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International Journal of Project Management 33 (2015) 249 – 250
Call for Papers - Public policy and projects
Project management is very deeply embedded in the public
sector. If we follow Morris' (1994) standard account, the project
management toolkit was developed within the public sector for
cold war defence acquisition projects and challenges to that
perspective (e.g. Lenfle and Loch, 2010) also draw on evidence
from a public sector project. However, there has been remarkably
little attention in the field of project organising research to the
public policy aspects. The aim of this special issue is to address
this gap by calling for papers on the links between public policy
and projects. Through this call we hope to bring the public
administration and project organising research communities
together in mutually beneficial dialogue.
Themes that could be addressed by papers responding to the
call include:
• The infrastructure gap and public policy. There is a widespread
perception of a global “infrastructure gap” (World Economic
Forum, 2012) and this gap will be filled by promoting major
projects and programmes. For instance, in the UK it has
stimulated innovation in the public sector through the recent
establishment of Infrastructure UK which is demanding
changes in the organisation of major projects to improve
performance. So what are the implications for project
organising of public sector initiatives to fill the infrastructure
gap?
• Public sector procurement. Over the last 20 years, there
have been large numbers of initiatives to improve the ways
in which the public sector acquires capital assets from the
private sector. Some have been focused on tackling
corruption; others have focused on the use of private finance
to fund public projects, whilst there has been a more general
concern to improve performance and get the best for the
public sector from its spend with the private sector. What is
the experience of the last 20 years in public procurement,
and which ar e the interesting innovations which might well
shape the next 20 years? There is much advocacy of
relational approaches and trust, but what is the actual
experience beyond the rhetoric?
• PM standards and the public sector. Whilst the not-for-profit
professional associations such as PMI and the national
members of IPMA have sponsored the development of bodies
of knowledge setting standards for individual competencies,
the public sector has focused more on developing project
methodologies such as Prince2. What is the relationship
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2014.08.003
www.elsevier.com/locate/ijproman
between the two approaches for practice in the field, and
how will the professional associations address the formation
of public-private partnerships such as Axelos to promote
public-sector derived project methodologies around the world
in apparent competition with the professional bodies.
• The governance of public projects and programmes. The
tradition of studies of “great planning disasters” (Hall, 1982)
is a long one; for a recent contribution see Brown et al
(2013). A related line of enquiry has emphasised problems
of strategic misrepresentation in project evaluation (Flybjerg
et al., 2003). Yet there have also been innovations in the
governance of public programmes which have performed
well, such as the development of stage-gate processes and
assurance processes such as the “three lines of defence”
(Hone et al., 2011) on the London Olympics. What is the
state of the art in programme governance; what more needs
to be done to improve performance; and what do we mean in
practice by the concept of “intelligent client” (Aritua et al.,
2009)? For instance, do innovative forms of organisation
such as wholly publicly owned delivery bodies such
as Denmark's A/S Storebæltsforbindelsen (Bonke, 1998)
improve performance, and does private finance have efficiency
effects here as claimed by Flyvbjerg et al (2003)?
• Labour standards. What role does the public sector have, or
should have, in the maintenance and improvement of labour
standards for operatives on project sites? The Qatari kafala
system is merely the latest example of exploitative labour
systems for migrant project workers. What can and should
be done to ensure change?
• The public interest. Many projects generate high levels of
public controversy – nuclear power, wind power, dams and
many transportation projects for instance. Are the present
mechanisms for handling such controversy adequate, and how
might they be improved, particularly in developing countries –
see, for instance, World Commission on Dams (2000). Also,
what is the appropriate way to handle direct action, and public
dissatisfaction with investment priorities such as protests
against apparent favouring of international-standard sporting
facilities over basic infrastructure as in Brazil, for instance.
• Regulatory systems. Projects and programmes are often
promoted in highly regulated environments, particularly
physical infrastructure – the environmental impact assess-
ment is a widespread tool of regulation. Such issues are
typically handled within project organising research through
250 Call for Papers - Public policy and projects
stakeholder management concepts (Winch, 2004); is such an
approach still appropriate or are different, more institutional,
perspectives needed such as that articulated by Currie and
Guah (2007)? Moreover, private sector companies may initiate
information systems programmes in order to implement new
regulatory standards – this is particularly true of the finance
sector since the 2007 crash. Are there particular research issues
around the management of these projects?
• Projects and public policy initiatives. Many public policy
initiatives are implemented through launching information
systems or urban regeneration programmes, and failures in
such programmes are often blamed for the failure of the
policy initiative (King and Crewe, 2013). What is the
connection between public policy initiatives and public
programmes, and are such programmes set up to fail due to
poorly formulated and infeasible policy?
Papers must be submitted online at http://ees.elsevier.com/
jpma, choosing SI: Public Policy and Projects as the article
type, and carefully following the Guide for Authors. Submitted
papers will be subject to the usual IJPM double-blind review
process with multiple reviewers. All queries should be submitted
directly to the guest editors.
Key Dates
• Paper submission deadline: 1 February 2016.
• Expected publication date: 1 September 2016.
References
Aritua, B., Male, S., Bower, D., 2009. Defining the intelligent public sector
construction client. Proc. Inst. Civ. Eng. Manage. Procure. Law 162, 75–82.
Bonke, S., 1998. The Storebælt fixed link: the fixing of multiplicity. Le Groupe
Bagnolet Working Paper 14, (Available at: http://www.chantier.net/europe.
html).
Brown, T.L., Potoski, M., Van Slyke, D.M., 2013. Complex Contracting:
Government Purchasing in the Wake of the US Coastguards' Deepwater
Programme. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Currie, W.L., Guah, M.W., 2007. Conflicting institutional logics: a national
programme for IT in the organisational field of healthcare. J. Inf. Technol.
22, 235–247.
Flybjerg, B., Bruzelius, N., Rothengatter, W., 2003. Megaprojects and Risk: An
Anatomy of Ambition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Hall, P., 1982. Great Planning Disasters. University of California Press,
Berkeley.
Hone, D., Higgins, D., Galloway, I., Kintrea, K., 2011. Delivering London
2012: organisation and programme. Proc. Inst. Civ. Eng. Civ. Eng. 164,
5–12.
King, A., Crewe, I., 2013. The Blunders of Our Governments. Oneworld,
London.
Lenfle, S. And, Loch, C., 2010. Lost roots: how project management came to
emphasize control over flexibility and novelty. Calif. Manag. Rev. 53,
32–55.
Morris, P.W.G., 1994. The Management of Projects. Thomas Telford, London.
Winch, G.M., 2004. Managing Project Stakeholders. In: Morris, P.W.G., Pinto,
J.K. (Eds.), The Wiley Guide to Managing Projects. Wiley, New York,
pp. 321–339.
World Commission on Dams, 2000. Dams and Development: A New
Framework for Decision-making. Earthscan, London.
World Economic Forum, 2012. Strategic Infrastructure: Steps to Prioritize and
Deliver Infrastructure Effectively and Efficiently. World Economic Forum,
Geneva.
Guest Editors
Graham M. Winch
Manchester Business School, UK
E-mail address: graham.winch@mbs.ac.uk.
Joe Sanderson
Birmingham Business School, UK
E-mail address: j.r.sanderson@bham.ac.uk.