct to ethical behaviours as well as about upholding vital safety governance arrangements.

It is encouraging to see in Chapter 16, by Ralf Müller, that findings based on solid research over the past decade discuss ethics and trust PG topics. Müller first lists six project related ethical dimensions and links this to previous work on ethical dilemmas and governance paradigms. This provides a rich view of ethics and PG, supported by highly relevant references.

Chapter 17 by Rodney Turner draws upon his many decades of experience as a researcher, writer, journal editor and collaborative scholar to provide a lot of background literature context and direct insights gained relating to decision making and PG literature. The chapter delivers a valuable source of references for interested readers. It provides a very neat set of tables, bullet points and illustrative case studies to support the chapter’s discussion and conclusions. It comprehensively draws together behaviour and cultural aspects with governance design elements and styles.

Chapter 18 by Alfons van Marrewijk draws readers’ attention to insights and findings from his extensive cultural practice research work, and with PG updates to his body of work, he provides insights to reflect the current context. He also discusses, for example, the role of culture and rituals in megaproject governance. This is an aspect often poorly considered by many project organising academics and practitioners. Mostly, rituals such as project kick-off meetings and milestone celebrations are thought of as a sideline social activity but when we reflect more deeply on those activities we see (with the help of sound literature he refers to) that these are important “tribal” and purposeful mechanisms are genuine governance concerns to be effectively designed in.

Lens 3 megaproject governance

Chapter 19, by Maud Brunet and Sofiane Baba, provides an interesting and valuable contribution. It not only is highly relevant to the PG (and government governance) field but also to stakeholder engagement. It draws upon and cites recent highly relevant Canadian megaprojects literature. Occasionally, megaprojects are forced to be abandoned by failing to take governance and stakeholder engagement steps to ensure the project’s sustainability and viability from an environmental or social perspective. This chapter alerts and informs readers about possible strategies to design governance measures to address that issue.

Chapter 20, by Ole Jonny Klakegg and Gro Horst Volden, is based on current trends in devolving governance power and action away from top-down to a more inclusive co-generation model. Its focus is on non-profit organisations including government agencies. The authors investigated the perception gap, comparing people within higher levels of an organisations’ structure with middle and operational levels, between what governance sets out to achieve and how that is experienced in their organisation. The chapter highlights relevant theories to understand governance roles and purposes. The linkage between governance and performance impact is interesting for both PG designers and people within an organisation making sense of why various governance mechanisms are important.

Chapter 23, by Florence Ling and Wujuan Zhai, focusses on social responsibility cultural aspects of water transfer megaprojects in China. It reports findings from a quantitative study related to participants’ perceived attitudes and organisational support for corporate social responsibility (CSR) governance and that organisational support factor’s impact on CSR project delivery quality.

This final Part II chapter of the book, Chapter 24 by Rehab Ifitkhar, is a precis of her cited paper (Iftikhar et al., 2021). Readers who find this contribution interesting can seek more details about the study from that paper. The chapter does not specifically detail PG arrangements or set the coping strategies with a governance or governmentality framework, but the message about the need for PG consideration is suggested and can be appreciated by readers. When coping with crises and responding effectively, rules of engagement and an appropriate human response is necessary, so this chapter does trigger thoughts about how to design appropriate PG response measures.

Book content in part III

Chapter 25, by Miia Martinsuo in Part III, Governance of Projects provides an overview of how projects, programs and portfolios fit in an overall PG system. It outlines the roles of governing actors at those three levels of business activity and notes alternative modes along a continuum based on four key considerations. These are the degree of formalisation, centralisation, inclusion and external outreach. Five future research areas are identified as being needed.

Shankar Sankaran discusses the United Nations 2015 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) in Chapter 26, explaining how they are supported and inspired to by most developed and many developing countries. He notes that being presented with these 17 SDGs is daunting, not least because some may appear contradicting, making designing governance systems to achieve them complex. This chapter draws upon the current literature on this topic to provide guidance on how organisations can start to tackle the task of embedding SDGs in their governance arrangements. It also posits and explains a PG framework to achieve this through international cooperation and collaboration. Clearly, there is a lot to do, and it is important for organisations to be aware of this topic if they are to be sustainable enterprises.

Chapter 27, also contributed by Shankar Sankaran, discusses the governance of organisational project management. Its Figure 27.4 is useful for high level governance design from a systems thinking perspective and sets out what needs to be included in a PG approach.

Chapter 28 by Christine Unterhitzenberger and Kate Lawrence addresses an interest question related to fairness and justice in the governance of projects’ governance systems to embed justice and fairness. Justice is considered through three lenses – procedural, distributive and interactional. They explain these clearly in Table 28.1 and in their following text. The chapter draws upon their previous work, citing and referencing several sources that interested readers can refer to. Their added content to cited previous work provides an important message, justice and fairness as governance mechanisms are linked to positive project, individual and organisational outcomes.

Book content in part IV

This part addresses the governance of inter-organisational networks for projects by taking a single network of organisations perspective of how projects may be delivered.

Jörg Sydow and Timo Braun in Chapter 29 investigate the governance process for inter-organisational networks of projects through in-parallel programs of projects and sequential project delivery. This is a useful chapter and topic area because project networks may not be solely programs of projects. The chapter cites Braun (2018) that investigates the airline Star Alliance. Other network organisations may include supply chain integrators for coordinating material or equipment leasing purchases across project deliverers for example. This chapter extends discussion on the Star Alliance network-wide role and activities as a Network Administrative Organisation (NAO) facilitating alliance-wide aircraft maintenance, IT services, etc. This chapter’s authors prompt interesting further governance of networks research ideas.

Chapter 30, by Ralf Müller, helps explain how attempts to form networks of organisations, for a range of purposes, may or not effectively function. It draws upon extensive research undertaken recently by Müller et al., (2022) and Jessop (2021). In general, this chapter introduces new thinking in governance and cites relevant and useful references.

Chapter 31 by Wang et al., provides a very interesting perspective on an area of governance and resilience that has not received much complimentary research attention. Projects, programs and their participants requires a supporting governance form to help them resilient. This chapter draws on four case studies, one being the unique hospital that was constructed in 10 days in Wuhan in response to the Covid-19 outbreak. The chapter also draws upon useful references for both resilience and governance fields of study.

Book content in part V

The book part provides several chapters that provide practical examples of projects and program specific applications across three separate industry collaboration areas.

Chapter 32, by Aubry et al., discusses significant infrastructure delivery PG that affect us all – healthcare, specifically complex hospital campuses. The focus is on transformational change in project management through studying PMO organisational design by applying the competing values theory’s role in understanding project performance and organisational competency mobilisation. An interesting finding was that one of the four case studies demonstrated that the project owner authority found it difficult to move from seeing the project other than in product-delivery terms. That assumption illustrates the danger in medical infrastructure projects, of inadequately appreciating potential human and patient-experience factors by not engaging more fully with patients, operational medical staff and expert medical staff. Drawing on three case studies previously researched (Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018) the chapter adds further reflections based on 4+ years more of research into complimentary topics to widen the value of the chapter’s content from its cited papers. Appendices A32.1 and A32.2 are particularly useful,

The fascinating Chapter 33 by Paravan et al. tackles new areas of project and program governance. It explains how the space industry has changed and expanded, opening new ways of working and procuring projects and consequentially, new governance demands. It discusses how stakeholders and partnerships have changed with the evolution of this industry sector requiring a rethink about how governance of the space industry should adapt to new opportunities and constraints. It shows pros and cons of governance through case study vignettes. Its main value is achieved through presenting new insights for readers.

Chapter 34 by Gabriela Fernandes and David O’Sullivan is interesting from a PG perspective that many readers may have direct experienced during their career. It outlines what should happen for effective industry-university collaboration R&D programs. The chapter draws upon current literature and explains its content clearly. My only comment from own experience, about anything missed inclusion in this chapter is that many university collaborations on research programs may involve multiple universities that impose pressures and expectations of shares of the funding that needs to be addressed within the university-to-university relationship and they can be challenging.

Chapter 35 by Mathur et al., presents another fascinating topic area of project/program governance. The case study is emergent and authors stress that this study was the start of a long journey. It explores how a state government department tried to design and enact novel program-portfolio-project data science initiative (DSI) governance systems for the use of collected transport data. Case study analysis reveals eight guiding principles for minimum viable governance for and DSIs and concludes that it is vital for project participants are aware of and understand likely interfaces between projects, across programs within portfolios. DSI are argued to be especially in need of continuous reflection and consideration of the decommissioning project phase due to the interface impact of legacy and new systems.

Book content in part VI

This book part, by the book editors, reflects on the book’s content. Chapter 36 considers where this PG field is heading in both research and practice with contemporary comments on the potential impact of artificial intelligence on project, program and network governance.

Review discussion and conclusions

The purpose of this review is to acquaint readers with this book’s content and to provide a personal reflection on its value and usefulness. I have provided a very brief synopsis of each chapter’s content in order of the book’s parts. This is to give readers a taste for what value they may gain from investing time, energy and effort in reading the book (or parts thereof).

Handbooks are rarely read cover-to-cover. Part of their value is that readers can pick and choose which chapters to read in whatever order they choose. As stated previously, a handbook such as this has page-count limitations (10 pages per chapter mostly in this book) and that can be frustrating for authors and readers. Authors, because they must restrict the content and discard valuable knowledge gems. Readers, because often the chapters seem short and missing context and explanation of for example, research methodology details. However, it is important for readers to avoid skipping over citations and references. Often, the references section contains a gold-mine of useful, enlightening and valuable information.

Finally, a word about the editors and contributors. Many of these are the go-to sources of expertise and their publications are sought after for their depth and sophistication. As a seasoned researcher and writer, I gain most of my “heads-up” prompts for current literature, not from social-media feeds, journal notifications (that seem to flood my email in-box) or even from conferences such as IRNOP or EURAM’s Project Organizing SIG, but from references in journal papers and book chapters such as in this handbook. I feel quite chuffed, as it were, to have the likes of Ralf Müller, Rodney Turner, Alfons van Marrewijk, Grahan Winch and other contributors to this book, being in effect, my research assistants! Hopefully, readers will also appreciate the value in having seasoned, up-and-coming and early career scholars all generously providing excellent reading lists via their cited references.

I recommend that this book should be purchased by all university libraries for e-access to its students and staff. I would also recommend practitioners adding this book to their organisation’s library. Between the book’s content and references cited and listed in each chapter’s references section, we have a valuable and rare knowledge asset. This is an emerging field and so there is not many handbook resources that scholars and practitioners can access for PG.