A.H. Van Marrewijk

Delft University of Technology | TU · Department of Management in the Built Environment

This article examines the change process of implementing hybrid workspace within organizations. Hybrid workspace involves employees working from multiple locations and has become an important topic during and after the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. This study aims to better understand the tensions emerging in the change process towards hybrid...

Academic interests in the concept of placelessness, the weakening of significance in places, has grown as post-COVID-19 workplaces are becoming more mobile and are increasingly situated in multiple places. Despite calls from scholars, little is known about how employees use organisational space and sense of place as resources for identity work. Thi...

This editorial scrutinizes the dichotomy of a project’s success and failure, which, in our opinion is too rigid, inflexible, and unnuanced. The aim of this special issue is to nuance this dichotomy by moving toward a process view on how imperfection is brought about in projects. We introduce and discuss five topics important for such a process view...

This paper studies micro-processes of organizational change when introducing the concept of hybrid workspace, which is the working of employees at multiple workplaces. The topic has received much attention during and after the Covid pandemic. Drawing on a longitudinal qualitative study of a major European bank in Paris, we foreground the introducti...

The energy transition process nowadays is characterized by the replacement of fossil fuels-based means of production with renewable energy (RE). Alongside the diffusion of decentralized RE, this process is associated with the increased promotion of RE megaprojects. Such megaprojects, however, are often shaped by path-dependent lock-ins and thus con...

This chapter presents a holistic investigation into construction culture from an organisation studies as well as project management perspective, mobilising the concept of toxic project cultures as a novel conceptual lens to explore new ways to transform the construction industry into a more dynamic, innovative, and socially responsible sector. All...

This paper draws attention to commensality -eating and drinking in the presence of others- and the spatial production of sharing food at work. We propose to add a socio-spatial perspective to the research agenda on the triad of food, work, and organization. In particular, we conceptually and empirically discuss the potential for understanding comme...

Power in interorganizational strategic projects, used for implementing strategic change, is essential but not well understood. This paper devises a conceptual framework in which power relations, strategic practices and an order and conflict view are integrated. An ethnoventionist approach, including ethnography and interventions, is used to show po...

Recently, scholars have called for a focus on subjective aspects of risk management as a suitable lens for understanding how it functions. In line with this lens, this study focuses on project actors’ viewpoints on risk management in the context of construction projects to provide novel insights in risk management. Drawing on Renn's model and follo...

The aim of this paper is to better understand the dynamics of circular construction projects and how these interorganizational projects contribute to the transition towards a circular economy. It is essential that the construction sector develops and adopts interorganizational initiatives to support the transition to a circular and low-carbon const...

Governing material conditions—including physical, material subjects such as machines, build constructions, construction materials, and subsoils—is a crucial challenge within projects and is underrepresented in project governance theory. To clarify the relationship between project governance and materiality, we draw on translation theory, which is e...

In this special issue, we encouraged project scholars to be bold and construct their voices. We now reflect on the results, which include the bright spots in four areas: project organizing (organizing and collaborating in and between projects), project value (organizing value in and through projects), project citizenship (living in and through proj...

This paper proposes a framework developed by the authors to analyze life stories collected from megaproject leaders for a book. From initial themes derived from these stories, the authors found that an analysis framework that takes into account elements of time, space and relationships in the stories could provide a richer analysis facilitating a c...

Heeding recent calls for more studies on the relationship between projects and institutions, this paper reports on a collaborative case study to shed light on the recursive relations of large-scale projects and their institutional fields. Given the industry as the field-level institution, this study explores how two project organizations experience...

This paper proposes a framework developed by the authors to analyze life stories collected from megaproject leaders for a book. From initial themes derived from these stories, the authors found that an analysis framework that takes into account elements of time, space and relationships in the stories could provide a richer analysis facilitating a c...

The development of trust is a major challenge for the governance of public private infrastructure megaprojects. Contractual pre-arrangements should provide a blueprint for collaborative behavior and trust development but the characters of megaprojects challenge such arrangements. This longitudinal study explores practices of trust development in th...

A project's autonomy, the degree to which a project can evolve without constant interference from the parent organization, is a key feature of innovation projects. The literature treats autonomy as a passive phenomenon and underestimates how projects as temporary organizations interact with more permanent forms of organizations. A dynamic and conte...

Engaged scholarship is frequently being advocated to bridge the knowledge gap between academic scholars and project practitioners. Through the methodology of engaged scholarship academics establish a reciprocal relationship with the project community while adhering to the standards of quality scholarship. Notwithstanding its growing popularity, in...

The aestheticization of organizational space is a growing phenomenon with organizations carefully designing the aesthetic engagement in space to invoke specific values and behavior. Simultaneously, however, the traditional workspace is disappearing as work is performed increasingly in multiply-located, hybrid spaces combining corporate, domestic an...

There has been recent academic interest in programs as value creation processes. Scholars focus particularly on the front end of programs as opportunities for clients to create value. At the front end, client and market partners can actively co-produce value through co-creation sessions. This paper investigates what stakeholders do in co-creation s...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relation between the spatial intervention of open-plan offices in a university, the consequential change in work practices of faculty members and how these practices appropriate the designed space. Design/methodology/approach The authors executed a two-year longitudinal ethnographic study fol...

The last decades have witnessed an increasing prevalence of community resistance against large-scale infrastructure projects that pose serious threats to their environment, calling for further empirical scrutiny. Hence, this paper applies a neo-institutional lens to investigate how project actors who plan and implement large-scale infrastructure pr...

Delivering organizational change through interorganizational projects is a complex process, as several organizations must collaborate. The aim of this article is to understand how change and resistance are shaped in interorganizational projects. This article discusses a longitudinal case study (2012–2016) of an interorganizational project in the ut...

This paper studies the design of co-located spaces and how organizational actors experience such spaces. The literature on co-location is ambiguous about how reduced physical distance increases collaboration. To address this problem, we draw on an ethnographic study of a co-located railway control center, housing the largest Dutch railway organizat...

Published online at www.pmi.org/PMJ Megaprojects can be perceived as modern symbols, crucial for the encapsulation of ideas, attitudes, and beliefs. This study explores the exegetical meanings, or meanings derived from local interpretation, that a megaproject can encapsulate and how those meanings shape the megaproject's process. A longitudinal stu...

Organization scholars call for a more critical approach to the field of Strategy-as-Practice. Particularly, more interpretive and micro-level analyses of strategy from a performative perspective are endorsed. This paper addresses this call with an ethnographic study of rituals that mark kick-offs, launches, milestones, and deliveries in project org...

This paper studies the ways in which members of inter-organizational teams collectively make sense of unexpected events and how they decide upon engaging in action. Frequently, ambiguity dominates such change processes aimed to create common understanding. Using the notion of the duality of intrinsic and constructed ambiguity, a detailed analysis o...

Recent studies of temporary organizing and project-based work explain how organizational actors establish and maintain clear role structures and harmonious relations in the face of precariousness by engaging in stabilizing work practices. This focus upon ‘order’ undervalues conflict-ridden negotiations and power struggles in temporary organizing. T...

Media and telecommunications companies face the problem of how to integrate diametrically opposite radical internet firms after acquisition. Extant mergers and acquisitions (M&A) studies report that differences in the organizational culture are important in the cultural integration process. Frequently, M&A research assumes organizational cultures t...

A parliamentary enquiry in 2002 forced Dutch construction firms to end collusive practices and build an innovative construction industry. Intervention programmes were started in the period of 2004-2012 to implement new cultural values. This paper explores which cultural interventions have been employed to stimulate innovation in the construction se...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to apply the theory of sociomateriality to exhibit how the social and material are entangled and (re)configured over time and in practice in a particular organization of study. Design/methodology/approach – The authors conduct an ethnographic case study of the North-South metro line project in Amsterdam and u...

Complex and extensive civil engineering and construction megaprojects frequently attract societal attention due to nuisances, failures, budget overruns, time delays, citizens’ resistance, and resigning politicians. These megaprojects rarely remain uncontested, particularly if pursued within a democratic political context, as they are perceived not...

Cross-cultural cooperation in joint ventures does not take place in a power-free context but is threatened by struggles between partners over cultural differences and conflicting interests. All project partners have their own perspectives, interpretations, intentions and practices, which challenge the undertakings of cross-cultural collaboration. T...

The academic debate on governance in project management is dominated by research that looks at the structure of governance regimes, but there is very little research on the micro-practices of governance as it actually takes place. This paper fills this gap by focusing on the governance practices of project employees and looking at megaprojects as c...

To manage the project life cycle and facilitate transitions, Project Management (PM) research often points to temporal models and structuring devices. However, the social and symbolic facet of transitions in projects remains understudied. Therefore, this research focuses on the ritualization of transitions in projects. Specifically, the aim is to g...

Anthropological fieldwork methods are increasingly becoming popular with management and business. This paper discusses the experiences of business anthropologists with conducting ethnographies in organizations. Based upon a review of organizational ethnographies and three personal vignettes four issues have been found; access to business organizati...

After a parliamentary enquiry into construction industry malpractice, changes occurred in collaborative practices between clients and contractors in megaprojects within the Dutch construction sector. The enquiry meant that both clients and contractors were forced to acknowledge illegal practices of collusion and fraud. For those engaged in public–p...

The scholars of Consumer Culture Theory studies as well as practitioners have recognised the potential power of spatial design in stores in constructing and communicating retail brands. Retail space and the aesthetic structuring of a range of expressive artefacts have become the stage on which shop attendants perform. This paper focuses on how mana...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how project partners respond to contractually agreed collaboration in an infrastructural megaproject. Problematic performances of megaprojects have shifted away attention from the instrumental towards the interpretative, focusing on daily work life, practices, power, ambiguity and sense making in proj...

Discursive analyses of collective identity describe social actors' presentation of 'self' and their shifting positioning in relation to 'others' in discourse (Ellis & Ybema, 2010). Usually, individuals position their collective selves by imagin-ing boundaries which separate a unified and superior 'us' from a different, and often less respectable or...

In this paper, based on a case study regarding the institutional privatization of a former French public sector ferry liner, new concepts in cross-cultural research are developed and explored. We argue that the ability to influence the direction of the change process of the ferry liner organization, called "Pascal Paoli", heavily depends on the way...

The paper explores employees' aesthetic experiences of designed organisational space. These experiences are important because designs are incomplete until they are realised in action. However, one of the main issues in this is the difficulty to grasp employees' perceptions and judgements of spatial aesthetics (Warren, 2008). To explore these employ...

Summary Cross-cultural cooperation of employees in geographically-distributed project teams has become an important topic in global IT projects. Traditional functionalistic and instrumental approaches in project management literature show the relevance of cross-cultural cooperation for project success, but they give insufficient insight into its da...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to reflect upon the role of intervention‐oriented scientists in the process of organisation development. The paper seeks to contribute to the growing interest in design studies for organisation development and argues that a focus on reflexivity is missing in current debate. The aim of the paper to develop critic...

This paper describes the development of new forms of public– private collaboration by members of a project-based organisation as a Community of Practice (CoP) in the Dutch construction sector. Cost overruns, time delays and corruption have put pressure on the relationship between the government and the construction sector. Political and public acto...

American anthropologists and practitioners have dominated the debate on organization culture for a long time. European business anthropologists have not been very visible to American scholars because they publish irregularly in American academic journals and generally use their national languages; French, German, Swedish, Dutch and Danish. Business...

'Space and spatiality have been "present absentees" of organization studies for decades. Since the early days they figured prominently in studies of organizations yet important conceptualization of their nature and import has not been begun since recently. Improved understanding of contemporary management and organization cannot circumvent a more p...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the interdependency of corporate architecture and organisation cultural change. Corporate headquarters have become symbols of corporate change ambitions to endure cultural value sets. The paper seeks to contribute to the growing interest in the re‐materialization of organisational change. Design/meth...

Recent studies show that despite their growing popularity, megaprojects – large-scale, complex projects delivered through various partnerships between public and private organisations – often fail to meet costs estimations, time schedules and project outcomes and are motivated by vested interests which operate against the public interest. This pape...

This paper explores the development of the project culture of Environ Megaproject during the project life cycle. Project cultures run the risk of becoming dysfunctional in transition to a new project phase. The findings indicate the presence of two dominant cultural episodes. During the episode of the Gideon’s gang (1996–2001) innovative and entrep...

Public private partnerships are increasingly popular within infrastructure projects. Public administrations and private companies work together in order to successfully realize complex projects. One of the central themes of inter-organizational cooperation in project-based alliances is the control-versus-commitment dilemma. The autonomy of a projec...

Anthropological fieldwork methods are increasingly becoming popular in management and organization studies. Other academic disciplines have embraced anthropological theoretical concepts and field research methodologies of participant observation for organization culture research. Anthropologists, however, have shown little interest in the culture o...

Since the early 1990s, European telecom operators have expanded their activities to international markets in South America, Asia and Eastern Europe and formed complex networks of strategic alliances and joint ventures. This paper examines potential dynamics in such alliances and explores the developments in the strategic alliances of a Dutch teleco...

The telecom sector has changed dramatically during the last decade. In order to meet new regulations, fierce competition and a growing demand for cheap and high quality telecom services by multinationals, European public telecom operators have created pan-European strategic alliances. This paper focuses on the question of how Unisource, an alliance...

The telecom sector has changed dramatically during the last decade. In order to meet new regulations, fierce competition and a growing demand for cheap and high quality telecom services by multinationals, European public telecom operators have created pan-European strategic alliances. This paper focuses on the question of how Unisource, an alliance...

This paper explores the globalization of the European public telecorn operators (PTO). Technological revolutions, deregulation, privatization and business strategies of multi national corporations (MNC) have dramatically changed the international and domestic telecom sector. PTOs are no longer monopolistic in their domestic markets but have to comp...

The paper focuses on the interdependency between physical space and organisation cultural change. Increasingly attention is being paid to the influence of spatial settings in organisation studies. The symbolic richness of physical arrangements, artifacts and aesthetic dimensions is very large. The symbolic richness of physical arrangements has inte...