PAPERS Foundations of Project Management
Research: An Explicit and Six-Facet
Ontological Framework
Jacques-Bernard Gauthier, Département des sciences administratives, Université du
Québec en Outaouais, Gatineau, Canada
Lavagnon A. Ika, Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada
ABSTRACT ■
This article proposes a new, explicit, and inte-
grated ontological framework to stimulate proj-
ect management research. It suggests that the
ontological question should be viewed as a six-
facet diamond that represents a set of root
assumptions about projects. The article con-
veys the idea that whenever a project manage-
ment researcher emphasizes a specific facet,
he or she knowingly or unknowingly leaves the
other five facets in the dark in his or her
research. This article calls for attention on the
ground ontological assumptions of project man-
agement research in order to transcend the
abstract epistemological and methodological
debates and concentrate on what really divides
the different theoretical positions.
KEYWORDS: ontology; project manage-
ment research; project management history;
theory; epistemology
Project Management Journal, Vol. 43, No. 5, 5–23
© 2012 by the Project Management Institute
Published online in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI: 10.1002/pmj.21288
INTRODUCTION ■
O
ver the past 20 years, the interest in project management, whether
defined in its narrow sense (the management of a single or “lonely”
project) or more broadly (“management of projects”), has increased
considerably (Smyth, 2009; Smyth & Morris, 2007; Söderlund, 2004a,
2004b; Turner, 2010). In fact, coined as the profession of the 21st century
(Stewart, 1995), the wave of the future in global business (Pinto &
Kharbanda, 1996), a major management philosophy, or as the means for
dealing with change (Cleland & Ireland, 2007), project management has
become one of the hottest topics in management, with practitioners and
researchers demonstrating keen interest in the field (Ika, 2009). Thus, proj-
ect management is emerging as a true scientific discipline in its own right,
with its own academic journals, conferences, language, associations, period-
icals, and its claim to a particular scientific status (Packendorff, 1995;
Shenhar & Dvir, 2007).
Yet, in a paradoxical way, despite such scientific activity, an ever-increasing
number of bodies of knowledge and their periodic updates, the tireless
efforts of practitioners, delays, cost overruns, underperformance in terms of
quality, user satisfaction, and achievement of strategic or business objec-
tives, as well as disappointment on the parts of project stakeholders, all seem
to have become the rule and not the exception in the contemporary reality
of projects (Cicmil & Hodgson, 2006a; Ika, 2009; Shenhar & Dvir, 2007).
Consequently, “from a research perspective, there is a great opportunity to
close this gap (between practice and research),” and as such, the project man-
agement field is promising and rich with challenges (Shenhar & Dvir, 2007,
parentheses added, p. 93).
Ironically, such promise closely matches the rising criticism of the
research in the field (Söderlund, 2004a). In this respect, some authors have
singled out certain scant or fragmented theoretical background and, not sur-
prisingly, one of the responses to this criticism has been to investigate the the-
oretical underpinnings of the project management field (Anagnostopoulos,
2004; Cicmil, 2006; Cicmil & Hodgson, 2006a, 2006b; Koskela & Howell, 2002;
Packendorff, 1995; Sauer & Reich, 2007; Söderlund, 2004a; Turner, 2010;
Winter, Smith, Morris, & Cicmil, 2006). Furthermore, most authors herald the
development of a solid and explicit theoretical basis for project management
as the crucial and single most important issue for the project manage-
ment profession.
Although there have been a few important attempts to rethink project man-
agement (Winter et al., 2006) and to assess the epistemological, theoretical, and
October 2012 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj 5
 Foundations of Project Management Research
PAPERS
methodological underpinnings of proj-
ect (management) research (Smyth &
Morris, 2007), less effort has been made to
question project ontologies (Blomquist &
Lundin, 2010; Cicmil & Hodgson, 2006a,
2006b; Kreiner, 1995; Linehan &
Kavanagh, 2006, Winter et al., 2006). It is
risky, however, to ignore the ontological
perspective in the search for a strong the-
oretical basis for project (management)
research:
Ontology (that is, what is out there to
know about) is the starting point of
all research, after which one’s epis-
temological (that is, what and how
can we know about it) and method-
ological (that is, how can we get to
know about it) positions logically
follow1 . . . If we, as researchers, are
unclear about the ontological and
epistemological basis of a piece of
work, we may end up criticizing
a colleague for not taking into
account a factor which his/her onto-
logical position does not allow for.
(Grix, 2002, parentheses added,
p. 177)
This telling passage may not be
enough to underscore the importance
or even the primacy of ontology in
research in general, and in project
(management) research in particular;
however, Plato’s famous allegory of the
cave is surely instructive and convinc-
ing in this regard. In a fictional dialogue
between Plato’s teacher Socrates and
Plato’s brother Glaucon, prisoners are
chained, facing a blank wall in a cave in
such a way that they can only see the
shadows of artifacts carried by people
behind them and projected on the wall.
Plato explains how, in the perspectives
of the prisoners, the shadows represent
reality and they give them names and
characteristics. Plato then imagines a
scene in which one prisoner, freed from
1Even if most authors, notably scientific realists and critical
realists, seem to share the rule to “start with ontology first”
(Wight, 2006), others see this as “ontological fallacy” and
argue that theoretical objects come to researchers’ attention
only in the course of formulating theories (Chernoff, 2009).
6 October 2012 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj
the dark cave, sees that not only are the
shadows on the wall not real at all, but
they are actually mere reflections and
effigies of reality. Plato’s allegory of the
cave mirrors how different views of
the world and different perceptions
of what reality is can coexist; hence, the
ontological assumptions underlying
research are important (Grix, 2002).
However, even if project manage-
ment authors were aware of their own
ontological position, “ontology” is in
itself a slippery concept that is often
confused with “epistemology” (Grix,
2002); project (management) research
is no exception.
So, what is ontology? As a study of
being, existence, and conceptions/
essence of reality or the image of social
reality upon which a theory is based
(Bredillet, 2010; Morris, 2010), ontology
refers to claims and assumptions that
are made about the nature of project
reality, claims about what the project is
and whether it exists, what it looks like,
what units make it up, and how these
units interact with each other2 (Blaikie,
2000). In short, ontological assumptions
in the project management field are
concerned with what authors believe
constitutes project reality. Accordingly,
project (management) research is bound
to suffer if authors blur or underestimate
ontology. Acknowledging this in project
management, it has been suggested that
the ontological level, alongside the theoreti-
cal and epistemological levels, is a necessary
condition and constitutes a preamble for
relevant project (management) research
(Bredillet, 2010). This article seeks to
explicitly address the ontological ques-
tion in the expanding domain of project
management and to suggest a specific
project ontological analysis without
which the authors doubt the epistemo-
logical and methodological project man-
agement endeavor will succeed.
2Although we put forward this definition of ontology, we do
not wish to favor a particular system engineering ontology,
where everything is a system constructed of interconnected
components, which is pervasive in project management
research.
The remaining parts of this article
are organized as follows. The first sec-
tion presents the project management
field as an academic discipline and dis-
cusses its hard core (project and project
management). In the second section,
we review the origins and meanings of
project and project management and,
in particular, seek to show that not only
are the conceptions of project and proj-
ect management grounded in the pre-
modernity, modernity, postmodernity,
and hypermodernity (late modernity)
periods; these perspectives actually do
coexist in the project management field
(Boutinet, 1990, 2006). Here we argue
that the lack of consensus among
authors about project and project man-
agement stems partly from the fact that
they hold differing ontological perspec-
tives. We also contend that the modern
conception of project and project man-
agement represents the tradition in
project management, and that post-
modern and hypermodern conceptions
of project and project management
represent the more recent critical per-
spective in project management. In so
doing, just as some have attempted to
overcome the opposition between pos-
itivism and constructivism in the epis-
temological debate (Bredillet, 2004,
2010), our intention within the ontolog-
ical debate is to overcome the opposi-
tion between the tradition and the
“Making Projects Critical” movement in
project management. We then take a
stand against lumping disparate
authors under the same “critical” label
because, although this is rather effec-
tive in questioning the dominant and
modern view of project and project
management, it is ineffective in
accounting for their differing concep-
tions of project and project management.
Because these differing conceptions of
project and project management mirror
differing root ontological assumptions,
the third section takes stock of the
extant ontological question in project
management, accounts for the rather
scant ontological basis of project
management (project) research, and
contributes to the literature by pre-
senting the ontological traditions
through historical periods. In the
fourth section, we derive a new and
specific six-facet ontological frame-
work based on our literature review in
order to overcome the seeming dualism
between existing project ontologies,
thereby expanding the ontological
basis of the expanding domain of proj-
ect (management) research. In the fifth
and final section, we briefly consider
some final thoughts and further
research in project management.
The Project Management Field
as an Academic Discipline and
Its Hard Core
As suggested earlier, project manage-
ment is one of the fastest-growing disci-
plines insofar as it is now a dominant
model in many contemporary organiza-
tions (Winter et al., 2006). As a result,
project (management) research within
the general business community is no
longer relegated to a production and oper-
ations subcategory, nor is it sequestered in
the engineering field (Bredillet, 2004;
Söderholm, Gemünden, & Winch, 2008;
Winter et al., 2006). Many non–project
management faculty members, howev-
er, still regard project management as a
branch of operations management and
strongly believe that it is neither a disci-
pline nor a profession but, at best, an
amalgam of many other disparate disci-
plines, or simply a practice with projects
being only instruments used to achieve
higher-level organizational goals and
objectives.
There has been a long debate in the
management education communi-
ty as to whether ‘project manage-
ment’ is a practice or an academic
discipline. . . . When it comes to the
business and management field,
scholars often appear puzzled and
unconvinced of the notion of “proj-
ect management.” (Kwak & Anbari,
2009, p. 435)
At the other end of the spectrum,
many project management authors
suggest that, if most of the emergent
industries since World War II have been
project-intensive, only limited atten-
tion has been paid to projects as impor-
tant entities in the organizational arena
by traditional management and organi-
zational theorists (Söderlund, 2004b).
They also acknowledge that project
(management) research struggles to
convey the message outside the project
management community and reader-
ship to the broader business and man-
agement audience (Kwak & Anbari,
2009). By adopting an analytical stance
and, hence, taking stock of project
(management) research, they advance
that project management is an academ-
ic field on its own, which exposes it to
questions beyond the simple dualism
practical/academic field (Morris, 2010;
Turner, 2010; Winter et al., 2006).
Notwithstanding our awareness of
the unresolved debate over project
management as a research field and
discipline, we contend that if project
management is to be a true scientific
discipline within its own rights, there
must first be an explicit or tacit
assumption that there is an object of
study, let us say, a project, a construct
to which project management re-
searchers turn for analytical purposes
(Anagnostopoulos, 2004; Söderlund,
2004b); second, there should be a set of
ontological commitments or presuppo-
sitions, which Lakatos (1970) coined
as the hard core for any science.
Anagnostopoulos (2004, p. 251) noted,
“If such a hard core exists in a project
management research program, then
the project and its management are the
two most eligible candidate members of
it.”3 A double question therefore deserves
attention: What is a project and, as a con-
sequence, what is project management
(Anagnostopoulos, 2004; Blomquist &
Lundin, 2010; Morris, 2010)?
Evidently, there is a lack of consen-
sus among researchers on the terms
“project” and “project management”;
3Acompeting or alternative hard core might be the hard
and soft sides of projects (Crawford & Pollack, 2004).
October 2012 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj
however, it is difficult to talk about a
good definition of these terms because
the meanings given to them are mainly
instrumental for specific research
purposes (Anagnostopoulos, 2004).
Therefore, we first contend that project
management authors fail to agree on
the definitions of project and project
management because they hold differ-
ing ontological perspectives. Further-
more, we argue that the meanings and
conceptions of project and project
management may mirror successive
historical periods of the social world—
premodern, modern, postmodern, and
hypermodern (late modern).
The Origins and Meanings of
Project and Project Management
Every historical period has probably
had its particular equivalences of
traditionalists, modernists, critical
theorists, and postmodernists—
those who lament the passing of a
purer time; those instrumentally
building a future; those concerned
with disadvantaged segments and
the direction of the future; and, those
seeing fragmentation and decay
mixed with radical potential.
(Alvesson & Deetz, 1996, p. 193)
The remarkable thing about this
quote on the historical periods is that,
in the project management field, it
stands out. Broadly speaking, we sub-
mit that conceptions of project and
project management are not only
grounded in successive periods in the
history of the social world—be they
premodern, modern, postmodern, or
hypermodern (late modern)—but such
perspectives actually do coexist in the
project management field. Taking such
a stand, we have extended to the field of
project management in general (and to
the historical periods of premodernity,
modernity, postmodernity, and hyper-
modernity [late modernity] in particu-
lar), the idea advanced by Boutinet
(1990, 2006) that in the fields of philos-
ophy, psychology, and education, the
conceptions of projects may vary from
7
 Foundations of Project Management Research
PAPERS
modernity to postmodernity. In fact,
projects have been undertaken in one
form or another for millennia. Further-
more, projects reflect the past, present,
and future of any social world because
they are parts of the big technical, polit-
ical, and historical “picture.” In addition,
projects both epitomize and transcend
historical periods because they tend to
use the means of the present to reach
an end in the future. Because each his-
torical period has its own specific onto-
logical base (Déry, 2009), it is important
to explore the historical conceptions of
project and project management
before digging into the ontological
foundations.
This section begins with the mod-
ern conception of project and project
management insofar as it represents
the tradition in project management.
Next it looks at, although very briefly,
the premodern conception of project
and project management, because this
is helpful in understanding the post-
modern conception of project and proj-
ect management. We then examine
the postmodern and hypermodern
conceptions of project and project
management—the hypermodern ones
account for the renewal of the
modern view of project and project
management—because they represent
the more recent critical perspective in
project management. Thus, the intent
of this section is to overcome the oppo-
sition between the tradition and the
“Making Projects Critical” movement in
project management.
First, we would like to stress a few
important arguments. We contend that
critically minded scholars in project
management have increasingly ques-
tioned the place of tradition in project
management. A variety of conceptual
approaches, thus, have been proposed
to articulate alternatives to the prevail-
ing and modern conception of project
and project management, including,
inter alia, a late modern (hypermod-
ern) structurationist perspective
inspired by Giddens, which focuses on
the embeddedness of projects in social
8 October 2012 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj
contexts (Sydow, 2006), and a postmod-
ern rhetorical perspective, which sug-
gests that project management is best
understood as a form of discourse
(Green, 2006). We then argue that
despite the shared perspective in ques-
tioning the dominant view of project
management, there are divergent
sources of theoretical inspiration found
in the works of authors of the “Making
Projects Critical” movement. Not sur-
prisingly, project management critters
(critically minded scholars) recognize
the plurality of the intellectual tradi-
tions they draw from; the fragmentation
of their movement; and the inherent
problems in categorizing a diverse col-
lection of authors under discrete ban-
ners, with, for example, some authors
being overtly “critical” and others
remaining “mainstream.” Cicmil,
Hodgson, Lindgren, and Packendorff
(2009, p. 87) note, “Isolation is not help-
ful to anyone, although inclusivity
poses its own challenges of rejection,
compromise, incorporation, and the
effective neutralisation of any critical
intent.” We strongly recognize that
lumping together, under the same “crit-
ical” label, disparate authors—ranging
from critical theorists to postmod-
ernists and hypermodernists—is very
effective for questioning and challeng-
ing the prevailing and modern view of
project management; however, we sug-
gest that it also blurs the conceptions of
project and project management:
Here we are following the accepted
usage, although it is common for
authors to deviate from it. Guba and
Lincoln (1994, p. 190), for example,
say that “critical theory is (for us) a
blanket term denoting a set of sever-
al alternative paradigms [to posi-
tivism]. . . . “ Quite apart from the
risk of confusion involved in break-
ing with the dominating usage of the
term “critical theory,” it is not partic-
ularly helpful to lump together under
the same label—as these authors
do—a number of highly distinct
schools, ranging from neo-Marxism
and feminism to postmodernism
and poststructuralism. (Alvesson &
Skölberg, 2009, p. 177)
We now turn to the origins and
modern conception of project and proj-
ect management.
The Origins of Project Management and
the Modern Conception of Project
and Project Management
The origins of modern project manage-
ment can be traced back to the 1950s
and 1960s and to engineering achieve-
ments, particularly in the military and
defense sectors. Hence, modern project
management flourishes in the period of
modernity. The modern period, one
would recall, was inspired by the phi-
losophy of the eighteenth century and
holds an unshakeable faith in reason,
science, and progress (Giddens, 1990;
Hamilton, 1996). This belief in progress,
through knowledge and reason chal-
lenging religion, myth, and tradition,
epitomizes what has been termed “the
project of modernity” (Habermas,
1997). Part of the modernist project,
where reason—as manifested in sci-
ence and technology—promises a
control of nature and society, modern
project management was committed to
the idea that it was possible to produce
reliable knowledge about projects in
order to shape the future of organiza-
tions for the better. Similar to the pro-
ponents of the modernist project, early
writers were convinced that projects
were designed to serve progress and
that project management would ensure
controllability. This remains the domi-
nant view of project management. As a
consequence, projects are, like project
management, figures of modernity
(Joffre, Aurégan, Chédotel, & Tellier,
2006). Hence, modern project manage-
ment emphasizes project planning and
control and, therefore, setting up clear
project objectives and constraints at
the beginning of the project. This clear-
ly links modern project management to
the scientific management approach
(Joffre et al., 2006). In fact, project man-
agement aims to optimize the time,
cost, and quality triangle, and in so
doing, it is geared to rationality and
capitalism and as such looks for the
most efficient ways to achieve goals
and yield profit in the context of a com-
petitive market. Because projects are
geared to progress, project manage-
ment is a means to transform nature
and create new markets and environ-
ments. Let us recall here that the mili-
tary, capitalism, and industrialism are
three dimensions of modernity (Giddens,
1990). In a nutshell, modern project
management is based on assumptions
such as instrumentality, rationality,
universality, objectivity, value-free
decision making, and the possibility
of generating law-like predictions
in knowledge (Cicmil & Hodgson,
2006a).
Examples of modern projects include
the Manhattan Project (1942–1945), the
Normandy Invasion (June 6, 1944), and
the Apollo program (1968–1972), which
are still regarded as great achievements
that have been parts of the world land-
scape (Cleland & Ireland, 2007; Joffre
et al., 2006; Shenhar & Dvir, 2007;
Söderlund, 2004b). But how would one
define modern project management?
The question raised by Olsen, in
1971, “Can project management be
defined?” still conveys many answers.
Olsen (1971), who may have been one
of the early researchers to define proj-
ect management, after referencing
views from the 1950s, suggests that:
Project management is the applica-
tion of tools and techniques (such
as the CPM [Critical Path Method]
and matrix organization) to direct
the use of diverse resources toward
the accomplishment of a unique,
complex, one-time task within time,
cost, quality constraints. Each task
requires a particular mix of these
tools and techniques structured to
fit the task environment and life
cycle (from conception to comple-
tion) of the task. (Olsen, 1971, p. 14)
Anagnostopoulos (2004, p. 257)
wrote, “The raison d’être of project
management is one entity: the project.”
Even though one could agree to this
modern definition of project manage-
ment, this is just one part of the equa-
tion. So, what is a project? The history
of project and project management is
much longer than the two terms them-
selves. In fact, the concept of project
seems to have appeared in the fifteenth
century and has its roots in architecture
(Joffre et al., 2006). The ambiguity of the
word “project” is well acknowledged in
the literature; its Latin root (projicere !
throw forward) suggests movement,
a trajectory, a certain relationship in
space and time, and a possible separa-
tion of planning and performance,
project and implementation (Boutinet,
1990). One can understand here why
the project manager in modern project
management is therefore like an archi-
tect and, as such, must plan first and
implement second. If many candidate
definitions of the word “project” coexist
in modernity, they all focus on a specif-
ic activity to be completed within
certain constraints. The Project
Management Institute’s point of view of
a project as a temporary endeavor
undertaken to create a unique product
or service is instructive in that regard.
However, projects are not the exclusivi-
ty of the modern period; in fact, history
is rich with well-known premodern
projects, and we might gain in learning
from the conception of such projects in
premodernity.
The Premodern Conception of Project
and Project Management
As suggested earlier, when people talk
about the history of project manage-
ment, they would inevitably refer to
modern project management and its
genesis in the 1950s. The notion of pre-
modern project management would
therefore seem inappropriate at first
glance; however, one could agree that
some form of earlier historical “project
management” did exist well before the
emergence of modern project manage-
ment as we know it today (Kozak-Holland,
2011). Although there is almost nothing
that has been written on premodern
October 2012 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj
project management, one could assume
that, in contrast to modern project
management, premodern project man-
agement would lack the toolset of mod-
ern project management and its scien-
tific basis. However, intuition and
improvisation would have been
prevalent in premodern project man-
agement.
Since the beginning of civilization,
people, organizations, and countries
have always been involved in projects.
Evidence of leading projects in pre-
modernity is impressive (Cleland &
Ireland, 2007; Kozak-Holland, 2011).
Some of the biggest projects in the his-
tory of mankind have been monumen-
tal projects and great achievements, such
as the construction of premodern cities.
To name but a few premodern projects,
one can list the Tower of Babel, the
Great Pyramids of Egypt (circa 2700 to
2500 BC), the Great Cathedrals of
Europe, Noah’s Ark, the Great Wall of
China (221 BC–1644), and so forth.
Whether one considers the Great
Pyramids of Giza, the Ziggurat Temple,
the Pantheon, the Great Cathedrals of
Europe (e.g., Hagia Sophia, Gothic,
Florence, St. Basil’s), the Crusades, or the
Voyages of Exploration, one realizes
that not only are they premodern proj-
ects driven by the need to stimulate the
economy but they are also designed to
serve the glory of a god (or his repre-
sentative, for example, the Pharaoh, the
King, or the Pope) or a religion (Kozak-
Holland, 2011). As such, premodern
projects are not designed to serve
progress like modern projects but,
instead, gods or their representatives
(one may think of temples erected in
honor of certain gods; the people that
control them would call themselves
“priests”).
Hence, contrasting with modern
projects, which are desecrated, pre-
modern projects are ruled by the gods
to which one has to pay tribute, insofar
as, in premodernity in general (Déry,
2009), there is faith in some form of
deity, be that in a single god or many
gods. This idea is important because, as
9
 Foundations of Project Management Research
PAPERS
we will see in postmodern project man-
agement, there is some return of the
sacred, of the symbolic, and of history
and tradition, which are all important
in premodernity but have been aban-
doned by modernity. Hence, the pre-
modern conception of project and
project management is helpful in
grasping the postmodern conception of
project and project management.
The Postmodern Conception of Project
and Project Management
With its faith in reason and knowledge
as the engines that fuel its cultural, sci-
entific, technical, economic, and politi-
cal projects, the modern period has
generated high expectations as well as a
bigger sense of failure. This sense of
failure has prompted what has been
heralded as postmodernity. Proponents
of postmodernity would then show,
through deconstruction, that reason
and knowledge are only narratives and
means of domination. Project and proj-
ect management have yet to escape
deconstruction. In fact, postmodern
project management emerges from the
failure of modern project management.
For its supporters, postmodern project
management is a discourse or rhetoric
designed to rally people around proj-
ects; it serves the interests of powerful
project stakeholders and hides their
agendas of domination and control. For
that matter, all modern conceptions of
project and project management are
equivalent because they fail to high-
light issues of power, domination,
exploitation, manipulation, ethics, and
moral responsibility and control in
project settings. We just choose the
conception that meets our expecta-
tions. Projects and project manage-
ment would then be subject to some
kind of eclecticism of all times. As a
consequence, postmodernists empha-
size multiplicity, ambiguity, ambiva-
lence, and fragmentation in project
management, a view in which chaos,
change, uncertainty, and relaxation of
control are accepted in order to gain
more control.
10 October 2012 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj
The concepts of project and project
management are used more now than
ever before. In fact, they have never
been the subject of so many writings,
speeches, and advice. Since the 1990s,
project management has become an
emblematic, instrumentalized, kaleido-
scopic, fragmented, and popular man-
agement figure ( Joffre et al., 2006).
Project management and projects are
now accepted by many both within and
outside the field as so natural, self-
evident, and indispensable that the
project form is more and more being
applied to any kind of task in different
contexts as a universal and technicist
solution to organizational problems
(Cicmil et al., 2009). Project manage-
ment is no longer confined to its tradition-
al heartlands of military, construction,
engineering, and information technol-
ogy; it is now seemingly being adopted
in nontraditional areas, industry, or
sectors (Carden & Egan, 2008) “from
legal work to reconstructive surgery
to urban regeneration” (Cicmil et al.,
2009, p. 82).
Today, there is confusion in the lan-
guage that makes a project a polysemic
and a chameleon concept (Bredillet,
2004; Joffre et al., 2006). As a simplistic
typology, one could distinguish between
personal, strategic, operational, urban,
artistic projects, and so on (Joffre et al.,
2006), such that, today, “utterly different
things can be assimilated to the term
‘project:’ opening a new factory, closing
one, carrying out a reengineering project,
putting on a play. Each of them is a proj-
ect, and they all involve the same hero-
ism” (Boltanski & Chiapello, 2006, p. 111).
Some even label this the “projectification”
of the organization/society and others
have more recently begun to speak of “the
growing colonisation of all quarters of life
by project-related principles, rules, tech-
niques, and procedures to form a new
‘iron cage’ of project rationality”
(Hodgson & Cicmil, 2006, p. 29).4
4There
is an ongoing debate as to whether or not this pro-
jectification is real or virtual and, most important, if it can
be verified (Blomquist & Lundin, 2010).
Projects may serve purposes of con-
trol and creativity insofar as they prom-
ise to deliver both controllability and
adventure (Hodgson & Cicmil, 2006). In
postmodern project management, there
is fragmentation of meaning given to
project and project management in the
same way there is fragmentation of
meaning given to reality and truth in pre-
modernity. Consequently, “modern” def-
initions of projects (such as the PMI
definition), which represent the project as
a temporary endeavor undertaken to
create a unique product or service, are
criticized by the postmodernists. Instead,
the latter propose, for example, to con-
ceptualize the project as a discourse
(George & Thomas, 2010; Lindgren &
Packendorff, 2006; Linehan & Kavanagh,
2006), a narrative space (Gaggiotti, 2010;
Nocker, 2006), or an arena of social and
power plays in the organizational con-
text, to the point that when they mean
project success, for example, they
inevitably mean project success for its
promoters (Hodgson & Cicmil, 2006). For
that reason, the project manager is like a
rhetor who refers to words and discourse
to defend the project promoters and pro-
ponents and tries to “sell” the project to
its detractors. Once again, these post-
modern views of projects emerge,
among other things, from the failure of
modern project management, but if the
project management “critters” come up
short in making any distinction between
postmodernity and hypermodernity, this
is not the case of certain sociologists who
seem to distinguish between postmoder-
nity and hypermodernity (late moderni-
ty), even though there is no consensus in
that regard (Charles, 2009; Lypovetsky &
Charles, 2005). In the ways of certain soci-
ologists then, we choose in the following
sections to distinguish between the
hypermodern and postmodern concep-
tions of project and project management.
The Hypermodern Conception of
Project and Project Management
Like modernity, postmodernity has
faced a lot of criticism. Opponents of
postmodernity contend that, beyond
the virulent criticism against modernity,
postmodernity has little to offer. Thus,
the rise of postmodernity falls short of
eclipsing modernity (Beck, 1992; Beck,
Giddens, & Lash, 1994; Déry, 2009;
Giddens, 1990). Indeed, if the project is
the very vehicle that has served to con-
quer other physical spaces, notably the
moon, it is this very project that is now
being used to build cyberspace or virtu-
al social spaces (England & Finney,
2001). Based on the development of
socio-technical objects (e.g., the
Internet), modernity has transformed
itself into a theoretical and practical
movement that has been heralded as
late modernity (Giddens, 1990), risk
modernity (Beck, 1992), reflexive moder-
nity (Beck et al., 1994), or hypermoder-
nity (Charles, 2009; Lypovetsky &
Charles, 2005)—all of these being
regarded as a second modern revolu-
tion (Déry, 2009). We may no longer be
in the Habermasian project of moder-
nity but rather in the “project of hyper-
modernity,” a socio-technical New
World that emphasizes constant redefi-
nition as a means of avoiding the pit-
falls experienced by modernity (Déry,
2009). To that end, hypermodernity
promotes reflexivity instead of reason.
Reflexivity “. . . consists in the fact that
social practices are constantly exam-
ined and reformed in the light of
incoming information about those very
practices, thus constitutively altering
their character”5 (Giddens, 1990, p. 38).
This reflexive approach to project man-
agement is prominent in the “Making
Projects Critical” movement because it
emphasizes reflexivity to overcoming
some dialectical contradictions seeming-
ly present in project settings, such as
managerial control/creativity, power/
5We acknowledge that other conceptions of reflexivity do
exist. Although a reflexive practitioner in Giddens’ per-
spective means an agent who reflects on his or her action
as it develops in a context that is always under construc-
tion, he or she does not aim for any developmental insight
or knowledge, as does the reflexive practitioner in Schön’s
conception. The latter author considers that reflexivity is a
two-step analytical process that aims to foster professional
development and improvement.
resistance, instrumental/value, structure/
agency, theory/practice, mind/body,
and so forth (Sage, Dainty, & Brookes,
2010). For the proponents of hyper-
modernity, project management is
viewed as a practice, a reflexive one in
which practitioners shy away from a
standardized practitioner-based knowl-
edge to engage intelligently with the
complexity of projects, learn and adapt
effectively through experience, intu-
ition, and the pragmatic application of
theory in practice (Winter et al., 2006).
That is why the hypermodern project
manager figure is, in a true Giddens tra-
dition, that of a practitioner that is a
reflexive agent.
How then would one imagine the
hypermodern project? Because reflexiv-
ity is only possible because hypermod-
ern society is made in part of a network
of reflexive individuals, in hypermoder-
nity, the project is perceived as a
network of actors that lends itself to
transformations, as the actors engage in
relationships and transform themselves
(Alderman & Ivory, 2010; Sydow, 2006).
These conceptions of project are more
of a hypermodern inspiration.
Finally, we have shown that project
management researchers may hold a
modern, postmodern, or hypermodern
perspective of project when they
address project management; however,
as we have suggested earlier, those per-
spectives actually coexist in the project
management field. Then, what does
project management really mean these
days? The following excerpt describes
the current debate on the ontological
scope of project management:
Is it PM [project management] as
execution management, as more or
less positioned by PMI (“after the
requirements are defined”) or does it
also include managing the front-end
where the project targets—plans,
budgets, schedules, and scope/
specifications—are developed? Should
the domain be the broader one of “the
management of projects?” Does the
domain also include programme man-
agement and portfolio management?
October 2012 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj
Should it include other disciplines
involved in managing projects, such
as business analysis, development
management, engineering, and con-
tracts and procurement (and several
others) or at least how these interface
with project, program, and portfolio
management? (Morris, 2010, p. 141)
Consequently, we will consider
project management in the broader
sense of managing single projects or
multiple projects in the program
or portfolio and their interfaces with
the organizations. To that end, we sub-
mit that project management is holisti-
cally “the art and science of converting
vision into reality” (Turner, 1996, p. 6). We
are aware of the inherent danger in
hastily jumping to conclusions about
what a project (management) is or is
not (Cicmil & Hodgson, 2006b; thus,
with caution in mind, we also suggest
that a project is quintessentially and
holistically a new and specific action
that systematically and gradually struc-
tures a new reality for which one still
has no exact equivalent (Le Bissonnais,
2000, as cited in Joffre et al., 2006).
In short, for many then, project
management and projects may be seen
not as figures of modernity, but rather
as defining figures of postmodernity
and even of hypermodernity (late
modernity). In these postmodern/
hypermodern conceptions of project
management, projects are not simply
or only instruments designed to
achieve organizational goals and objec-
tives, they are also ad hoc, context-
specific, or contingent organizational
forms; temporary organizations, infor-
mation-processing systems, value-
creation instruments; human and
social issues; and the front-ends of
projects, and the interplay between
them and portfolios, programs, and the
strategic direction of the organization,
may be important (Winter et al., 2006).
Table 1 illustrates the differing con-
ceptions of project, project management,
and the project manager, and places them
in historical periods (premodern, modern,
postmodern, and hypermodern).
11
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PAPERS

Premodern social world: period of Premodern Perspective of Project Management

symbolism, tradition, and history
Modern social world: period of reason
and knowledge
Postmodern social world: period of
discourse and rhetoric
Hypermodern social world: period of
reflexivity
Project: The project is a creation of human beings that
serves gods and, as such, deserves the respect of
human beings.
Project management: Project management is an activity
that follows the laws of gods.
Project manager figure: Priest
Modern Perspective of Project Management The project management
tradition
Project: The project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to
create a unique product and service and is designed to
serve progress.
Project management: Project management is a technocratic,
instrumentalist, and rationalist approach in line with the
scientific management approach in the context of rationality,
capitalism, industrialism, and military growth. It aims to
deliver controllability.
Project manager figure: Architect
Postmodern Perspective of Project Management “Making projects critical”
movement
Project: The project is a discourse of legitimation, and an arena
of social and power plays; it serves the interests of the powerful
stakeholders.
Project management: Project management is neither a practice
nor a tool but a rallying rhetoric in a context of power play,
domination, and control. There are no good or bad forms of project
management, because uncontrollability, absence of meaning,
multiplicity, ambivalence, and fragmentation/pluralism
characterize project management.
Project manager figure: Rhetor
Hypermodern Perspective of Project Management
Project: The project is a network of actors embedded in a
social context and in constant transformation. The project is
a work in progress.
Project management: Project management is a reflexive
practice.
Project manager figure: Practitioner as a reflexive agent

Table 1: Differing conceptions of project, project management, and project manager figure through historical thought eras.

The Extant Ontological Question
in Project Management
As we have seen, the conceptions of
project and project management vary
according to the historical trajectory and
specifically to the modern, postmodern,
hypermodern, or premodern period.
Also, these differing conceptions of proj-
ect and project management mirror dif-
fering root ontological assumptions. The
next sections chronologically cover
these premodern, modern, postmodern,
and hypermodern ontological traditions
in the project management field.
Premodern Ontological Traditions
Historical periods, be they premodern,
modern, postmodern, or hypermod-
ern, hold differing specific ontological
bases (Déry, 2009); however, they share
two opposing traditions that still divide
Western thought, both inherited from

12 October 2012 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj

the premodern or pre-Socratic era and
ancient Greece: a Heraclitean “diachron-
ic” worldview, focusing on change and
a Parmenidean “synchronic” world-
view, focusing on the stability of reality
and on the natural order of things
(Vratuša[-Žunjić], 2004). Heraclitus
(c. 535–c. 475 BC) emphasizes a chang-
ing and emergent world, a reality in “. . .
constant confrontation of difference,
proportionally measured mutual suc-
cession of one state of eternal uncreat-
ed and temporally continuous unitary
world order into the alternate state”
(Vratuša[-Žunjić], 2004, p. 135). In con-
trast, Parmenides (c. 515–c. 445 BC)
places a quite different emphasis on a
permanent and unchanging reality. He
believes that whatever exists has always
existed: “. . . things as objects of thought
and knowledge exist and must exist from
ever and forever in time, single, indivisi-
ble, and undifferentiated in space”
(Vratuša[-Žunjić], 2004, p. 135). It is this
Parmenidean synchronic vision of the
world that holds sway in Western phi-
losophy and dominates modern think-
ing, and modern project management
is no exception (Linehan & Kavanagh,
2006).
Ever since project management has
become a field of study, projects have
been regarded by most project man-
agement writers as a universal feature
of human existence and a prominent
transhistorical phenomenon that has
always existed. Many project manage-
ment textbooks further attest to this:
In an offhand manner, typical of
introductory paragraphs of text-
books, such statements emphasise
what the authors take so much for
granted it is hardly worth mention-
ing; that projects have always been
with us, that the human race
has only achieved all that it has
achieved through “projects,” even
that “the project” is a universal fea-
ture of human existence. (Hodgson &
Cicmil, 2006, p. 30)
In parallel to this Parmenidean
worldview of premodern inspiration,
modern project management has also
been influenced by the ontological
analysis of organizations by Burrell and
Morgan (1979).
The Modern Realist and Nominalist
Traditions and the Dominance of the
Realist Ontology
Based on the comprehensive review of
reality by Keat and Urry (1975) and
Kolakowski (1972), Burrell and Morgan
(1979) distinguish between two onto-
logical traditions in organizational
analysis that share the same premise
that the social world is external to indi-
vidual cognition: realist and nominalist
ontologies. Hereafter is their descrip-
tion of realism:
Realism, ( . . . ), postulates that the
social world external to individual
cognition is a real world made up
of hard, tangible, and relatively
immutable structures. Whether or
not we label and perceive these
structures, the realists maintain,
they still exist as empirical entities.
We may not even be aware of the
existence of certain crucial struc-
tures and therefore have no “names”
or concepts to articulate them. For
the realist, the social world exists
independently of an individual’s
appreciation of it. The individual is
seen as being born into and living
within a social world, which has a
reality of its own. It is not something
which the individual creates—it
exists “out there:” ontologically it is
prior to the existence and con-
sciousness of any single human
being. For the realist, the social
world has an existence, which is as
hard and concrete as the natural
world. (Burrell & Morgan, 1979, ital-
ics added, p. 4).
Arguably, the most dominant strand
of ontological thinking in project man-
agement is the realist conception of
project, which is in fact chronologically
the first in project management litera-
ture. Realism, as we use the word, pos-
tulates that project is, by essence, an
objective reality, given “out there” in the
October 2012 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj
world, say the world of organizations,
external to the individual and, as such,
independent of the observer (Burrell &
Morgan, 1979). Most popular project
management textbooks and bodies of
knowledge are based on the realist
ontology and, hence, hold “taken-
for-granted” and widely spread realist
conceptions of project. Not surprising-
ly, project has been conceived as a hard
figure in the organizational world.
Hence, the strong appeal that hard
methods and hard systems, rooted in
the realist ontology of projects have
for project management authors in
their search for objective knowledge
(Crawford & Pollack, 2004; Pollack,
2007). Project management has thus
assumed that it is prominent to effi-
ciently reach a single, tangible, clear,
and quantitatively measurable project
goal and to identify the “one best way”
to deliver a predetermined solution or
option for the project. Also, project man-
agement has considered project team
members as experts in their respective
individual fields, with clearly assigned
roles, and has put an emphasis on clear
logical relationships between project
elements or phases; also, the project
boundary (i.e., the line between influ-
ences that are inside and outside the
control of project personnel) is clearly
defined. Researchers who subscribe to
the position of ontological realism see
project as a tool, an instrument or
means, which serves the organization
in achieving its objectives and project
success measurement as a universal
tool to deliver project objectives (Ika,
2009; Packendorff, 1995). Project man-
agement must therefore make sure that
the right project tool to getting the job
done is singled out, and the rest is a
matter of detail and skilled personnel.
Pollack, 2007 (p. 268) wrote, “The PM
literature tends to adopt a perspective
on organisation that is mechanistic,
focusing on the structure of organisa-
tion and its centralised control . . . proj-
ects are still commonly viewed as
machines and it is the machine
metaphor which dominates project
13
 Foundations of Project Management Research
PAPERS
management literature.” In fact, project
management is often defined as the
application of tools and techniques to
getting the job of the project done, (i.e.,
delivering the project on time, within
cost and ensuring quality); hence, the
strong emphasis on project planning
and project management structures in
project management research (Ika,
2009).
In a nutshell, under this realist per-
spective, projects are real, given “out
there,” made of hard, concrete, and real
entities, structures, functions, and
processes, and they are to be “found” by
researchers. Projects are indeed made of
project life-cycle models, Gantt charts,
critical paths, work-breakdown struc-
tures, matrix structures, resource allo-
cation, CPM, Program Evaluation and
Review Technique (PERT), and many
other concepts, tools, and techniques.
This realist and reifying perspective
of many in mainstream project man-
agement reflects an enduring theme
of management theory; the belief
that its study is analogous to natural
science, i.e. discovering universal
laws and fundamental properties of
objects which (pre)exist “out there,”
in the “real world.” From this realist
perspective, many writers on Project
Management feel able to present
their field as gradually converging
on a generic model of Project
Management process, complete with
common ontology and a standard-
ised terminology globally recognised
by professional project managers.
(Hodgson & Cicmil, 2006, p. 33)
There exists, however, an alterna-
tive to the realism position in the onto-
logical debate in the organizational
analysis: the nominalist one. The nom-
inalist shares with the realist the postu-
late that the social world is external to
individual cognition6 (Burrell &
Morgan, 1979); however, the nominalist
does not admit that the real world is
6Thispostulate may at first seem far-fetched with regard to
the nominalist position; hence, we emphasize it here.
14 October 2012 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj
made of hard structures but rather of
nothing more than names, concepts,
labels, or conventions. As Burrell and
Morgan (1979) state with respect to
nominalism:
The nominalism position revolves
around the assumption that the
social world external to individual
cognition is made up of nothing more
than names, concepts and labels,
which are used to structure reality.
The nominalist does not admit to
there being any “real” structure to the
world, which these concepts are used
to describe. The “names” used are
regarded as artificial creations whose
utility is based upon their conven-
ience as tools for describing, making
sense of and negotiating the external
world. Nominalism is often equated
with conventionalism, and we will
make no distinction between them.
(Burrell & Morgan, 1979, p. 4, italics
added).
For some then, projects are nothing
more than concepts, names, and labels
used to describe, make sense of, and
negotiate the external organizational
world; they are conventions that provide
shorthand for reference to an organiza-
tional reality the same way in which there
is a convention that, during a phone com-
munication, the person who called must
dial again if the communication breaks up
(see Anagnostopoulos, 2004, for the tele-
phone communication example of con-
vention). Hence, the very things that do
exist in the organizational world and
that people call projects are different
from one organization to another, from
one project setting to another, and so
forth, to the extent that, for example, a
consulting project conveys a different
objective reality than an international
development program named project.
Not surprisingly, modern standardized def-
initions of project fail to live up to or fit to
the real project world and there are “insti-
tutionalised conceptions of what a ‘project’
really is, conceptions that influence what
happens in project organisations”
(Packendorff, 1995, p. 329).
Even though men can create a
bridge or a skyscraper, it remains diffi-
cult to question the fact that these
objects are external to individual cogni-
tion. For that reason, realist ontology
for a construction project seems a pri-
ori appealing. But it has been suggested
that a construction project, for exam-
ple, be analyzed as a contract bet-
ween different project stakeholders
(Alderman & Ivory, 2010). Under such a
premise, a construction project is a con-
vention concerning an objective reality,
which is based on particular words,
meanings, and language (Chong & Zin,
2010).
The very assumptions underlying
modern realist and nominalist project
ontologies have been subject to strong
criticism by a number of authors. In
fact, many question the fundamental
Burrell and Morgan (1979) premise that
the project is external to individual cog-
nition (Blomquist & Lundin, 2010;
Pellegrinelli, 2011). Others cast doubts
on the assumption that the label “proj-
ect” may be a universal and stable orga-
nizational reality, and some even reject
this Parmenidean project ontology
(Hodgson & Cicmil, 2006; Linehan &
Kavanagh, 2006; Packendorff, 1995).
Both strands of criticism pave the way
for project ontologies that are of a post-
modern and hypermodern inspiration.
Postmodern Ontological Traditions:
Emphasizing the Virtualist Ontology
The label “project” has been subject to
a few explicit queries regarding its
ontological status. Packendorff (1995,
p. 324) has cast some doubt on the con-
sistency of the label ‘project’ “. . . But is
there really a single, consistent, unam-
biguous empirical phenomenon that
can be labeled ‘the project’?” He
then suggests, as does the so-called
Scandinavian School of Project Studies,
to move away from the metaphor of the
project as a means to achieving higher-
level organizational objectives toward a
metaphor of the project as a temporary
organization, an aggregate of individuals
temporarily enacting a common cause
and more concerned with soft aspects
of projects (Crawford & Pollack, 2004;
Pollack, 2007).
Drawing on the postmodern work
of Foucault (1972), in which he con-
tends that the object of knowledge pre-
cedes the emergence of a field of study,
that we create the object of knowledge
first and then treat it as an external,
objective aspect of reality, Hodgson and
Cicmil (2006) suggest that labeling
something a “project” is a social con-
struction. For them, making “the proj-
ect” a reality is not a discovery but a
construction, and project management
relies on the naturalization of the proj-
ect as an object of study in its quest for
a profession or a discipline status. With
these new insights into the reality of
projects based on critical management
perspectives and perspectives from
social and organizational theories,
projects are neither generic means nor
context-specific means to achieving
higher-level objectives, but rather are-
nas of social and power plays with
power, domination, manipulation, and
exploitation as key underlying concepts
(Ika & Hodgson, 2010). Therefore, the
prominent ontological and epistemo-
logical question is not “What is a proj-
ect?” but “What do we do when we call
something a project?” (Hodgson &
Cicmil, 2006, p. 33).
That we name or label something a
project is a reflection of a set of
assumptions and constructs that shape
our conception, perception, under-
standing, belief, and action about the
phenomenon (Pellegrinelli, 2011).
Following Foucault (1972), Pellegrinelli
(2011) notes that the project is not out-
side the human mind; it is the fruit of
his or her mind, a creation that, over
time, evolves, in practice, into a compo-
nent of objective reality. Hence, the
project is not to be “found” but it is
invented. This idea that the project is a
construction of the human spirit is also
underlined by Blomquist and Lundin
(2010, p. 1), who ask the following ques-
tion: “Are projects real, virtual, or
what?” They argue that a project may
be not only real but also virtual; this,
accordingly, suggests that a “virtualist”
project ontology exists. Whereas nomi-
nalists consider a project to be external
to individual cognition, virtualists assume
a project to be internal to individual cog-
nition. Still, both the nominalists and the
virtualists could be considered as con-
structivists. In fact, if only the conven-
tion about reality is a cognitive construc-
tion for the former, both the reality and
the convention about reality are cogni-
tively constructed for the latter. There-
fore, both the nominalists and the virtu-
alists could figure on a constructivist
continuum going from a reality external
to individual cognition to a reality inter-
nal to individual cognition.
Although Hodgson and Cicmil
(2006) and Blomquist and Lundin
(2010) question the ontological founda-
tions of project, they do not offer any
specific ontological proposition, but
one could posit that their arguments
seem to be of a postmodernist inspira-
tion. In fact, as stated above, “Making
Projects Critical” authors are disparate
and share either postmodern or hyper-
modern perspectives of projects and
project management; it is our con-
tention that their emphasis would be
either on the virtual character of their
ontological analysis for postmodernists
or on the becoming ontology for hyper-
modernists. Pellegrinelli (2011), follow-
ing Linehan and Kavanagh (2006),
suggests grounding our research on
projects and programs in a “becoming”
ontology; however, as we will argue in
the following section, we instead think
that the becoming ontology is of a
hypermodern inspiration.
Hypermodern Ontological Traditions:
Emphasizing the Becoming Ontology
Linehan and Kavanagh (2006) propose
a distinction between “being” and
“becoming” project ontologies. They
argue that a “being” project ontology
gives primacy to objects, things, states,
events, and nouns and casts projects as
discrete and concrete entities, giving
the pervading impression of what Chia
October 2012 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj
(1995) refers to as “false concreteness.”
They argue that, in contrast, a “becom-
ing” project ontology emphasizes
processes, verbs, activity, and the con-
struction of entities, and the role of lan-
guage, meaning, and interpretation in
the sense-making of the label “project.”
They then state that, although a “being”
ontology is dominant in modern proj-
ect management, it is only a partial,
though helpful, view of reality, and its
alternative (i.e., a “becoming” ontol-
ogy) is another partial view but one that
better suits the evolving, dynamic, and
emergent nature of projects. As Kreiner
(1995, pp. 336, 344) suggests, “The label
invokes a model of the project that can
aid us as a tool in analyzing any partic-
ular case and in making inferences
about its characteristics. It implies gen-
eral meaning, aspirations, and proposi-
tions about what needs to be done . . .
Depending on the contents of the proj-
ect label we choose, we will come to
approach reality differently and to draw
different inferences for action . . .
(Projects) do not exist ready-made for us
to scrutinise and classify. They are of
course enacted, and thus “constituted by
the actions of interdependent actors.”
Because projects are centrally
and philosophically about change and
movement, Linehan and Kavanagh
(2006) then posit that project is an
emergent outcome of disparate
ambiguous and political practices and
suggest moving away from a metaphor
of project as an organism and instead
embracing metaphors of project as a
practice. Considering their emphasis
on change and movement, we believe
that their ontological analysis is more
of a hypermodern (than a purely post-
modern) inspiration. In fact, despite
the ever-present dynamics of things
in the postmodern period (Alvesson &
Deetz, 1996; Chia, 1995), the constant
redefinition or transformation of things
is the very principle that characterizes
hypermodernity (Déry, 2009).
Furthermore, Linehan and Kavanagh
(2006) draw from Chia (1995), who, fol-
lowing Cooper and Law (1995), makes
15
 Foundations of Project Management Research
PAPERS
Modern project management
External from cognition
Realist and nominalist ontologies
(Project reality external to cognition:
(1) objective, given ‘out there’ or
(2) made of nothing more than names,
concepts, and labels, which are convenient
tools to describe, make sense of the
orgnizational world)
Figure 1: Dualist ontological traditions and dominant project ontologies according to historical periods of the social world.
an important distinction between a
dominant Parmenidean “being” ontol-
ogy and a Heraclitean “becoming”
ontology. Cooper and Law (1995) argue
that the opposition between the
Parson-inspired sociology of “being”
that emphasizes results and the Elias-
inspired sociology of “becoming” that
emphasizes processes, is roughly
equivalent to the distinction between
distal (what is preconceived, constitut-
ed, and known) and proximal (what is
continuous and unfinished) views of
organization. Also, the “being” perspec-
tive has been associated with regula-
tion and the “becoming” perspective
with change (Vratuša[-Žunjić], 2004).
This is reminiscent of the opposi-
tion between “sociology of regulation,”
which emphasizes unity, status quo,
order, integration, and cohesion, and
“sociology of change,” which empha-
sizes change, structural conflict, domi-
nation, contradiction, and human
emancipation (Burrell & Morgan, 1979).
Therefore, we argue that there is an
opposition between, on the one hand,
the ontology of “being,” which empha-
sizes results, synchronic views of proj-
ect, distal conceptions of project, and
16 October 2012 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj
Being ontology
Regulation/synchronic/distal
(Project is unchanging and permanent reality)
Premodern Project Management
Hypermodern project management
Becoming ontology
Change/diachronic/proximal
(Project is changing and emerging reality)
regulation and, on the other hand, the
ontology of “becoming,” which empha-
sizes processes, diachronic views of
project, proximal conceptions of proj-
ect, and change. However, the sociology
of becoming of Elias’ inspiration is
based on the theory of the agents and
on processes that are close to reflexivity.
For that reason, although Chia (1995)
suggests that the ontology of becoming
is of a postmodernist inspiration, we
would rather consider it as being of a
hypermodern inspiration. In this sketch
of various ontological standpoints in
project management, and similarly to
the subjective–objective dimension
about the nature of science and the
regulation–change dimension about
the nature of society suggested by
Burrell and Morgan (1979), we have
sought to illustrate a couple of broad
and somewhat polarized and ideal-typical
perspectives: a project reality that is the
fruit (or construction) of cognition ver-
sus a project reality that is external from
cognition; and a project reality that is
unchanging and permanent versus a
project reality that is changing and
emerging. In so doing, along with the lat-
ter being–becoming dimension outlined
Fruit of cognition
Virtualist ontology
(Project is the fruit of the human mind,
a pure cognitive construction)
Postmodern project management
by Linehan and Kavanagh (2006), we
added the former dimension: external
from cognition—fruit of cognition.
Figure 1 illustrates the dualist onto-
logical traditions and the dominant
project ontologies according to histori-
cal periods.
A New, Specific, and Integrated
Ontological Framework in Project
Management
The extant ontological question in proj-
ect management highlights many les-
sons. First, the ontological question in
project management has been the sub-
ject of little attention in the project
management literature. Second, if only
a few authors have questioned the
ontological foundations of the project
management field, even fewer have
actually sought to propose an explicit
ontological analysis of projects. Third,
our historical analysis of the project
management field through premodern,
modern, postmodern, and hypermod-
ern periods shows that contrasting
project ontologies do exist: a Heraclitean
diachronic (becoming) ontology of a
changing and emerging reality and
a Parmenidean synchronic (“being”)
ontology of an unchanging and stable
reality; a realist ontology of an objective
reality, given “out there,” made of hard,
concrete, and real entities external to
the individual and independent from
the observer, and a nominalist (con-
ventionalist) ontology of a reality exter-
nal to the individual made of nothing
more than names, concepts, and labels,
which are tools to describe, make sense
of, and negotiate the organizational
world. Fourth, some authors wonder if
the project is a stable or changing reali-
ty and others wonder if the project is a
reality outside of individual cognition
or the creation of human spirit (a con-
struct). Still, one could wonder if the
project is the fruit of regulation, repro-
duction, conflict, or negotiation.
Regulation concerns conventions in
use about project, which powerful
stakeholders have imposed as stan-
dards and have maintained as an entity.
Reproduction focuses on the fact that
project constructions are maintained
time and time again through interactions
with project and stakeholders; this yields
a shared—thus institutionalized—under-
standing of these constructions by an
increasing number of project stake-
holders. Conflict stems from the fact
that the status quo on conventions
about project is fiercely challenged by
the opposition between powerful
stakeholders, and therefore alternatives
are put forward; hence, they become
new conventions. Negotiation refers to
the fact that any time people enter into
interactions with project and stake-
holders, they put to test their under-
standing and conception of project.
Projects are indeed both physical/
empirical phenomena and entities with
structures, and social phenomena and
intentional objects or artifacts in the
hands of humans who interpret
them and make sense of them
(Anagnostopoulos, 2004); projects are
both objects and subjects, as well
as both structures and processes. All of
this suggests an indivisibility associated
with projects insofar as to study projects
is to study the management of projects
and vice versa. Consequently, project
reality may be outside of individual
cognition (“realist or nominalist”) or
within (the construction of) individual
cognition (“virtualist”7). As a reality
outside of individual cognition, project
may be a hard entity (in a realist onto-
logical perspective) or instead a con-
vention (in a nominalist ontological
perspective). Also, a project reality, be it
real or virtual, a hard thing/object or a
nominalist thing/object, may be a sta-
ble reality (in a “being” ontological per-
spective) or an unstable one (in a
“becoming” ontological perspective).
Likewise, the project reality may be the
fruit of regulation or reproduction in a
“being” ontology or the fruit of conflict
or negotiation in a “becoming” ontol-
ogy. All the above strongly suggests
dualism in the ontological analysis of
projects, a type of either/or project
ontology. Bredillet (2010) has attempt-
ed to move somewhat beyond this
dualism as he links a “being” ontologi-
cal perspective with epistemological
perspectives of objectivism and con-
structivism and a “becoming” ontologi-
cal perspective with the epistemological
perspective of subjectivism. As Bredillet
only contrasts the analysis of the objec-
tive nature of project with an epistemo-
logical perspective, we would argue
that he leaves the ontological question
open.
Some authors have made clear the
links between conceptions of project as
a stable reality and those of project as a
hard and real entity (Crawford & Pollack,
2004; Pollack, 2007). Pollack (2007,
p. 268) noted, “A focus on objectivity and
the assumption of a stable and equally
accessible reality can be taken as indica-
tive of a realist philosophical underpin-
ning” (emphasis added). However, even
7Note
that in the virtualist ontology, both the reality and
the convention about the reality are cognitively construct-
ed; however, in the nominalist ontology, which proffers that
project is external to individual cognition, it is only the
convention about reality that is a cognitive construction.
Therefore, both the nominalist and the virtualist ontologies
could be considered as constructivist.
October 2012 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj
if we might assume that reality is indeed
objective, this does not mean that reali-
ty is always stable, and the Heraclitean
perspective of a changing and emerging
world clearly supports this: “Into the
same river you could not step twice, for
other ‘and still other’ waters are flowing”
(Heraclitus, Patrick, & Bywater, 1969,
p. 94).
Furthermore, considering the
recent project management literature
focusing on the “becoming” perspec-
tive of a Heraclitean inspiration, it is
reasonable to believe that the nominal-
ist view of project as a convention
about a reality external to individual
cognition and the virtualist view of
project as a construction of the human
mind account for the changing, emerg-
ing, or becoming aspects of project
reality. It is therefore possible to cross a
“becoming” perspective with both the
nominalist and virtualist ontological
perspectives. Thus, we suggest moving
beyond dualism in the analysis of proj-
ect ontologies and instead consider
their duality. We then turn to a new
ontological framework in project man-
agement as we have attempted to
cross-match different ontological
dualisms and present different core
assumptions about ontology in project
management (Table 2).
In essence, our intention is to pro-
vide a rough typology for thinking about
the various views that project manage-
ment researchers hold about projects.
Project is a complex object/subject, and
the ontological question in project
management should be viewed as a six-
facet diamond that constitutes a set of
root assumptions about the nature of
projects. It is a matter of putting empha-
sis on a facet. When a project manage-
ment researcher knowingly or unknow-
ingly chooses to highlight a specific
facet, he or she ends up leaving the
other five facets in the dark within his or
her research or analysis. Each facet rep-
resents a metaphor of project reality.
When we cross-match a “being” ontol-
ogy with a realist ontology in project
management, we have a project reality
17
 Foundations of Project Management Research
PAPERS

“Realist” (External to Individual Cognition) Project ! Object “Virtualist” (Internal to Individual

Realist Ontology Nominalist Ontology Cognition) Project ! Subject
“Being” ontology Project reality as a concrete and Project reality as a seemingly Project reality as a seemingly
(synchronic/distal/ universal structure: stable and universal convention stable and universal construction of
regulation/ that is the fruit of regulation and human spirit that is the fruit of repro-
reproduction) Project is a real, external objective, institutionalization by powerful duction and institutionalization:
universal, and stable thing that is stakeholders:
“out there” in the organizational Project is the fruit of the human
world and made of hard, concrete, Project is a seemingly stable and mind, a creation that is intersubject-
and empirical entities. Project is universal convention and nothing ively shared and that over time is
a structure that can be thought of more than artificial creations such objectified, and hence becomes a
as a network of determinate as a concept, a name, and a label to stable component of reality in the
relationships between its parts. describe, make sense of, and organizational world. Emphasis is on
Emphasis is on structures and negotiate the external organizational reproduction and intersubjective
functions. world. Emphasis is on conventions institutionalization of the invented
about structures and functions and project structures and functions.
Project ! “out there” structures on regulation and institutionalization.
(Pinto & Slevin, 1988a)
Project ! conventions about Project ! invented structures
structures (Lindgren & Packendorff, 2006)
(Larson & Gobeli, 1985)
“Becoming” ontology Project reality as a concrete Project reality as a changing Project reality as an ever-changing
(diachronic/ process: convention, due to conflict between construction of the human spirit due
proximal/change/ powerful stakeholders: to constant negotiation with oneself
conflict) Project is a reality, external, and others:
objective, but like the Project is an evolving, emerging, and
Heraclitus River, it is an evolving, changing convention and nothing Project is the fruit of the human
emerging, and changing process, more than artificial creations such mind, a construct, a creation that
concrete and “out there” in nature, as a concept, a name, and a label has the potential to be socially
but ever-changing in its detailed to describe, make sense of, and renegotiated and transformed at
form. Project is made of changing negotiate the external organizational any time. Emphasis is on the ever-
and moving processes and is in world. Emphasis is on changing changing status of project processes
part what one makes of it. conventions about processes and and negotiation of these with oneself
Emphasis is on processes. conflict about these conventions. and others.
Project ! project management Project ! conventions about project Project ! invented project manage-
processes (Pinto & Slevin, 1988b) management processes ment processes (Blomquist &
(Nystén-Haarala, Lee, & Lundin, 2010)
Lehto, 2010)
Table 2: A six-facet ontological framework in project management.

as a concrete structure. When we cross-
match a “becoming” ontology with a
realist ontology in project management,
we assume project reality to be a
concrete process. Then, when we cross-
match a “being” ontology with a nomi-
nalist ontology, we consider project
reality to be a seemingly stable and uni-
versal convention in time-space, but
that which is the fruit of regulation and
institutionalization. When we cross
match a “becoming” ontology with a
nominalist ontology, we assume project
reality to be a convention about what is
“out there” but that has the potential to
change any time it is used or referred to,
due to conflict. However, when we
cross-match a “being” ontology with a
virtualist ontology, we assume project
reality to be a seemingly stable and uni-
versally shared construction of human
spirit but one that is the fruit of repro-
duction and institutionalization. Finally,
when we cross-match a “becoming”
ontology with a virtualist ontology, proj-
ect reality becomes an ever-changing
cognitive construction but one that is
the fruit of constant negotiation.
In fact, projects deal with results
and the processes that lead to the
results. They are both processes and
results—both “becoming” and “being”
(Linehan & Kavanagh, 2006). So, it is a
question of emphasis when a project
management researcher privileges the
study of project results instead of that of

18 October 2012 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj

its processes or vice versa. But this prag-
matic emphasis on project results, for
example, may be viewed as a ground
assumption that projects are already
constituted and are simply waiting for
the researcher to come along to analyze
and describe them. That is what some
might call fait accompli project man-
agement research (Cooper & Law, 1995).
We may not agree on the primacy of
results over processes, or that of the
“being” perspective over the “becom-
ing” perspective, but we definitely need
to know what are the ground ontologi-
cal assumptions put forward by the
project management researcher. If he or
she assumes that project is a concrete
and universal structure, then we know
that he or she puts his or her emphasis
on results or structures and functions
and that he or she believes these are,
in general, stable in time-space. Con-
versely, if he or she asserts that project is
a concrete process, then we know that
he or she is emphasizing processes and
that he or she believes these are, in gen-
eral, changing and emergent. If the proj-
ect management researcher considers
that project is a stable and universal
convention, then he or she assumes that
not only this convention—mostly about
project structures and functions—seems
to be real but also that it is seemingly sta-
ble and universal in time-space because
it is the fruit of regulation and institution-
alization. If he or she believes that project
is a changing convention, then he or she
considers that such a convention—most-
ly about project processes—is not only
real but changing and emergent, due to
conflict. The project management
researcher also might believe that proj-
ect is a stable construction of human
spirit, which means that he or she sup-
ports the view that project is not only
internal to individual cognition, but
also that it is an individual creation that
remains seemingly stable in time and
space because it is the fruit of repro-
duction and institutionalization. Con-
versely, project may be an individual
creation that is ever-changing in
nature; then, project is an ever-changing
construction of human spirit. Table 2
sketches the core assumptions about
ontology in project management, de-
scribes their corresponding ontological
metaphors, and presents a classic article
to fit into each of its six quadrants.
Final Thoughts and Further
Research in Project Management
The aim of this article has been to
explicitly address the complex ontolog-
ical question in project management
and to propose a specific ontological
framework in order to further the onto-
logical debate in project management.
To that end, we first dug into the onto-
logical foundations beneath project
management and showed that the
conceptions of project and project
management are not only grounded in
successive periods in the history of the
social world, but that these modern,
postmodern, and hypermodern per-
spectives actually do coexist. We then
addressed the extant ontological ques-
tion in the current project management
literature and found that it is character-
ized by a sort of ontological dualism or
either/or project ontology: realist/
nominalist; realist/virtualist (cogni-
tivist); and “being”/“becoming.” In this
article, we propose cross-matching the
“being” and “becoming” perspectives
with the realist, nominalist, and virtual-
ist (cognitivist) perspectives. In so
doing, this article suggests moving
away from a dualist perspective in
addressing the ontological question
toward an integrated perspective char-
acterized by duality, which in fact better
represents the complexity of projects.
This perspective yielded Table 2, which
summarizes the resulting project
ontologies and their corresponding
metaphors of project reality as: a
concrete and universal structure; a con-
crete process; a seemingly stable and
universal convention, which is the fruit
of regulation; a changing convention,
which is the fruit of conflict; a seeming-
ly stable and universal construction
of the human spirit, which is the fruit of
reproduction and institutionalization;
October 2012 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj
and an ever-changing construction of
the human spirit, which is a result
of constant negotiation.
More specifically, this article advances
that project is a complex object/subject to
study and, as such, is like a diamond
with six ontological facets that represent
a set of root assumptions about the
nature of projects. The main argument
of this article is not that the extant proj-
ect ontologies should be abandoned,
but rather that a new and integrated
ontological framework is needed to
inform and stimulate the current and
future research in project management.
This is consistent with the recent
claims in project management that in
order to account for the complexity of
projects and extend and enrich the
understanding of the actuality of proj-
ects and project management practice,
new ontologies are welcomed because
they will shape the representation of
the phenomenon under investigation
(Winter et al., 2006).
Also, more than 30 years ago, onto-
logical assumptions underpinning
management research were shown to
provide the grounds for theorizing and
metaphors that define different episte-
mological and methodological positions
(Burrell & Morgan, 1979). As suggested
in the introductory remarks, ontology
logically precedes epistemology, which
logically precedes methodology (Grix,
2002). Considering this ontological
primacy in research, this article
suggests that whenever a project man-
agement researcher singles out or
emphasizes a specific facet, he or she
knowingly or unknowingly leaves the
other five facets in the dark in his or
her research.
Consequently, this article calls for
attention to be focused on the ground
ontological assumptions of project man-
agement research in order to transcend
abstract epistemological and method-
ological debates and concentrate on
what really divides the different theoreti-
cal positions. Bredillet (2010) has shown
that the ontological, epistemological,
and theoretical perspectives are closely
19
 Foundations of Project Management Research
PAPERS
linked in project management. In partic-
ular, Smyth and Morris (2007) have
warned the project management research
community about the gaps and flaws in
methodological aspects of published
project management research. Therefore,
the specific and integrated ontological
framework proposed here has broader
implications for project management
research. There are, we suggest, episte-
mological, theoretical, and methodologi-
cal issues that need to be addressed,
keeping in mind these ontological
assumptions.
Let us consider, for example, a proj-
ect management researcher who
assumes project to be a concrete struc-
ture. He or she usually ends up with an
epistemological and a theoretical stance
that emphasize an objective form of
knowledge, the understanding of laws,
regularities, and relationships among
the elements constituting that structure.
He or she would then favor accurate
observation (facts) and measurement
and therefore more conventional “quan-
titative” research methods. At the other
extreme, let us consider that another
project management researcher assumes
project to be a changing construction of
human spirit. He or she generally ends
up with an epistemological and a theo-
retical position that would challenge
and dispute the idea that any form of
objective knowledge is possible and will
rather study the evolving processes
through which project stakeholders
concretize their relationships to the
project. He or she will favor more “quali-
tative” research methods.
Finally, this article has some limita-
tions. One limitation is that it only
addresses the ontological conceptions of
project management authors but not
those of practitioners; therefore, it
underplays, for example, the fact that the
activity of almost every project manager
is largely goal-directed and instrumental
and so almost inevitably matches mod-
ernist thinking and realist ontology best.
Although a careful reading of the article
may suggest that, for realists and virtual-
ists, there is, by essence, isomorphism—a
20 October 2012 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj
perfect match—between conceptions
and perceptions of project reality, and
that for nominalists they differ, because
conventions are constructions that
underpin perceptions, the article does
not account explicitly for the gap
between the ontological conceptions of
project management researchers and
their perceptions of the object of study
(project), which is an important episte-
mological question. Another limitation
of the article is that it does not cover the
ontological scope of the project manage-
ment field itself in terms of whether or
not it includes portfolio/program/proj-
ect front-end management. Despite
some contribution to the ontological
foundations of project management
research, the very limitation of this article
remains the fact that it addresses the
ontological question in isolation from
epistemological, theoretical, and metho-
dological questions. Although this seems
a practical choice, no ontology is an
island, and the interplay between episte-
mology and methodology is a reality.
Indeed, Babbie (2010) has shown that the
ontological perspectives in research, be
they premodern, modern, or postmod-
ern, have methodological implications.
As a consequence, a thorough analysis of
the epistemological, theoretical, and
methodological consequences of each of
the proposed six project ontologies
remains to be conducted. This, however,
goes beyond the purpose of this research.
Acknowledgments
The authors extend their thanks to the
six anonymous reviewers of both
IRNOP (International Research
Network on Organizing by Projects) and
Project Management Journal for their
helpful comments and to Professor
Damian Hodgson of the Manchester
Business School (United Kingdom) for
his great comments. ■
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Jacques-Bernard Gauthier is an associate pro-
fessor at the Université du Québec en
Outaouais, where he earned his MSc in project
management. He holds a PhD in business
administration with a specialization in method-
ology from the Université Laval in Québec,
Canada. Over the past 14 years, he has con-
ducted seminars in the master’s and doctoral
programs in project management where he
teaches the fundamentals of research. He has
also supervised students at the master’s and
doctoral levels. He is a pioneer in this field,
being among the first to propose a course on
epistemology and theory in the master’s pro-
gram in project management at the Université
du Québec network. Besides his interest in
questions regarding ontology, epistemology,
and methodology in project management, he
conducts research on projects and their man-
agement in the health sector in Quebec. His
work has been published in the Revue des
Sciences de Gestion; Revue Management et
Avenir; Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy;
and Revue Économie et Solidarités. His work
has also been presented at the International
Research Network on Organizing by Projects
(IRNOP). In May 2011, he co-organized the
First International Project Management
Congress of the Université du Québec and he
was a co-guest editor of a special issue (March
2012) of the Journal of Global Business
Administration entitled “New Frontiers of
Project Management.”
Lavagnon A. Ika is an assistant professor of
project management in the Telfer School of
Management of the University of Ottawa,
Canada. He holds an MSc in project management
from the Université du Québec en Outaouais,
where he eventually became associate profes-
sor, and a PhD in business administration with a
specialization in project management from the
Université du Québec à Montréal, a Montreal-
based joint doctoral program with McGill,
Concordia, and HEC. His doctoral dissertation
focused on studying the key success criteria
and factors for international development proj-
ects from the perspective of the World Bank
project supervisors and managers. Over the past
12 years, he has taught project management,
mainly in Canada (University of Ottawa,
Université du Québec à Montréal, and École
Polytechnique de Montréal), but also in Algeria,
Morocco, Tunisia, and Lebanon. His research
interests include the study of project, program,
October 2012 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj
and portfolio management in international
development. His work has been published in
numerous journals, including the Project
Management Journal, the International Journal
of Project Management, and the International
Journal of Managing Projects in Business, and
has also presented at research conferences,
including the PMI Research and Education
Conference, the International Research Network
on Organizing by Projects (IRNOP), Making
Projects Critical, the International Academy of
African Business and Development (IAABD), the
Academy of Management (AoM), and the
European Academy of Management (EURAM).
He recently received the Emerald Literati
Network 2011 Award for Excellence (Highly
Commended Paper Award Winner). In May 2011,
he co-organized the First International Project
Management Congress of the Université du
Québec. In July 2012, he co-organized a panel
symposium on “What Makes International
Development Project Management Research
Relevant, and Why Does It Matter,” which was
held during the PMI Research and Education
Conference in Limerick, Ireland. He is currently
a co-guest editor of a forthcoming special issue
of the Journal of African Business on “Why Do
Projects Fail in Africa?”
23