Project Leadership and Society 3 (2022) 100061

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Project Leadership and Society

journal homepage: www.sciencedirect.com/journal/project-leadership-and-society

Empirical Research Paper

Digitalization of project management: Opportunities in research

and practice
Carl Marnewick a, *, Annlizé L. Marnewick b
a
University of Johannesburg, Applied Information Systems, South Africa
b
University of Johannesburg, Postgraduate School of Engineering Management, South Africa

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The fast growth of digital technologies as well as the amount of data that devices and applications collect daily,
Digitalization increasingly drive organisations to radically transform their business models. The impact of digitalization on
Digital transformation Information technology (IT) projects are evident through the adoption of agile approaches and DevOps. What is
Project management
not clear, is how digitalization is impacting the larger project management discipline. A bibliometric analysis of
Bibliometric analysis
478 articles provides insights into the state of project management digitalization. At a high level, project
Technologies
Research focus areas management is not yet digitalized but technologies are used as tools to optimise project management processes.
The results also highlight the need for continuous learning to adapt to the transformation introduced by digi­
talization. The introduction of the Project Management Digitalization Research Agenda Cube can be used to
guide practitioners and academia to facilitate the digitalization of project management.

1. Introduction
The fast growth of digital technologies such as building information
modelling (BIM), social media, big data, cloud computing and the
internet of things, and the amount of data that devices and applications
collect daily increasingly drive organisations to radically transform their
business models. This digital transformation provides many challenges
such as the overwhelming presence of technology, the capacity to obtain
benefits from digital technologies, emerging capabilities, cultural
change, new forms of organisational structures such as digital infra­
structure, new ways of cooperation and digital inequalities to name but a
few. A distinction needs to be made between the concepts of digitization
and digitalization. These concepts are closely related but do differ.
Digitization focuses on the process of converting analog streams of in­
formation into digital bits for example scanning physical documents into
digital copies. Digitalization on the other hand focuses on the integra­
tion of various technologies into all aspects of a person’s life or the work
environment (Gray and Rumpe, 2015).
The impact of digitalization on organisations has been studied
recently (Sutherland and Jarrahi, 2018; Bauer et al., 2018; Weill and
Woerner, 2015; Körner et al., 2015). Within the project management
domain, literature focus on the application of technology such as BIM
(Yan, 2021; Sidani et al., 2021; Wernerova et al., 2018) as well as big
data and data science (Chen and Dai, 2021). In the case of big data and
data science, literature focuses on using data science within projects and
how to implement big data or data science projects. The focus of the
articles is on the application or implementation of technology. These
articles focus on digitizing project management and not project man­
agement digitalization. What is not known is how digitalization impacts
project management as a discipline from the perspective of both prac­
titioners and academia. The aim of this article is to provide insights into
the state of project management digitalization. These insights should
indicate what is the current level project management digitalization and
what should be done to digitalize project management even more. This
is done through a bibliometric analysis. To address the aim of the article,
the following research objectives are identified:
• Gain an overview of project management digitalization
• Identify emerging research focus areas
• Contribute to the current limited body of knowledge on project
management digitalization.
The first section of the article focuses on the literature review around
digitalization, technology trends and project management. The next two
sections focus on the bibliometric analysis process and subsequent re­
sults. The fourth section discusses the results and potential research

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: cmarnewick@uj.ac.za (C. Marnewick), amarnewick@uj.ac.za (A.L. Marnewick).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plas.2022.100061
Received 25 May 2022; Received in revised form 21 September 2022; Accepted 25 September 2022
Available online 27 September 2022
2666-7215/© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
nc-nd/4.0/).
C. Marnewick and A.L. Marnewick
focus areas are offered. The conclusion section concludes the article and
provide avenues for future research.
2. Domain of the bibliometric study
The literature review focuses on (i) digitalization as a concept and
(ii) the potential impact of digitalization on project management. The
aim of the literature review is to create a linkage between these concepts
and indicate how digitalization impacts project management.
2.1. Digitalization
Organisations are impacted by advancements in technology (Balak­
rishnan and Das, 2020). These advancements in technology are driven
largely by the following developments: mobile technologies, social
media, big data and data science, cloud computing technologies and the
Internet of Things (IoT) (Châlons and Dufft, 2017). These technological
advancements and the application thereof, are increasingly becoming
part and parcel of an organisations products and processes (Chawla and
Goyal, 2022). This increasing reliance on technology creates major
changes in organisations as well as society (Van Veldhoven and Van­
thienen, 2021).
This incorporation of technology into the organisation’s products
and processes are referred to as digitalization or digital transformation.
Distinction is made in literature between the concepts of digitization,
digitalization and digital transformation. Confusion between the con­
cepts of digitization and digitalization led to these concepts been used
interchangeably in management literature (Balakrishnan and Das,
2020). As per Saarikko et al. (2020), digitization is the technical process
where analogue signals are converted into digital signals. This view is
supported by Chae (2022) that refers to digitization as the conversion of
analog information into digitized products. Digitization is thus driving
digitalization.
Legner et al., (2017) perceived digitalization as a sociotechnical
process where technology is adopted at a large scale. This sociotechnical
process view are supported by Saarikko et al. (2020) stating that digi­
talization leverages digitized products or systems to create new organ­
isational processes, business models and product offerings. Nwaiwu
(2018) perceived digitalization as the process of moving to a digital
business using technology to change business models, provide new
revenue and value producing opportunities.
Just as there is confusing between the concepts of digitization and
digitalization, Van Veldhoven and Vanthienen (2021) stated that there
is some “semantic confusion” between the two concepts of digitalization
and digital transformation (DT). Kraus, Durst, Ferreira, Veiga, Kailer and
Weinmann (2022) were of the opinion that DT is the “integration of digital
technology into all aspects and operations of an organization, which in turn
leads to infrastructural changes in how the organization is operated and
delivers value to its customers”. Balakrishnan and Das (2020) on the other
hand, perceived DT as transforming organisations into digital organi­
sations where value proposition and delivery is transformed. Chawla
and Goyal (2022) defined DT as “the use of new age digital technologies to
enable major business improvements (such as enhancing customer experi­
ence, streamlining operations or creating new business models)”. Saarikko
et al. (2020) had a totally different perspective where the focus is on
remaining viable and relevant in the new digital landscape. This is
achieved by adapting organisations’ forms and skill sets. AlNuaimi,
Kumar Singh, Ren, Budhwar and Vorobyev (2022) stated that DT is
achieved through planned changes and that DT is a tool to transform
business processes and culture.
An analysis of digitalization and digital transformation definitions
concurs with Van Veldhoven and Vanthienen (2021) that it is just about
semantics. Digitalization and DT both focus on the processes, business
models and products. Terms that are used interchangeably are opera­
tions instead of processes and value creation instead of products. For this
article, the concept of digitalization will be used as the focus is on
2
Project Leadership and Society 3 (2022) 100061
digitalizing project management and not to digitally transition project
management. Table 1 provides a summary of the definitions.
Technology forms the basis of digitalization but technology per se,
does not provide value to organisations but rather “doing business
differently because technology makes it possible” (Westerman et al., 2019).
Chawla and Goyal (2022) concurred that technology alone is of no
value, but value is generated based on the context that makes technol­
ogy useful to the organisation. This applies to the project management
discipline as well. Project management can be done differently through
the application of technology.
Kraus et al. (2022) stated that digitalization or digital transformation
is very specialised and restricted to particular domains. One domain that
is not covered in literature is the project management domain. Digita­
lization has also become complex, more difficult to understand and re­
quires attention from academics. Chawla and Goyal (2022) stated that
research progression is missing in the literature.
Digitalization is achieved through the application of iterative project
management approaches such as Scrum and Lean (Guinan et al., 2019).
Châlons and Dufft (2017) also highlighted agility and adaptability as
prerequisites for digitalization. Organisations also need to invest in the
skills and capabilities of employees. Guinan et al. (2019) provided four
levers for teams to be successful in digitalization. These levers are (i)
diversity, (ii) iterative goal setting, (iii) continuous learning and (iv)
talent management. Organisations also need to move from functional
silos to cross-functional teams (Saarikko et al., 2020). Châlons and Dufft
(2017) added two additional requirements. The first is that digital so­
lutions should be simple and intuitive and secondly, organisations
should explore digital channels to collect customer information to pro­
vide better customer experience.
Various frameworks exist to describe the phenomenon of digitali­
zation. These frameworks can be divided into conceptual, trans­
formation or maturity frameworks. Conceptual frameworks describe
digitalization in a way for people to understand this concept (Van
Veldhoven and Vanthienen, 2021). van Tonder, Schachtebeck, Nieu­
wenhuizen and Bossink (2020) designed a conceptual framework that
guides organisations to digitalize current business models. The Digiti­
zation Piano Digital Business Transformation Framework is also a con­
ceptual model that aids organisations in the application of digital
technologies to achieve successful transformation (Nwaiwu, 2018).
Transformation frameworks on the other hand, explain how digita­
lization should be implemented in organisations. Martinez (2019)
referred to it as a path that involves the steps that organisations need to
take to implement digital solutions. Kavadias et al. (2016) mentioned six
keys i.e. (i) a personalised product/service offering, (ii) a closed-loop
process, (iii) asset sharing, (iv) usage-based pricing, (v) a collaborative
ecosystem and (vi) an agile and adaptive organisation. These six keys are
required if organisations want to successfully digitalize its business
model.
Maturity frameworks describe the maturity levels of digitalization
and are valuable to assess the organisations strengths, and weaknesses.
An example of a maturity framework is that of Venkatraman (1994). He
postulated five maturity levels i.e. localised exploitation, internal inte­
gration, business process redesign, business network redesign and
business scope redefinition.
Based on the various definitions of digitalization and the work of
Table 1
Defining digitizing, digitalization and digital transformation.
Concept Description
Digitizing The conversion of products into a digital format.
Digitalization The innovation of business models and processes that exploit
digital opportunities.
Digital The systems level restructuring of organisations that occurs
transformation through digital diffusion. This changes how the organisation
operates and delivers value to customers.
C. Marnewick and A.L. Marnewick
Schreckling and Steiger (2017), digitalization can be divided into three
main compartments i.e. the drivers of digitalization, the objects that will
be digitalized and the impacts on the economy, organisation and pro­
cesses. Fig. 1 provides a graphical presentation of the relationship be­
tween technology trends, digitalization and project management.
Drivers for digitalization: Digitalization is mainly driven and
enabled by breakthroughs in digital technologies such as big data, cloud
computing and mobile computing. These breakthroughs are driven by
Moore’s Law and are evolving exponentially (Autio et al., 2021).
Another driver is the change in people’s behaviour, attitudes and ex­
pectations. The more people use technology, the more they expect of
technology, and it also change the way they communicate and behave. A
third driver is the low barrier to entry. Technologies are becoming
cheaper and affordable as these technologies are evolving exponentially.
Objects of digitalization: Digitalization impacts (i) processes and
work, (ii) the products and services an organisation offers and (iii) the
business models itself. Technology has changed the way people work
and allowed for the automation of processes (Menzel and Macaulay,
2015; Humble and Farley, 2010). The products that organisations offer
also changed and this is especially the case in the financial sector. An
example is Internet banking or mobile banking that replaced traditional
banking or the offering of music through Spotify. The third object of
digitalization is business models. The business models of organisations
are influenced by digitalization and an example is digital platforms
(Fehrer et al., 2018). Digital platforms are online businesses facilitating
commercial interactions between at least two different groups.
Impact of digitalization: The impact of digitalization is wide ranging
affecting the economy, new opportunities for the organisation as well as
challenges that needs to be addressed. When it comes to the economy at
large, digitalization impacts the growth of the organisation and the
economy of the country, the structure of value chains, employment and
skills (Mandičák et al., 2020), the nature of work itself (John, 2021;
Fernández-Rovira et al., 2021) and business models (Man and Strand­
hagen, 2017).
2.2. Project management
Various definitions for project management exist and the common
attributes are that knowledge, skills, tools and techniques need to be
applied by the project manager to achieve specific project objectives
(Project Management Institute, 2021; Association for Project Manage­
ment, 2006; Mnkandla and Marnewick, 2011). When one talks about the
digitalization of project management, then one needs to view it through
the lens of this definition.
Knowledge: Knowledge can be defined as those facts and information
which is known in a particular field (Davidson and Rowe, 2009). There
are two forms of knowledge, namely explicit and tacit knowledge. Tacit
knowledge is obtained by internal individual processes, such as expe­
rience, reflection and internalization or individual talents. Explicit
knowledge on the other hand focuses on storing knowledge in me­
chanical or technological mediums such as textbooks or information
systems. Project managers should have explicit knowledge about the
various technologies that can assist them in achieving the project’s
Fig. 1. Relation between technology trends, digitalization and project management.
3
Project Leadership and Society 3 (2022) 100061
requirements. Tacit knowledge will be gained through the usage and
application of these various technologies.
Skills: Skills can be defined as the proficiency or dexterity that is
acquired or developed through training or experience (El-Sabaa, 2001).
Marnewick and Marnewick (2020) mentioned that the required skills
are becoming more complex as project managers need to master the
various technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine
learning.
Tools: The most suitable tools should be used within a certain
context. Digital tools include scheduling software and BIM software.
These tools empower project managers to work more efficiently and
effectively. But the project manager should have the knowledge and
skills to operate these tools to the maximum.
Techniques: Various techniques are available to the project man­
ager. These techniques include risk assessment and project portfolio
selection techniques. In the case of risk assessment, machine learning
can be used to automate and perform this activity. This then excludes the
project team’s biasness.
In summary, technology trends are drivers for digitalization. From a
project management perspective, the objects of digitalization are project
management processes, the project’s deliverable, and the business
models. The impact of digitalization is on the growth of the organisation
and on the skills required by the project manager and project team
members. Although the literature review highlights the relationship
between digitalization and project management, there are still no in­
sights into the state of project management digitalization.
The next section discusses the bibliometric analysis process. A bib­
liometric analysis is deemed fit as it provides an one-stop overview of
digitalization and project management and it identifies knowledge gaps
(Donthu et al., 2021).
Bibliometric analysis was used before within the project manage­
ment domain. Artto, Martinsuo, Gemünden and Murtoaro (2009) used it
to determine similarities and differences between project and pro­
gramme management whereas De Rezende, Blackwell and Pessanha
Gonçalves (2018) created a precise image of the project complexity
field. They also used bibliometric analysis to sense the development of
the knowledge field as did Oraee et al. (2017) when they investigated
new and growing areas of BIM. Xue, Shen, Yang, Wu, Li, Lin and Xue
(2020) used bibliometric analysis to determine connections and trends
within stakeholder perspective studies. In another study, Hanisch and
Wald (2012) focused on the contributions of authors to the field of
contingency theory in project management. The reason for using bib­
liometric analysis is that large quantities of bibliometric data can be
summarised to present first the intellectual structure and secondly, any
emerging trends on a specific research topic. In contrast, a systematic
literature review summarizes and synthesizes existing literature on a
research topic or field. In the case of digitalization and project man­
agement, there is not enough existing literature thus the decision to
perform a bibliometric analysis.
In summary, using bibliometric analysis, this article focuses on (i)
gaining an overview of the research topic, (ii) identify knowledge gaps,
(iii) identify emerging research streams and (iv) position the contribu­
tions in relation to the research topic.
C. Marnewick and A.L. Marnewick
3. Bibliometric analysis process
As per Donthu et al. (2021), the bibliometric analysis process consists
of four steps. These four steps provide legitimacy to the process as the
results can be independently validated.
Step 1: Define the aims and scope of the bibliometric study: This first
step is to define the aim and scope of the bibliometric study. The
scope is to determine the impact of digitalization on project man­
agement per se. The related disciplines of programme and portfolio
management are not part of the scope of this study. The aim of the
bibliometric analysis is to determine to what extent, if at all, digital
technologies are incorporated into the discipline of project man­
agement and whether project management is digitalized.
Step 2: Choose the techniques for bibliometric analysis: The focus of
this step is to choose the techniques upfront that will support the
aims of the bibliometric study. To address the aims of this biblio­
metric study, the following techniques will be used:
• Co-word analysis: To explore the existing or future relationships
among topics in a research field by focusing on the written content of
the publication itself.
• Co-authorship analysis: To examine the social interactions or re­
lationships among authors and their affiliations and equivalent im­
pacts on the development of the research field.
Apart from these two techniques, certain performance analysis
metric can be used such as publication-related metrics and citation-
related metrics.
Step 3: Collect the data for bibliometric analysis: In this step, the
search term needs to be defined in a such a way that it will yield
search results that is large enough to warrant a bibliometric analysis
and yet focused enough to address the aims of the study and be
within the scope of the study. In this instance, the following key­
words were used in conjunction with project management.
As per Donthu et al. (2021) various databases could be searched.
They warn that combining the results the various databases might result
in errors as this is a manual process. They advise that a single database
be used. Three prominent databases (Scopus, ACM Digital Library and
World of Science) were utilized for the initial search. There were 35
duplicate articles amongst the three databases. It was decided to only
focus on the 478 articles listed in the Scopus database for this specific
bibliometric study.
Step 4: Run the bibliometric analysis and report the findings: The
focus of this step is to craft insightful discussions that engage directly
with the aim of the bibliometric study and equivalent rationales
instead of just reporting on the summary of the bibliometric corpus.
4. Findings of bibliometric analysis’ results
The first part reports on the performance analysis whereas the sec­
ond part focuses on the scientific mapping using co-word analysis and
co-authorship analysis.
4.1. Performance analysis
The first set of performance metric focuses on publication-related
metrics. As per Fig. 2, most of the articles appear in conference pro­
ceedings with only 148 articles appearing in peer-reviewed journals.
The first article appeared in 1994 focusing on the influence of digital
systems on nuclear security (Brill, 1994). Forty-three articles were
published between 2000 and 2010. The last decade saw the publication
of 432 articles with 2020 (107 articles) and 2021 (111 articles) the most
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Project Leadership and Society 3 (2022) 100061
productive years as per Fig. 3.
When it comes to the analysis of the authors, the author metric
analysis provides additional insights. A staggering 1479 authors are
contributing to this field of digitalization and project management
resulting in three authors per article since 1994. Of this 1479 authors,
ninety-six authors are sole authors, and only 381 authors are co-
authoring. The high number of authors versus the low number of co-
authors (4:1) indicates a relative low maturity level.
The next set of performance metrics focus on citation and publication
related metrics. The most cited article (112 times) is that of Li et al.
(2019) focusing on the usage of blockchain in the built environment and
construction industry. Forty-five percent of the articles have not been
cited. A breakdown of the number of citations per article is provided in
Fig. 4.
Table 2 provides some insight around the collaboration between the
authors. Collaboration is still fragmented, and authors are not collabo­
rating as only 1% of the authors are collaborating. The collaboration
coefficient (Ajiferuke et al., 1988) of 0.6768 relates to the previous
statement where on average three authors contribute to an article.
Based on the performance analysis, one can deduce the following:
• Digitalization and project management is an emerging trend. This is
deduced from Fig. 3 as well as the large number of authors
contributing to this field.
• Various authors are doing research in this field. Some authors are
sole authors whereas others are co-authoring. This indicates frag­
mentation and no focused research agenda.
• The articles are not highly cited as 45% of the articles have never
been cited. This indicates a lack of research maturity as the research
is not focused and various authors are trying position themselves in
this field.
4.2. Scientific mapping
4.2.1. Co-authorship analysis
The purpose of analysing co-authorship is to examine the social in­
teractions or relationships among authors and their affiliations and
equivalent impacts on the development of the research field. Vos­
Viewer1 was used to create the density visualization. From the perfor­
mance analysis, it was indicated that author:article ratio is 1:3 and this
ratio was used to create the co-authorship density visualization as per
Fig. 5. The most productive group is indicated by the red bubble. This
group of researchers focus specifically on big data and data science and
are based at the Syracuse University in the USA. They have published 12
articles as co-authors. The second group is that of Helmus and Meins-
Becker and their research focuses on building information modelling
(BIM). The research of Seppänen and Peltokorpi focuses on the appli­
cation of technology in construction projects specifically to empower
project managers. Hassani and El Bouzekri El Idrissi focus on software
and digital project management and distinguishes between information
technology (IT) projects and digital projects. The last cluster (dark
green) is that of Grabis, Haidabrus and Protsenko. Their research focuses
on using data through the application of data science algorithms.
All these authors are focusing on the ‘object of digitalization’ as per
Fig. 1. The focus is very much on the project management processes and
not so much on the project deliverable or project business models.
The second level of analysis focuses on co-words where the focus is
on existing relationships among topics by focusing on the published
articles itself.
4.2.2. Co-word analysis
As with the co-authorship analysis, VosViewer was used to determine
clusters. Fifty-six keywords met the minimum number of occurrences of
1
https://www.vosviewer.com.
C. Marnewick and A.L. Marnewick
(digitalization OR datafication OR “digital transformation” OR “digital technologies” OR “data science”) AND “project management".
Fig. 2. Article distribution.
ten. This is around 2% of all the keywords. The reason for choosing such
a high number is to have a more focused analysis of the clusters. A lower
minimum number of occurrences muddle the results and too many
clusters are identified that does not necessarily add value. For example,
if the default setting of five occurrences are used, then 133 keywords
meet the criteria which is more than double if the minimum occurrence
was set to ten. Using five keyword occurrences results in six clusters
versus four distinct clusters when 10 word occurrences are used. Fig. 6 is
a visual presentation of the co-word density and the four clusters are
clearly visible.
The aim of this article is to provide insights into the state of project
management digitalization. The level of keyword occurrences as per
Table 3 provides some insights. It is evident that digitalization and
digital technologies are appearing frequently, and these occurrences
also have high total link strengths. The total link strength indicates how
Fig. 3. Articles per year.
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Project Leadership and Society 3 (2022) 100061
many links a keyword has with other keywords. BIM within construction
is standing out when one looks at the top 10 keywords indicating that
the construction industry is embracing BIM (Hu et al., 2018; Poirier
et al., 2017).
The focus is on information technology and construction. The reason
is because digitalization is driven by IT and most of the research is
related to BIM within the construction industry.
Table 4 provides more detail of each cluster or theme and provides
more insights into the co-word density visualization as per Fig. 6.
Cluster C1 consists of 20 items and this makes it difficult to analyse
and provide insights. One of the first themes that emerge from this
cluster is the agile and agile project management is used for the
implementation of digital technologies and digital transitions. This
makes sense as most digital technologies implementations are perceived
as IT projects and lately, agile is the preferred approach to implement IT
projects. This confirms the research of Guinan et al. (2019) and Châlons
and Dufft (2017). A second theme that emerges from this cluster is
learning. Learning needs to take place at two levels. The first level is to
understand how the specific technology is working and functioning and
the second level is how does this specific technology influences the way
a project is managed. Again, BIM comes to mind. The project team need
to learn how to operate a certain BIM package and they should also
understand how utilising BIM can assist them in forecasting and
long-term operations. Learning within the organisation cannot happen
without the proper management of human resources. The inclusion of
management science as a keyword also indicates that new ways of
working is required around management, personnel and the how risk is
managed in a more digitalized environment. The large number of items
in this cluster, confirms the notion that project management digitali­
zation is still an emerging research focus area. Articles are not yet
focused and authors are trying to cover too much either in the article
itself or with the keywords. Articles in this cluster have an average of 10
keywords.
C. Marnewick and A.L. Marnewick Project Leadership and Society 3 (2022) 100061

Fig. 4. Number of citations per article.

the usage of digital technologies such as machine learning and digital

Table 2
twins. The application of digital twins is utilized in the construction
Citation metric analysis.
industry (Ozturk, 2021; Oliveira, 2020). This relates to the project
Metric Total Description management processes as objects of digitalization as per Fig. 1.
Collaboration index 1% Extent of collaboration of research Cluster 3 consists of nine items and the focus of this cluster is more on
constituent specific technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data and data
Collaboration coefficient 0.6768 The extent of author collaboration
science. The overall theme of this cluster is the management of vast
standardized between 0 and 1
Number of cited 263 Number of publications of research amounts of data that is associated with digitalization. Project managers
publications constituent that are cited and project teams need to be able to collect data and make intelligent
Proportion of cited 55% and informative decisions based on the data. Technologies such as
publications artificial intelligence and data science can assist with this. The keyword
information management captures the essence of this cluster.
Cluster 2 consists of 15 items. The main theme that arises from this Cluster 4 also consists of nine items and the focus is very much on the
cluster is the impact of digitalization on business processes. Business usage of BIM in the construction and engineering industries.
processes are automated resulting in faster decision-making and Although each cluster is discussed as a separate entity, there are
providing a competitive edge. This can only be accomplished through linkages between concepts among the clusters as depicted in Fig. 7.
As with the co-authorship analysis, the focus of the co-word analysis

Fig. 5. Co-authorship density visualization.

6
C. Marnewick and A.L. Marnewick Project Leadership and Society 3 (2022) 100061

Fig. 6. Co-word density visualization.

is on the project management processes as objects of digitalization. Little

Table 3
or no focus is given to the other aspects as per Fig. 1.
Top 10 keyword occurrence and associated total link strength.
Keyword Occurrence Total link strength 5. Discussion
Digital transformation 92 289
Construction industry 82 391 5.1. Sense making of bibliometric analysis
Digital technologies 77 290
Information management 69 324
BIM 64 348
The performance analysis highlights that there is an increased in­
Architectural design 64 345 terest in digitalization within the project management discipline. There
Digitalization 58 167 is a year-on-year increase in publications although most publications are
Data science 51 169 still offered at conferences. This trend is understandable as new ideas
Information systems 36 151
and concepts needs to be brainstormed at conferences. A concern is that
Construction project management 32 171
journal articles are not appearing in the top three project management
journal (IJPM, PMJ and IJMPiB) but rather in engineering and infor­
mation technology focused journals.
Table 4
The scientific mapping focused on two aspects i.e. co-authorship and
Cluster analysis.
co-word analysis. The co-authorship highlighted certain aspects. The
Cluster Keywords in the cluster first aspect is that the authors that work together are all based at the
C1 (20 items): Agile, Agile project management, Cost effectiveness, Digital same institution. Research collaborations should be established across
Red devices, Digital technologies, Digital transformation, e-learning, institutions and disciplines as it will be beneficial for the researchers as
education, engineering education, HR management, Industry well as the institutions (Armstrong and Drotar, 2000). Researchers
4.0, Investments, Iterative methods, Knowledge management,
Management science, Managers, Metadata, Personnel, Risk
involved in the digitalization of project management should create
management cross-industry and cross-institutional collaborations. More importantly,
C2 (15 items): Automation, Business process, Competition, Decision making, researchers from the project management discipline should become part
Green Digital economy, Digital twin, Digitalization, Economics, of this research otherwise there is the danger that researchers from other
Humans, Information technology, Learning systems, Machine
disciplines might dictate the project management digitalization research
learning, Manufacture, Sustainable development, Technology
C3 (9 items): Artificial intelligence, Big data, Data analytics, Data science, agenda.
Blue Decision support systems, Digital storage, Information The co-word analysis provides some interesting insights. The first
management, Information systems, Information use observation is that technology is used as a tool. No evidence is found
C4 (9 items): Architectural design, BIM, Construction industry, Construction where technology is actually used to optimise project management
Mustard management, Construction PM, Information theory, Life cycle,
Office buildings, Structural design
techniques such as risk assessment and project portfolio selection. For
technology to create value beyond just a tool or an application, it should

7
C. Marnewick and A.L. Marnewick
Fig. 7. Co-word network visualization.
be incorporated into managing projects differently (Westerman et al.,
2019). It is therefore proposed that project managers should be knowl­
edgeable about technology trends. This is specifically applicable to
project managers outside the IT industry. Project managers should also
be knowledgeable about how technology can be used as a tool but also
how to optimise techniques using technology.
Agile is perceived as the best approach to deliver new technologies as
it is more successful than the traditional waterfall approach (Khoza and
Marnewick, 2020). This is specifically the case where the focus is on the
delivery of new technologies within financial institutions. This corre­
lates with Guinan et al. (2019) and Châlons and Dufft (2017) stating that
an iterative approach is needed for project management digitalization.
Cluster 1 also highlights the notion of learning. Project managers and
teams should be knowledgeable in new technologies. The challenge that
project managers and project teams face is which technologies needs to
be focused on.
Digitalization impacts business models and processes (Man and
Strandhagen, 2017). The analysis of cluster 2 highlights the impact of
digitalization on project management processes. As with cluster 1, the
focus of this cluster is very much on the application of technology to
digitalize processes. The focus is not necessarily on the digitalization of
project management. This confirms the identified research gap.
When one reflects on the co-word analysis, two aspects come to the
fore. The first aspect is that technology is only used as a tool to assist
project managers in managing their projects. Project management is not
yet digitalized. The second aspect is that project managers and project
team members need to master new skills to optimally use new tech­
nologies. In this regard, Marnewick and Marnewick (2021) emphasised
the importance of digital intelligence. With digital intelligence, comes
the acquisition of knowledge to distinguish between the various tech­
nologies and to determine which ones are applicable to a specific project
and environment.
8
Project Leadership and Society 3 (2022) 100061
5.2. Need for approaches to link digitalization and PM
This section focuses on how scholars and practitioners can drive the
digitalization of project management. The results of the bibliometric
analysis as well as Fig. 1 will be used to guide the discussion. It is done in
the manner of prospective research focus areas (RFA). It must be noted
that scholars and practitioners are equally responsible for project man­
agement digitalization. Typically, digitalization should change pro­
cesses within a project, the product or service itself and the business
models. The results indicate that there is some indication on how pro­
cesses are changed. No evidence was found on how the product or ser­
vice was changed. The impact of digitalization on the business models is
difficult to establish as the project organisation is typically temporary of
nature. The first research focus area focuses on the technology trends
that are the drivers for digitalization.
Research Focus Area 1 (Technology): The results indicated the
usage of various technologies (Table 4 Cluster 3). These technologies
were used to simplify work and not to change project management
processes or deliverables as objects of digitalization. No evidence was
found how these technologies are or could be incorporated into project
management processes to digitalize project management. The focus is
more on digitising project management than digitalization. Project
managers should investigate how technologies can be used to optimise
project management techniques. Project management researchers
should also promote research in the application of technologies to
techniques. An example is the usage of machine learning within project
risk management (Mhlari, 2020).
Research focus area 2 focuses on the project management processes
and deliverables that are objects of digitalization.
Research Focus Area 2 (Culture): ‘Digital transformation’ and
‘digitalization’ are part of the top 10 keyword occurrences (Table 3).
‘Digitalization’ appears in both clusters one and two (Table 4). Within
cluster one, digitalization is used in co-occurrence with ‘digital trans­
formation’ but within cluster two, it is used in the context of automation
C. Marnewick and A.L. Marnewick
and process changes. The authors of these articles recognise the
importance of digitalization per se and the potential impact on auto­
mation and process changes. This is in agreement with the definitions
stating that digitalization focuses on the innovation of business models
and processes. No insights were provided on how business models and
processes could be digitalised. Digitalization cannot be achieved
through the mere application of technologies. This is achieved through a
change in culture. According to Westerman et al. (2019), culture change
is the biggest challenge of digitalization and the adoption of digitaliza­
tion rests on four pillars i.e. impact, speed, openness and autonomy. The
project as an organisation forms part of the larger organisation (Eskerod
et al., 2017) but is only temporarily in nature. To digitalize the project
organisation, requires substantial effort and the focus should be on
culture and organisational (project) structures. The focus of this research
area should be on the creation of a digital culture by leaders in charge of
project organisations. This digital culture should embrace digitalization
and focus on the four pillars as per Westerman et al. (2019). Researchers
can promote research focusing on the culture of the project organisation
with a specific focus on the fostering of a digital culture. Research can
also focus on the influence of the larger organisation’s digital culture on
the project organisation’s digital culture.
Research Focus Area 3 (Business models): This research focus area
is also part of the objects of digitalization but focuses on project business
models. The bibliometric analysis highlighted this gap as none of the
articles addressed the issue of how digitalization could change project
business models. Apart from creating a digital culture, the project
organisation should break down industry-specific barriers and create
new opportunities while destroying long-successful business models
(Weill and Woerner, 2015). They continue and propose four business
models for a digitalized organisation i.e. a supplier model, a omni­
channel model, an ecosystem driver model and the modular producer.
To change the traditional project organisation to a digitalized business
model will take concerted effort, knowledge and skills from everyone
involved. Extensive research should be done on how the project orga­
nisation’s business model can be altered into a digitalised business
model. This is especially the case where one of the inhibitors would be
the temporariness of the project organisation.
Research Focus Area 4 (Theoretical lenses): Söderlund (2004)
debated two decades ago for theoretical lenses to enhance our under­
standing of projects and the project organisation. Since then, various
theories were applied within the project management discipline. The­
ories include leadership (Amanchukwu et al., 2015), institutional the­
ories (Biesenthal et al., 2018), strategic management theories (Killen
et al., 2012) and complexity theory (Joseph and Marnewick, 2021) to
name a few. A gap that was identified through the bibliometric analysis,
is the lack of theoretical theories to enhance our understanding of
project management digitalization. In this regard, insights can be drawn
from information systems literature. Various theories from the infor­
mation systems discipline exist on how to adopt and implement new
technologies. Specific information systems that can be investigated are
Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Theory of Reasoned Action
(TRA), Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) and Diffusion of Innovations
Theory (DOI). These are but a few information systems theories that can
be researched to determine how they can enhance and improve project
management digitalization.
The bibliometric analysis provided insights regarding the drivers and
the objects of digitalization. No insights could be found on the impact of
digitalization on project management especially project management
skills and organisational growth. This leads to the introduction of
research focus area 5.
Research Focus Area 5 (PMO): Projects and project organisations
are temporary in nature. This makes it difficult facilitate the impact of
digitalization. The only permanent entity is the project management
office (PMO). However, the role of the PMO to adopt and increase
digitalization was not mentioned by any of the articles that formed part
of the bibliometric analysis. A potential research focus area should be on
9
Project Leadership and Society 3 (2022) 100061
the role of the PMO towards project management digitalization as well
as the digitalization of the PMO itself. The role of the PMO should be
researched from (i) the context of research focus areas one, two and four,
(ii) the digital skills required and (iii) the nature of project management
itself. The PMO should in essence become the custodian of project
management digitalization.
It can be concluded that current research on digitalising project
management focuses on the drivers for digitalization with little or no
research on the objects and impact of digitalization in relation to project
management.
5.3. Ways in which these approaches can be implemented
The previous two sections provided insights into the results of the
bibliometric analysis and potential research focus areas that can address
the identified gaps in relation to digitalizing project management. To
improve the level of project management digitalization, a focused
agenda is required. This agenda is presented in Fig. 8. The input of this
agenda are the drivers, objects and impact of digitalization. The Y-axis
constitutes the three types of frameworks with the research focus areas
constituting the Z-axis. This cube can be used to determine ways to
digitalize project management. For example, the intersection of objects
of digitalization, conceptual frameworks and RFA2 can be used to create
a conceptual framework explaining how culture influences project
management processes. Forty-five ways to digitalize project manage­
ment can be derived using this cube.
The aim of the research is to provide insights into the state of project
management digitalization. The results indicate that specific technolo­
gies are only used as a tool to assist the project manager and project team
in the day-to-day operational aspects of the project. No evidence was
found that the utilisation of technologies goes beyond that as a tool. The
final conclusion is that project management is not yet digitalised.
6. Conclusion
Digitalization is changing how projects are managed and it is also
changing the nature of project management itself. The literature review
highlighted that digitalization has an impact on the way we work as well
as on organisational business models. Digitalization is driven by the
various trends in technology and one should be cautious which tech­
nologies should be used to drive the digitalization agenda. The formal
definition of project management was used to determine the level of
digitalization in project management.
Fig. 8. Project management digitalization research agenda cube (PMDRAC).
C. Marnewick and A.L. Marnewick
The results of the bibliometric analysis indicate that digitalization is
impacting the project management processes to a certain extend and
that technologies are used as a tool. No other evidence was uncovered
indicating that digitalization is impacting the nature of project man­
agement. Research into the digitalization of project management is still
in its infancy, irrespective of the number of articles that was part of this
bibliometric analysis, and a concerted effort should be made to really
understand how digitalization can change the nature of project man­
agement and how projects can be better managed using technology.
For the digitalization of project management to become a school of
thought, three criteria need to be met (Silvius, 2017): A shared vision is
required among researchers to distinguish digitalization of project
management as a distinct school of thought. Secondly, a community of
researchers needs to exist. The bibliometric analysis highlighted that
such a community does not exist yet. Research into the digitalization of
project management should have an impact. This is also not yet realised
as there are not enough articles, research and debate around this topic.
The onus rests on the academic leadership within the project manage­
ment domain to boost this phenomenon otherwise other disciplines such
as computer science and information systems will take ownership of this
phenomenon and dictate the research agenda.
Declaration of competing interest
There is no conflict of interest.
Data availability
No data was used for the research described in the article.
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