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RESEARCH PAPER
The history and future of projects as a transition
innovation: Towards a sustainable project management
framework
Shankar Sankaran
1
| Mattias Jacobsson
2,3
| Tomas Blomquist
4
1
School of the Built Environment,
University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo,
New South Wales, Australia
2
Umeå School of Business, Economics and
Statistics, Umeå University, Umeå,
Sweden
3
School of Engineering, Jönköping
University, Jönköping, Sweden
4
Umeå School of Business, Umeå
University, Umeå, Sweden
Correspondence
Shankar Sankaran, School of the Built
Environment, University of Technology
Sydney, Ultimo, NSW 2007, Australia.
Email: shankar.sankaran@uts.edu.au
Abstract
Project management practices have evolved as the discipline grew from
managing defence and engineering projects to delivering information systems,
supporting organizational transformation, and managing megaprojects
supporting national infrastructure needs. Thus, from starting as a tactical tool,
project management grew to deliver organizational and national strategies.
The next challenge for project management is to support the achievement of
sustainable development goals to tackle societal challenges. How can it do
this? In this article, we chart a way forward for project management to contrib-
ute to global sustainability by tracing the history of projects from prehistoric
times to the 21st. We outline the development using the lens of socio-technical
transitions to analyse technological niches developed to advance the field, and
socio-technical regimes that have supported the development of project man-
agement to adopt these technological niches to meet changes that appear at
the landscape level. By analysing the history of projects and project manage-
ment, we argue that the discipline has continuously evolved as a transition
innovation that can meet the challenges posed by sustainable development.
However, further investigation is required. A sustainable development frame-
work has been proposed in this article to enable project management
researchers and managers to achieve this transition.
KEYWORDS
project management, sociotechnical transitions, sustainable development, sustainable
project management, transitions innovation
1|INTRODUCTION
In a paper presented at the 33rd EGOS Colloquium titled
‘Sustainability Transitions: Exploring the emerging
research field and its contribution to management
studies’, Jochen Markard traced the emerging field of
sustainability transitions where he brought together
ideas from scholars from various disciplines. Among
others, Markard (2017, p. 4) compared the problem
characteristics, scope and solutions of historical project
endeavours, like ‘fly to the moon’with the contemporary
complex challenges like climate change. Using this com-
parison, we propose that project management, which
originated from aiding scientific and technological
endeavours (such as building massive structures and
lunar travel), should now also endeavour to deliver on
complex issues facing our society such as global sustain-
ability and climate change. How the project management
DOI: 10.1002/sres.2814
696 © 2021 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Syst Res Behav Sci. 2021;38:696–714.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/sres
discipline would meet these expectations is, however, still
somewhat of a mystery.
The aim of the paper is therefore to review the history
of projects and project management as a transition
innovation and propose a sustainable project manage-
ment framework that could point to how project
management can transition further to meet the expecta-
tions of global sustainability. To fulfil this aim, we will
first outline and analyse the historical trajectory of pro-
jects and project management. Our analysis will be based
on a multilevel perspective on transitions (see,
e.g., Geels, 2002; Rip & Kemp, 1998; Smith et al., 2010),
which we will use to illustrate how and why project man-
agement transitioned in the past to meet with the
changes in societal demand. We will then present the
challenges project management faces today to transition
to meet the challenges of sustainable development and
suggest a way forward. We are using a pathway suggested
by systems scholars (Ackoff et al., 2006; Weisbord &
Janoff, 1996) to present our argument by studying where
we came from (our history), where we are heading
(the future) and how to get there from where we are now
(the transition).
The article is structured as follows. We start with a
review of the perspectives on sustainable transitions and
explain why we chose the multilevel perspective for our
analysis. Thereafter, we outline the method we have used
to explain the development of project management using
three levels of analysis (landscape, sociotechnical regimes
and technological niches). We then provide a history of
projects from prehistoric times until project management
was recognized as a profession (referred to as premodern
projects), followed by the history of modern project man-
agement. After analysing the history during these two
periods, we will visually present how project manage-
ment evolved due to the changes at the landscape level
by developing niches that were supported by socio-
technical regimes to respond to societal changes. We will
then discuss the challenges project management is facing
in transitioning from its current state to meet the changes
of sustainable development and encapsulate these
challenges in a framework that can help us to carry out
further research to transition to meet the new challenge.
We conclude that by using this model as a starting point,
project management researchers and practitioners could
move forward to lead project management's transition
towards sustainable project management.
2|BACKGROUND
The background consists of two parts. First, we will
outline perspectives on sustainable transitions and then
present three levels of technological transition that will
be used as the analytical framework to reflect on the his-
torical trajectory of project management.
2.1 |Perspectives on sustainable
transitions
Although there are multiple perspectives on sustainable
transitions, Markard (2017) suggests that, in general, they
1. include the role of technology and technological
innovation that transform sectors or industries
(e.g., Building Information Models in construction)
2. work with systems frameworks that look at ‘strong
interdependencies of technological, organizational
and institutional changes’(p. 13) (e.g., sustainable
development)
3. pay attention to public policies (e.g., impact of
digitization)
4. include a broad range of actors and their interplay
(e.g., the introduction of electric cars)
5. include context dependency (e.g., energy transitions
across countries around the world)
Several scholars have developed frameworks to
explain how sustainable transitions take place in practice
and by addressing the aspects pointed out by Mark-
ard (2017). We will briefly review those frameworks and
explain why we selected the multilevel perspective to
investigate the evolution of premodern projects and mod-
ern project management. We will comment on how the
multilevel perspective might play out in project manage-
ment addressing the challenges posed by the need for
sustainable development.
Some key frameworks used by transition scholars
(Köhler et al., 2019) are as follows:
Multilevel perspective used to describe dynamics of tran-
sitions (Geels, 2002; Rip & Kemp, 1998; Smith et al., 2010).
This perspective combines ideas from ‘evolutionary
economics, the sociology of innovation and institutional
theory’(Köhler et al., 2019, p. 4). It attempts to explain
transitions at the ‘interplay of dynamics at three distinct
levels: niches, regimes, and landscapes’(Geels, 2002).
Transition innovation systems (TIS) framework that
explores ‘the emergence of novel technologies together
with associated institutional and organizational changes’
(Bergek et al., 2008; Carlsson & Stankiewicz, 1991;
Markard et al., 2015). It uses ideas from innovation
systems theory and industrial economics (Köhler
et al., 2019, p. 4).
Strategic niche management (SNM) (Rip &
Kemp, 1998; Schot & Geels, 2008) combines ideas from
SANKARAN ET AL.697
‘sociology of innovations and evolutionary economics’
(Köhler et al., 2019 p. 4) that emerge from spaces that
shield them from market selection and are more
deliberate.
Transition management (Loorbach, 2010; Rotmans
et al., 2001) combines ideas from ‘complexity science
and governance studies’(p. 4) and proposes that
policymakers shape transitions.
We propose using the multilevel perspective in our
article as it looks beyond institutions and organizations
to societal changes. It is also based on institutional theory
that has gained more attention in project management
research recently (Biesenthal et al., 2018). We consider
sustainable development as a societal change promul-
gated by the General Assembly of the United Nations,
which agreed on resolution A/RES/70/1 called ‘Trans-
forming our world: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development’(United Nations, 2015). This is an aspira-
tional agreement among world leaders for a better and
more sustainable world by 2030, which will have an
impact on project management practices at a global level.
2.2 |Three levels of transition
The literature on technological transitions has proposed
ways in which such transitions take place through influ-
ences at multiple levels. These studies have investigated
how technological changes have, over the long term, con-
tributed to fulfilling societal needs by transformations
influencing how technologies evolve due to societal
pressures (Geels, 2002, 2004). Recently, researchers from
the Sustainable Transitions Research Network (STRN)
have urged that management scholars need to start
studying technological transitions from the management
perspective (Markard, 2017). The notion that project-
based management can be considered ‘as an innovation
that may influence both the technical and social system
of the organization through new structures, methods,
technical systems, and behavioural patterns’(Martinsuo
et al., 2006, p. 87) has been explored by project manage-
ment researchers.
In this article, we want to examine project manage-
ment as a management innovation that was driven by
technological needs (e.g., building weapons using com-
plex technologies during World War II) and has been
progressively reconfigured due to external pressures to
play a sociotechnical role by paying more attention
to people-oriented factors in managing both technical as
well as non-technical aspect of projects. To do so, we
will use a multilevel perspective on technological
transition (see, e.g., Geels, 2002, 2004). The three levels
proposed are landscape level, sociotechnical regimes and
technological niche based on similar frameworks used by
scholars writing about sustainability transitions.
Based on how sustainable transactions have been
depicted by scholars (Geels, 2002), the transition of inno-
vation starts when innovators sense that these changes
are taking place at the landscape level, and they need to
develop technological niches to cope with these chal-
lenges. However, these innovations need the support of
sociotechnical regimes (markets, policies and political
support) for the technological niches to be recognized as
able to provide stable solutions to meet the challenges of
the landscape level. Thus, there is a lag between when
the technological niches start reacting to landscape-level
changes followed by sociotechnical regimes to address
the demands of these changes.
2.2.1 | Landscape level
At the highest level (i.e., landscape), we look at how
changes in the landscape have influenced or have been
influencing project management as an innovation.
According to Geels (2002, pp. 1261–1262), transitions at
niche level happen at a microlevel through innovations
while the mesolevel sociotechnical regimes offer some
stability and ‘provide gradients for trajectories’(p. 1261).
The macrolevel landscape items are ‘slow changing exter-
nal factors’that influence the sociotechnical regimes. In
our evaluation of the trajectory of the project domain, we
will thus look at how the landscape factors triggered
microlevel improvements in project management tech-
niques or routines that needed the support of socio-
technical regimes to improve project management
practices.
2.2.2 | Sociotechnical regimes
At the second level, we want to study how sociotechnical
regimes have influenced the evolution of project
management. Geels (2002) builds up the concept of socio-
technical regimes based on Nelson and Winter's (1982)
definition of technological regime, mentioned in the
previous section, and Rip and Kemp's (1998) elaboration
of the concept to ‘complex engineering practices,
production technologies, process technologies, product
characteristics, skills, and procedures’(p. 340).
Geels (2002, p. 1260) argues that ‘there is a social element
to it as technical trajectories are not influenced by engi-
neers, but also by users, policy makers, societal groups,
suppliers, scientists, capital banks etc.’. So in our evalua-
tion of sociotechnical regimes, we will look broadly at
external influences that have had an impact on how
698 SANKARAN ET AL.
project management transitioned over time to deal with
societal-level demands.
2.2.3 | Technological niches
The bottom level is that of technological niches or inno-
vations introduced to the management field that are
more ‘technical’. We use a broad definition of technology
here to embrace techniques. This level is thus called tech-
nological niches to include innovations introduced. A
question could be raised as to whether project manage-
ment is a niche like the niches used in technology
transitions. While niches are usually portrayed as new
technologies, we argue that new routines can also be
considered as niches. This is in line with Nelson and
Winter's (1982) work on evolutionary theory of economic
change where business practices (such as the ones used
in project management) ‘tend to be routines’(p. 267).
Nelson and Nelson (2002, p. 26) define routines as ‘a col-
lection of procedures which, taken together, result in a
predictable and specific outcome’. Nelson and Nel-
son (2002) also propose that we often associate ‘social
technologies’rather than ‘physical technologies’with
institutions. So we would like to consider project man-
agement techniques (or routines) as social technologies
from an institutional theory perspective in constructing
our multilevel analysis.
3|METHOD
A previously mentioned, we base this article on
reviewing how project management has developed over
centuries but with a focus on the past 60 years when it
started becoming recognized as a distinct profession on
its own. With this historical overview as a basis, we will
map the developments and trajectory along the three
levels described above. To do this, we will list the signifi-
cant events that have shaped the way project manage-
ment evolved during the two periods (premodern and
modern). We have used the literature to trace these
events to develop a visual representation of events that
explain the sociotechnical transition of project
management over time. We then explore why project
management needs to transition further due to the chal-
lenges posed by sustainable development as the current
methods used in projects will not take it there. Three
questions we have focused on when reviewing the
literature are the following:
1. How have authors who have studied the evolution of
projects before the development of modern project
management divided the periods of development of
projects and depicted their development during the
premodern period?
2. How have authors who have looked at the history of
modern project management divided the periods
of the development of project management and
depicted its development during the period?
3. What are some future trends predicted by scholars
and practitioners that are likely to require modern
project management to transition further?
Focusing on the needs of sustainable development
(which is the theme of this special issue), we have further
considered the following two questions:
4. How have scholars and practitioners described project
management's response to the need for sustainable
development so far?
5. How can modern project management overcome
some of the difficulties expressed by scholars and
practitioners to respond effectively to the need for sus-
tainable development?
We have used different sources of literature to answer
Questions 1 and 2. For the premodern projects, we have
used two contemporary books (Chiu, 2010) and (Kozak-
Holland, 2011), which have described and evaluated the
evolution of project management during that period.
Table 1 provides the chronology of projects according to
these sources. We have then used the analysis carried out
by Chia (2010) to create Figure 1, which shows the multi-
level analysis of the transition of premodern projects.
Table 2 explains how we have segregated the periods of
modern project management based on several key
sources of literature from books and journal articles.
Figure 2 shows the multilevel analysis of modern project
management. The method we have used for the analysis
of the transition to identify items under the three levels
of analysis (landscape, sociotechnical regime and techno-
logical niche) is explained in Section 5.
To answer Questions 3 to 5, we have reviewed the
recent literature on predictions about the future of
project management and then looked specifically at the
literature on how scholars expect project management to
transition further to the answer the call for sustainable
development as it is the focus of the special issue in
which this article is being published. Based on the analy-
sis of the literature on sustainable project management,
we have proposed a model/framework shown in Figure 3
to carry out research to answer Question 5 while also
anticipating how technological niches and sociotechnical
regimes that are observed now can pave the way to this
transition.
SANKARAN ET AL.699
4|A BRIEF HISTORICAL
OVERVIEW OF PROJECTS AND
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
The history of projects and project management has been
divided into premodern projects, before project manage-
ment became known as a profession, and the develop-
ment of modern project management, starting around
1940. Based on a review of literature of project history,
we will, in the following sections, outline some of the
important historical events and projects.
4.1 |Project management before it
became known as a profession
We all know that large-scale endeavours such as the
building of the pyramids must have used processes, tools
and techniques to get the job done. Time and cost may
not have been the driving force for these endeavours, but
they were considered politically important to the spon-
sors or champions who financed and resourced them.
Although there have been historical accounts of how
such endeavours came about, we look at two recent
works that have explored the history of project manage-
ment. The first is an account by an architect and project
manager who has traced the history of project manage-
ment from earliest time to 1900 AD (Chiu, 2010). The sec-
ond account is by a consultant who has been publishing
a series of books on lessons learned from history and has
consulted on managing projects to Fortune 500 firms
(Kozak-Holland, 2011).
Chiu (2010) classifies his research into the following
areas (p. 11): project environment (divided into historical
and cultural environment and knowledge and scientific
environment), management ( general management and
interpersonal skills), knowledge of application area
(divided into construction technology and master builder
tradition) and application of expertise areas to project
activities. The period over which projects have been
investigated by Chiu (2010) range from 30th century BC
to 19th century AD. He highlights 20 prominent buildings
that have been built from early times in Mesopotamia in
south-west Asia until the Industrial Revolution.
Kozak-Holland (2011) covers the history of projects
from village to the city, from 2550 BC to the 20th century,
when the Second Industrial Revolution, or Technological
Revolution, took place. While both accounts cover simi-
lar projects, Kozak-Holland (2011) explores these projects
using the processes and knowledge areas included in the
Project Management Body of Knowledge or PMBOK
(Project Management Institute [PMI], 2017) whereas
Chiu (2010) does not use the PMBOK to analyse the
projects as he felt that it was a 20th century event. How-
ever, Chiu (2010) uses a broader definition of project
management as ‘the application of knowledge, skills,
tools and techniques to project activities to meet project
requirements’(p. 207), which is a definition that PMBOK
uses as well. Kirk-Holland's book also lists many projects
in China such as the Terracotta Warriors, as well as
Angkor Wat in Cambodia, and some significant voyages.
TABLE 1 Chronology of projects from 2100 BC to 1940 AD
Projects
Time
(Chiu, 2010)
Time (Kozak-
Holland, 2011)
Great Ziggurat of Ur 2100 BC
Tower of Babylon Around 600 BC
Hanging Gardens Around 600 BC 604–652 BC
Giza Pyramid (Egypt) 2580–2560 BC 2580–2560 BC
Parthenon (Greece) 477–438 BC 447–438 AD
Caesar's Rhine Bridge 55 BC
Colosseum (Rome) 70–82 AD 70–80 AD
Parthenon (Rome) 118–126 AD 118–125 AD
Hagia Sophia 532–537 AD 532–537 AD
Grand Mosque of
Damascus
706–715 AD
Krak des Chevaliers,
Syria
1144–1250 AD
Pisa Cathedral 1063–1180 AD
Notre Dame de Paris 1163–1145 AD Gothic cathedrals
Dome of Florence
Cathedral
1420–1436 AD 1417–1436 AD
Santa Maria Novella 1456–1470 AD
Columbus Voyage 1492–1493 AD
Ferdinand Magellan's
Voyage around the
world
1519–1522 AD
St Peter's Basilica 1506–1626 AD 1506–1626 AD
Taj Mahal 1631–1648 AD
St Paul's Cathedral 1668–1697 AD
Palace of Versailles 1661–1720 AD
Iron Bridge Project 1775–1781 AD
Railway Projects 1812–1825 AD
Menai Straits
Suspension Bridge
1819–1826 AD 1819–1824 AD
Crystal Palace Mid-1850 to
May 1851 AD
Eiffel Tower 1887–1889 AD
Panama Canal 1904–1914 AD
Empire State Building 1929–1931 AD
Hoover Dam Project 1931–1935 AD
700 SANKARAN ET AL.
We may be familiar with most of these projects as
tourists and have learned about their history from travel
books or brochures, often embellished by local tourist
guides. In this article, we will look at them as premodern
projects that laid the foundation for the birth and evolu-
tion of modern project management. Table 1 shows the
chronology of projects during this period.
4.2 |The development of modern project
management
The development of modern project management has been
discussed widely in the literature from a variety of perspec-
tives: using history (Garel, 2013; Jacobsson & Wilson,
2018; Kwak, 2005; Morris, 1994, 2011, 2013; Stretton,
2007; Weaver, 2007), trends (Crawford et al., 2006), trends
in research (Biedenbach & Jacobsson, 2016; Gauthier &
Ika, 2012; Kloppenborg et al., 2000; Söderlund, 2004;
Turner et al., 2011), perspectives or schools (Jacobsson &
Söderholm, 2011; Söderlund, 2002; Turner et al., 2010)
and advances in education (Wirth, 1992). Some scholars
have also predicted how project management might
change in the future (Gauthier & Ika, 2012; Kloppenborg
et al., 2000; Morris, 2013; Walker & Lloyd-Walker, 2019).
Additionally, the key project management associations
have made predictions about the trends in project manage-
ment. From the PMI, we have looked at an article publi-
shed in the PM Network by Guarino (2014) and the recent
Pulse of the Profession Reports, and from International
Project Management Association (IPMA), we have looked
at their report that predicts 15 future trends. Professor
Peter Morris has been writing about the history of project
management since the 1990s. He has also selected different
periods for analysis in his works. Table 2 compares the seg-
regation of the history of project management in terms of
time periods and concepts or events that have influenced
the development of project management.
TABLE 2 History of modern project management
Author Periods Classifications
Morris (1994) Prior to 1940; 1950s; 1960s; 1970s; 1980s;
Management of Projects: And now
Second World War; development of systems
management; Apollo spacecraft and the decade of
management systems; expansion of project
management; expansion of strategic perspectives of
management of managing projects; new model of
the management of projects
Morris (2011) Early history; 1950s and 1960s; 1970s to
1990s; 1990s and early 21st century
Systems development; wider applications; new
strands and ontological divergence; enterprise-wide
project management
Morris (2013) 1900–1970s; 1953+; 1960+; 1970s;
1990+; 1995+; 2000+; 2005+;
relevance today
Planning and control; engineering complexity and
urgency; organizational theorists starting to take an
interest in project management; environmental
awareness; front-end definition; lean management
and relationships; enterprise-wide PM; governance;
agility
Stretton (2007) 1950; 1960; 1970; 1980 and early 1990 Various headings but no major classifications
Kwak (2005) Prior to 1958; 1958–1979; 1980–1994;
1995 to present
Craft system to human relations administration;
application of management science; production
centre: human resources; creating a new
environment
Garel (2013) Not very specific on periods Management models; premodels of PM; from
rationalization to standardization of PM
Weaver (2007) No classification of periods but covers
changes from the 1700s to 2007
Developing the technology; management history;
creating the profession of modern project
management
Blomquist and
Söderholm (2002)
1960s; 1990; 2000 (no demarcation for
second phase)
Within industries; among industries through
consultants; volume through professional
associations; long-term survival through
standardization bodies; scientific research and
university training
SANKARAN ET AL.701
5|ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
Having outlined a historical account of premodern
projects and modern project management, we will now
analyse the trajectory of project management using the
multilevel perspective described in the background earlier.
While our focus is the transition of modern project man-
agement, the transition of premodern projects also has an
influence on some aspects of modern project management.
5.1 |Premodern projects
Figure 1 shows our multilevel analysis premodern projects.
Our multilevel analysis, based Chiu's (2010) review of pro-
ject management history, is classified under four headings:
•historical and cultural environment
•knowledge and scientific environment
•general management
•construction technology
•The master builder tradition
Items at the landscape level were drawn from the dis-
cussion on historical and scientific environment. Items at
the sociotechnical regime have been drawn from the dis-
cussions on knowledge and scientific environment, gen-
eral management and master builder tradition. Items at
the technological niche level have been drawn from con-
struction technology, general management and knowl-
edge and scientific environment. The itemization is based
on our judgement of what we identified as belonging to
the three levels.
We supplemented the analysis by Chiu (2010)
using Kozak-Holland's (2011) book and the following
categorization.
•trends and changes (landscape)
•impact of changes (sociotechnical regime)
•new tools techniques and breakthroughs (niches)
The reason for relying mainly on Chiu's (2010) work
is because Kirk-Holland used the PMBOK to analyse the
projects, which is a standard developed during the mod-
ern project management period in the 1970s.
5.1.1 | The period from 2100 BC to 500 AD
(antiquity)
This period covers the historical period from the estab-
lishment of Mesopotamia through to ancient Egypt,
ancient Greece and the Roman empire.
Landscape level
The world moved from being a hunter gatherer society
to become an agricultural society during the Sumerian
period, which led to the development of cities as people
moved from forests to urban areas with farms. This created
the need for social structures resulting in hierarchical
societies ruled by royalty and priests. The Egyptians
enhanced the legal and social systems developed by the
Sumerians. The Greeks introduced democracy. The
Romans used knowledge developed by past cultures to
build an extensive empire that led to colonization.
Sociotechnical regimes
The Sumerians under Hammurabi established the means
to manage people and introduced managerial controls
and demanded that transactions be recorded creating a
system of checks. The Egyptians developed goals and
tasks for managers to build ambitious structures like the
pyramids under the leadership of the pharaohs. The
Greeks added to the concept of leadership through the
treatise of Thucydides and emphasized the need to pay
attention to human behaviour. The Romans developed
strategies to manage their vast empire including develop-
ing alliances to delegate control. The separation of man-
agement and leadership was further strengthened by
Julius Caesar, as the Roman Empire created a system of
distributing power between the executive, legislative and
judiciary. During this period, the need for advanced
design and construction skills such as the building of the
ziggurat created the need for complex skills to build tun-
nels and operate machinery like levers, pulley, winches
and cranes. Master builders emerged as the need for
people to design and construct complex structures arose,
and they also needed skilful apprentices to work under
them to carry out specific tasks under their mentorship.
The rise of the master builder is the first sign that people
with project management skills were required.
Technological niches
Religious and social concerns led to the development of
construction techniques to build dwellings and temples.
As more permanent buildings were needed tools such as
the Archimedes screw and wheel to act as a pump for
water were invented. Egyptians started working with bet-
ter materials such as stone, wood and copper and are
believed to have used levers in the building of the pyra-
mids as well as ramps, scaffolding and cranes. Surveying
tools helped Egyptians to align pyramids symmetrically.
Greeks developed construction tools further by building a
complex crane and introduced hydropower. Romans
added concrete to building materials as well as chalk and
sand. They also added new machinery such as water
mills and the use of pneumatics.
702 SANKARAN ET AL.
5.1.2 | The period from 600 to 1500 AD
(medieval period)
This covers the historical periods starting from the
Byzantine Empire, through to the Islamic Age, Crusades,
Romanesque and Gothic Age.
Landscape level
During this period, art and architecture developed
resulting in taller, more elegant and decorative buildings.
The Roman Empire fell and the development of culture
shifted to the East while Europe faced the dark ages. The
Crusades were launched by the Vatican to stop the
Muslim armies from invading Europe and slowly Europe
recovered. As trade and diplomacy advanced Islam rose
creating cultural consequences. The Catholic Church
reacted to the rise of Islam setting the scene for the
Renaissance.
Sociotechnical regime
The Islamic Golden Age was responsible for the advance-
ment of social knowledge and science. It also created
important institutions including a public library. The
European university systems were established during this
FIGURE 1 Multilevel analysis of transitions in project management (before 1940s)
SANKARAN ET AL.703
period. Cottage industries were created with groups
working together to produce products. As Gothic cathe-
drals required decades to build, long-range planning and
governance structures were introduced. While buildings
were based on the vision of a master builder, artisans
were needed to support the construction who advanced
their craft through artisan guilds.
Technological niches
Monuments like the Hagia Sophia continued to use
several new tools, but the major advances were domes
that had to be supported. While the Byzantine Empire
started building domes and arches, the Islamic mosques
added ornamental workmanship to mosques being built
at this time. The buildings of the Islamic Age became
artistic masterpieces resulting in an aesthetic drive to
render beautiful buildings such as the Dome of the
Rock in Jerusalem. During the Gothic period, pointed
arches influenced by the Islamic architecture appeared.
Decorative carved screens also were influenced by
the ornamental workmanship that developed in the
mosques. Thus, a blending of Western and Eastern
practices developed in the construction of religious
buildings.
5.1.3 | The period from 1500 AD to 1940
(renaissance to industrial revolution)
This covers the historical periods covering the
Renaissance, Baroque and the Industrial Revolution.
Landscape level
During this period, rational thinking came to the fore
despite religion continuing to be important, and that
paved the way for the Industrial Revolution. During the
Renaissance, the world began to move away from
the Catholic Church providing an opportunity for Protes-
tantism to rise and the transition from Church to State
began. The introduction of steam power helped create
machines that could replace manual labour. People
started living in cities contributing to urbanization as
they moved away from an agrarian life.
Sociotechnical regime
During this period, management ideas began to be
adopted. Leadership moved away from someone who
was justified as a moral exemplar to one who possessed
manipulative skills and used violent tactics. Reformation
gave support to the rise of capitalism and scientific rules
FIGURE 2 Multilevel analysis of transitions in project management (post-1940s)
704 SANKARAN ET AL.
for reasoning influenced management. The Industrial
Revolution created the need for mechanization and
stressed efficiency and productivity. Standardization,
development of routines and quality control became
important, and Frederick Taylor's experiments with sci-
entific management investigated ways to improve pro-
ductivity. The status of the master builder started to
decline as general contractors started building structures
designed by architects thus creating a division of work.
Technological niches
The introduction of steam power introduced during the
Renaissance made further inroads. The process of design
and construction changed, and demand for buildings
exploded creating the need for mass production to keep
up with the demand. Metals became used more in con-
struction as they were now more freely available. The
introduction of electricity and locomotives aided in
the rapid development of manufacturing and the rate of
innovations increased.
In summary, our general observation from the multi-
level analysis of the premodern period is that this period
was mainly concerned with improvements in construction
and not on management which seem to have found its
importance from 1000 AD to 1940 with the Industrial Rev-
olution. While master builders in the premodern period
oversaw projects, they also designed and engineered them
like modern day architects like Frank Gehry, who also
tend to project manage their creations (Korody, 2015).
5.2 |Modern project management
Figure 2 shows our multilevel analysis of modern project
management.
The landscape level shows our classification of changes
at industry, organizations and project levels ending in
sustainability. This classification was arrived at from the
views expressed by prominent project management
researchers (listed in Table 2) as well as our own general
awareness of the trends at the global level that have
influenced sociotechnical regimes. We have also taken
note of the classification of the turning points in the evolu-
tion of project management by Peter Morris (2011, 2013).
Under sociotechnical regimes, we have also included
movements like Rethinking Project Management and
Making Projects Critical as turning points in project
management. Conferences like International Research
Network on Organizing by Projects (IRNOP), PMI
Research Conference, European Academy of Manage-
ment (EURAM) and European Group of Organisation
Studies (EGOS) where Project Organizing Special Interest
Groups (PO SIGs) were established as well as journals
that had an influence to steer the field in its research
endeavours have been included. These may not be obvi-
ous to people who are not familiar with project manage-
ment research.
For the niche level, the literature reviewed on the
history of project management contributed to their itemi-
zation. However, some judgement has been exercised in
positioning a technique to where it became more impor-
tant than when it was first used. For example, while risk
management was used much earlier in projects it became
more prominent after the global recessions from 1970
to 1990.
5.2.1 | The period from before 1950s
Although project management started being recognized
as a discipline after 1950s, we have included a short
period before 1950 as some key tools used in modern
project management evolved then and can be considered
as technological niches contributing to the development
of modern project management.
Landscape level
During the period before 1950, the world was engaged in
World War II when defence took priority.
Sociotechnical regime
The Manhattan Project to develop an atomic weapon pro-
vided the place for collaboration between government
and scientists that helped project management to be
identified as something unique and complex that had to
be completed on time with severe constraints.
Technological niche
Gantt charts developed in 1910 and are still used in
project scheduling. Flowline scheduling was introduced
in 1930 followed by the line of balance technique in 1940
and milestone charts in 1940s.
In summary, this period mainly contributed to
technological niches that were adopted by the project
management profession as it developed in the next period
in project scheduling.
5.2.2 | The period from 1950s to 1970
Landscape level
With the end of World War II, post-war reconstruction
started with large pipelines such as the Alaska Pipeline,
and transport infrastructure was created to help economic
renewal. US President Eisenhower signed the Federal
Highway Act in 1956 authorizing the construction of
SANKARAN ET AL.705
highways. Similar development of roadways also started
in Europe. Large investments were also made in Aero-
space during this time to bolster defence due to the Soviet
Union developing nuclear missiles after World War II
resulting in the Cold War.
Sociotechnical regime
While the Manhattan Project has been often cited as the
project that gave rise to project management, there has
been some recent debate about whether it really did that
(Lenfle & Loch, 2010). However, we retained it as a
regime as major defence projects did give the impetus to
identify project management as being different form
general management. Between the 1950s and 1970s, pro-
ject management became recognized as a profession with
the establishment of peak bodies, such as PMI and IPMA.
Paul Gaddis's (Gaddis, 1959) article about the project
manager in the Harvard Business Review of 1959 explained
the role of a different type of manager who used a particu-
lar process to create a product in a specific way. During
this period, project management was influenced by sys-
tems theories and practices due to its application in
defence systems. The concept of the ‘iron triangle’became
established as a way of determining project success using
time cost and quality as measures. While the Project
Management Journal was started during this period, it
focused primarily on project management practices.
Technological niches
This period resulted in the development of several
technological niches as the application of project man-
agement spread to cover a variety of industry sectors. The
critical path method was developed to ensure that activi-
ties on the critical path in a schedule, that could delay a
project, received due importance. Due to the uncertainty
in estimating duration in schedules, programme
evaluation and review technique (PERT) analysis was
introduced, based on three times estimates (optimistic,
pessimistic and most likely) for every activity. The
precedence diagramming method was developed, using
nodes to represent activities leading to a project schedule
network diagram, which allowed project managers to
decide when to start activities so as not to cause delays in
projects. Cost/schedule control systems were developed
to relate cost and time to manage overruns, which later
became known as earned value management. Work
breakdown structures were introduced to break down the
project into manageable parts. Value engineering to
analyse how costs can be reduced and configuration
management to keep track of changes were developed.
With the publication of the first PMBOK, the profession-
alization of project management was established. As
projects expanded into delivering initiatives within
organizations, the sharing of resources between the func-
tional and project parts of the organization gave rise to
matrix organizations, where people from the functional
parts of the organization were assigned to work in pro-
jects for specific durations. The drive to improve the
management of procuring materials and services resulted
in the development of procurement management, which
later grew into the discipline of supply chain manage-
ment. Graphical techniques were developed to manage
scheduling visually as graphical evaluation and review
technique (GERT). Programme management became rec-
ognized as a way of aligning projects working towards a
common goal to share resources and pacing of projects.
In summary, the landscape-level changes pointed to
the importance of post-war reconstruction, which
included building large pipelines to transport oil. The
technological niches supported the evolution of tools and
techniques to improve the project management pro-
cesses. At the sociotechnical regime-level project manage-
ment was supported by its recognition as a new way of
managing supported by the establishment of peak bodies
that contributed to its acceptance as a new profession.
5.2.3 | The period from 1970 to 1990
Landscape level
The recognition of effects of complexity such as Chaos
Theory and the Butterfly Effect (Gleick, 1987; Lorenz,
1995) became important to project management practice
as projects started facing uncertainty and complexity that
led to major failures of projects. The development of
information and communication technologies led to
software to support projects as well as facilitating easier
collaboration with partners and outsourcing. The impor-
tance of corporate strategy promoted by scholars like
Michael Porter (1980) provided an opportunity for
projects to become important to deliver organizational
strategies instead of merely being used as tactical tools.
Sociotechnical regime
The period from the 1970s to 1990s saw project manage-
ment applied to large-scale construction projects such as
the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. These projects used some of
the experiences gained from large-scale defence projects.
The bodies of knowledge to guide project management
started appearing in 1980s. Different forms of contracting
appeared during this period, which became the
forerunners of public-private partnerships that enabled
developing countries to undertake large-scale projects
urgently needed for the development of basic needs. As
projects became bigger, they triggered environmental
issues that created an awareness of the environmental
706 SANKARAN ET AL.
impact of projects. The dynamic systems development
method (DSDM) added foundations of governance to
agile methods and aided continuous customer involve-
ment. Computer-aided design took over from producing
drawings manually. The certification of project managers
was introduced, adding to the professionalization of
project management. Complex projects began to be
recognized as wicked problems as urban development
projects often did not produce solutions to address the
problems they were meant to address (Rittel &
Webber, 1973). Project management researchers recog-
nized the need for more theoretical inputs into project
management and this triggered the setting up of the
International Journal of Project Management, which is
now the highest ranked project management journal.
Technological niches
Although time and cost were important to manage, it
became clear that resources also need consideration espe-
cially where they are scarce and expensive. This led to the
need for resource management techniques (1970). Risk
also became an important aspect of projects to manage
and risk management techniques such as the risk matrix
and risk breakdown structure developed (1980). As the
contribution of people and team gained prominence, the
performance of teams became critical. Work done on high
performance teams in organizational research became rel-
evant to projects. In addition to work breakdown struc-
ture, organizational breakdown structure became critical
for project control and delegation of authority. This led to
the development of the role and responsibility matrix or
responsible, accountable, consulted and informed (RACI)
charts (1980). Due to the need for regular review of pro-
jects to make go/no go decisions, stage breakdown struc-
tures came into play, which later became the Stage-Gate
Approach to governance. A broader view of project
management using the term ‘management of projects’
was conceived to move the field's attention from an inter-
nal focus on the iron triangle to an external focus on
stakeholder satisfaction (Morris, 1994, p. 63). The role of
project owner or project champion became prominent as
projects needed organizational support and had to deal
with organizational politics to be successful. The use of
agile project management methods such as Scrum was
adopted by software projects to improve project success.
In summary, the landscape level pointed out the
recognition of complexity theories on management, the
influence of the Information Age and the need for
organizations to have a strategic view. The technological
niche level responded with more sophisticated tools to
improve project management processes, recognizing the
importance of projects to organizations and introducing
new ways to manage the increase in IT projects. At the
sociotechnical regime level, support was provided by the
need for accrediting project managers, identifying ways
to address complexity in projects and adopting a business
orientation of projects. The need for theoretical support
to advance project management paved the way for more
research in project management.
5.2.4 | The period from 1990 to 2010
Landscape level
As projects became larger in size and created social issues
such as land acquisition and ecological damage, the focus
on megaprojects (Flyvbjerg et al., 2003) and their impact
on sustainable development became important. The
ethical and social responsibilities of project managers and
leaders became important as projects became increas-
ingly used to contribute to international development
through aid projects.
Sociotechnical regime
The period between the 1990s and 2010 made the project
management profession realize that projects should be stra-
tegic tools, and this led to the development of project port-
folio management, project management offices and project
governance. Nevertheless, projects were failing measured
by conventional project management metrics and a rethink
on how to manage projects was required (Williams, 2005).
This led to the ESPRC-sponsored research programme
on Rethinking Project Management (Winter et al., 2006).
Special conferences and SIGs were organized such as
IRNOP, PMI Research Conference and PO SIGs in promi-
nent management conferences that further emphasized the
need for applying organizational theories to projects.
Meanwhile, Scandinavian scholars continued to
conceptualize projects as temporary organizations (Lundin
& Söderholm, 1995), and the term ‘projectification’was
coined in a study of how Renault improved the efficiency
of its product development process by moving from a clas-
sical functional organization to a project-based organiza-
tion and using powerful project teams (Midler, 1995).
Some scholars who were involved with the Rethinking
Project Management Network started looking at a critical
theory perspective of projects, giving rise to the Making
Projects Critical movement (Hodgson & Cicmil, 2006;
Jacobsson et al., 2016). As projects became larger and
more complex, ways to deal with complexity in projects
were developed (Remington & Pollack, 2008; Maylor &
Turner, 2017) and organizations such as the International
Centre for Complex Project Management were set up to
bring together scholars and practitioners to improve the
management of large-scale complex defence projects
which also benefited other sectors.
SANKARAN ET AL.707
The need for an organizational perspective of projects
intensified and project leadership came into prominence
as it was felt that project managers who managed large
complex projects needed to change from being transac-
tional leaders to becoming transformational leaders.
Some scholars started promoting the notion that projects
are a business in themselves (Artto & Wikström, 2005).
The International Journal of Managing Projects in
Business was started, to signify the importance of projects
to businesses.
Technological niches
The organizational perspective on project management
resulted in the need for strategies and tools to support
Organizational Project Management (Müller et al., 2019).
As agile project management, which was mainly used in
IT projects became more popular, it started spreading to
other projects, and organizations adopted hybrid methods
to deliver projects successfully.
In summary, the landscape level demanded that more
attention be paid to societal responsibilities and the
protection of the environment. The rise of megaprojects
further exacerbated the concerns for society and the
environment. The technological level responded by rec-
ognizing that prescriptive ways of managing projects had
to change and methodologies needed to be carefully
selected to respond to landscape-level needs. The need
for an organizational view of project management also
received more attention. The sociotechnical regime
responded by establishing special forums and initiatives
to support research and improvements in project man-
agement practice to meet the needs felt at the landscape
level. The link between business and projects was
enhanced by the introduction of a journal linking the
two. The need of leadership responsibilities of project
managers to address complex issues was recognized. It
also became evident that projects were expanding in
scope and variety and pervading the society, and a new
term ‘projectification’became used in practice.
5.2.5 | The period beyond 2010
Landscape level
There are two major changes at the landscape level that
will impact the development of project management. The
growing concerns about making our planet sustainable
are one of those. Recent dramatic climate changes in
Europe and the United States are making politicians even
more concerned about setting zero emission targets. It is
also clear that project management will face technologi-
cal disruption with advances in artificial intelligence,
robotics and data science.
Sociotechnical regime
In 2018, Scandinavian scholars led by Geraldi and
Söderlund (2018) suggested that project management
research could use ‘project studies’as an umbrella term
for ‘studies in, on and around projects’(p. 55). PMI also
made a radical change to the PMBOK in its seventh edi-
tion, which has moved away from processes to principles
so that practitioners can identify the right delivery
approach (predictive, agile or hybrid) to complete the
project as well as deliver value (DePrisco, 2020). A new
open-source journal, Project Leadership and Society,
focused on the societal responsibilities of project manage-
ment, is being published. Another open-source journal,
Project Management Research and Practice, has also
decided to focus on societal problems and socially respon-
sible project management. IPMA has declared year 2021
as the year of responsible project management. At
EURAM 2021, project management scholars were urged
to investigate projects using processual studies to advance
project organizing (Sergi et al., 2020).
Technological niches
The main innovations that are observed are the move
towards principle-based approaches and AI-based tech-
niques to enhance project management processes and the
increased use of robotics and the application of Internet
of Things (IoT) in managing projects.
In summary, the landscape level showed increasing
concerns for the protection of the planet and the re-
emergence of artificial intelligence, after it went through
a dark period called AI-winter in the 1980s that resulted
in reduced funding due to several failures (Haenlein &
Kaplan, 2019) that could have an its impact on the soci-
ety. The technological niche level has just started
responding to the landscape level by further relaxing pre-
scriptive ways of managing projects.
The analysis of premodern and modern project man-
agement and an explanation on how items were arrived
at in the landscape, sociotechnical regime and technolog-
ical niche levels shows that project management itself
can be viewed a management innovation that has suc-
cessfully transitioned to meet the needs at the landscape
level supported by sociotechnical regimes to be relevant
to society. To continue to do this, project management
needs to innovate to meet the future needs, which we
address next.
5.3 |The future of project management
We will now discuss a sample of the literature on trends
that are expected to affect project management focusing
on sustainable development, which is the focus of this
708 SANKARAN ET AL.
paper. We start with the work of the Rethinking Project
Management Network, which predicted that in the future
projects are unlikely to be predefined but will be
‘multidisciplinary …permeable, contestable and open to
negotiation throughout’. Gauthier and Ika (2012) point
out that in the postmodern world, where discourse and
rhetoric take precedence, a project will become a
‘discourse of legitimation, and an area of social and
power plays’(p. 12) and ‘multiplicity, ambivalence and
fragmentation/pluralism [will] characterize project man-
agement’(p. 12). They add that in the hypermodern
social world the ‘project is a network of actors embedded
in a social context and in constant transformation’
(p. 12). Both the postmodern and hypermodern views of
project management predicted by Gauthier and
Ika (2012) show how projects may have to change the
way they are managed to align closely with sustainable
development. Morris (2013) urges us to reconstruct pro-
ject management by referring to Geels's (2004) multilevel
perspective as an effective way to move portfolio, pro-
gramme and project management to address sustainable
development. This supports the use of the multilevel
perspective presented by Geels (2004) for the analysis of
the transition of project management in this article.
From a project management practice perspective,
peak bodies have been active in pointing out to a need to
rethink project management to meet sustainable develop-
ment. At the IPMA's international expert seminar held in
Zurich in February 2016, 15 future trends were presented
by Professor Yvonne Schoper, who identified sustainabil-
ity of projects as one of the important trends. According
to a paper presented at this seminar by Schoper and
Gemünden (2016, p. 32), the sustainability of projects
and project management implies that the ethical, envi-
ronmental, social and life-cycle aspects of projects need
to be taken into consideration in the formulation of pro-
jects. It also suggested that ‘The implication of the trend
[sustainability] is that it will increase the accountability
of organizations contracting a project beyond their own
risks and benefits towards the risks and benefits of exter-
nal stakeholders who are affected by their project. It will
transform the role of project management by challenging
if they do the ‘right things right’(p. 33).
PMI's Pulse of the Profession Report 2018 (PMI, 2018)
found that sustainable development, climate change
and renewable energy were affecting businesses as a
disruptive trend that needs to be dealt with by project
management professionals. On its 50th anniversary in
2019, PMI reinforced its commitment to being part of the
United Nation's Global Compact, whose partners
align their strategies and operations with universal
principles of human rights, labour, environment and
anti-corruption and commit to actions to advance
societal goals (https://www.pmi.org/anniversary/pmi-un-
partnership). The Association of Project Management's
(APM's) Vice President Mary McKinlay (2008) urged that
‘the further development of project management profes-
sion requires project managers to take responsibility for
sustainability’at the IPMA World Congress 2008
(Silvius & Schipper, 2014). IPMA has also dedicated 2021
as the International Year of Responsible Project
Management, calling for project professionals ‘to deliver
better outcomes for society and the environment’
(https://www.ipma.world/2021-is-international-year-of-
responsible-project-management).
These trends in managing projects predicted by peak
bodies as well as their commitments to support the well-
being of the environment confirm that there is a growing
recognition in project management practice that sustain-
able development is a challenge we cannot afford to
ignore. We next discuss how the need for meeting the
requirements for sustainable development has featured
in the project management literature.
5.4 |Sustainability and project
management
The role of project management to support sustainable
development has gained momentum since 2009 (Cerne &
Jansson, 2019; de Toledo et al., 2021; Garies et al., 2013;
Silvius et al., 2009). Marcelino-Sadaba et al. (2015), who
carried out a comprehensive review of sustainability
assessment in various applications of project manage-
ment, have pointed out that sustainability has been rec-
ognized as a challenge for project management in the
construction, infrastructure, mining, energy and new
product development sectors. In the past 15 years, several
industry sectors have expressed concerns about the need
to incorporate sustainability in project management. In a
recent paper, Silvius (2017) predicts that sustainability
could even become a new school of thought in project
management, in addition to the nine schools—optimiza-
tion, modelling, governance, behaviour, success, decision,
process, contingency and marketing—proposed by
Turner et al. (2010). In a guest editorial of papers
published under the title ‘Projects to create the future:
Managing projects meets sustainable development’,
Huemann and Silvius (2017, p. 1066) argue that ‘project
management has a vital role in contributing to sustain-
able development of organizations and society’, raising
the issue of societal responsibility of the profession.
However, despite the growing awareness of the
importance of the role of project management for sus-
tainable development, it seems ill prepared to deal with
sustainability. Silvius (2017) laments that integrating
SANKARAN ET AL.709
sustainability is a stretch for project management.
According to Martens and Cavalho (2017, p. 24), ‘there is
a gap between perception of importance and the actual
use of sustainability in project management (SPM) prac-
tice’. de Toledo et al. (2021) add that while the United
Nations Sustainable Development Goals should be
included in the critical success factors of projects, this
will require future project professionals to be trained in
sustainable methodologies.
From an organizational theory perspective, sustain-
able development seems a bridge too far for both the orga-
nization and the projects it carries out. Projects are often
constrained by time, cost, scope and quality and consid-
ered as temporary with a finite end, thus decoupling them
from permanent structures to achieve changes (Jones &
Lichtenstein, 2008). This poses a conundrum as sustain-
ability challenges are rarely time limited, decoupled from
the context or easily predictable. There is limited research
to show that wider organizational aspects are being
considered to support projects delivering sustainable out-
comes by balancing social, environmental and economic
issues (Silvius & Schipper, 2014). In addition, paying
attention to sustainability may interfere with the over-
arching ends of an organization such as, for example, core
strategy or business model. Despite attempts to develop a
business case for including sustainability issues, such an
attempt is perceived as paradoxical in setting corporate
goals (Hahn et al., 2015). Therefore, adding sustainability
as a requirement to projects could pose several challenges
to organizations (Bromley & Powell, 2012), hindering the
ability to achieve sustainable development (Wijen, 2014).
Thus, it looks like project management faces several
challenges in closing the ‘knowing and doing gap’
between the importance of sustainable development and
ways in which the field will have to change to deal with
this increased awareness of its societal and environmen-
tal responsibilities.
6|DISCUSSION
How do we envision project management will transition
towards sustainability? At the technological level, we
expect that tools to include sustainable project manage-
ment will be introduced by project management
researchers and professional bodies. At the sociotechnical
regime level, we expect peak bodies in project manage-
ment to produce guidelines for the practice of sustainable
project management like the change management
guides published because of the emphasis on benefits
management. PMI has already adopted the UN SDGs as
part of its strategy, while IPMA has declared the year of
responsible project management. The construction indus-
try (Sanchez & Haas, 2018) is already promoting the idea
of a circular economy, and this will spread to other sec-
tors in which project management is used.
While these steps are encouraging signs, more needs
to be done. We have used some key literature published
since 2010 by scholars who have proposed a way forward
to suggest further research into how sustainable develop-
ment could become adopted into current project manage-
ment practices. Silvius et al. (2012) suggested that we
need to develop new principles to govern projects if
we want to move from traditional to sustainable project
management. A systematic literature review carried out
by Aarseth et al. (2017) found that it is not enough if only
the project organization adopted sustainability strategies.
It also requires the host organization authorizing projects
to provide guidelines so that the project organization can
be motivated to adopt sustainable strategies.
Based on a review of the literature on sustainable
project management, we would like to propose a model
or framework of on how the transition to sustainable pro-
ject management could take place. After reviewing some
key literature and research carried out by scholars to pro-
pose models based on various aspects of SPM: success
FIGURE 3 Sustainable project management framework
710 SANKARAN ET AL.
(Martens & Cavalho, 2017), maturity model (Silvius &
Schipper, 2015) and SPM framework (Armenia et al.,
2019), we conclude that a model that links sustainable
project management to benefits (organizational, ecologi-
cal and societal) is missing. Figure 3 shows our proposed
model that could help with further investigation into
how SPM can be achieved in practice.
We start with sustainability principles as the over-
arching guideline to move towards SPM which has been
discussed in the literature (Agarwal & Kalm
ar, 2015;
Gareis et al., 2013; Goedknegt & Silvius, 2012;
Labuschagne & Brent, 2004; Turner, 2010). If these prin-
ciples can be incorporated into the governance of projects
(Bekker & Steyn, 2009; Müller, 2016), they could become
embedded in the processes, roles and policies governing
the projects. As Aarseth et al. (2017) has pointed out, the
host organization authorizing projects should also adopt
guidelines to inform the project organization to adopt
sustainable strategies. This is also necessary as supporting
sustainability from an organizational perspective might
bring politics and power into play (Scherer et al., 2016;
Smith, 2009). Thus, both corporate governance in the
form of corporate social responsibility and principles of
governance discussed in project management literature
should guide project governance. Such guidance could
assist in influencing sustainable behaviour in projects
(Silvius & de Graaf, 2019; Silvius & Schipper, 2014),
which can drive SPM. According to Huemann and
Silvius (2017), sustainable project management involves
both the ‘product or deliverable of the project’(p. 1066)
and the ‘process or delivery of the project’(p. 1066). This
is echoed by Jacobsson and Lundin (2019) in their com-
ment on an article on projectification of sustainable
development (Cerne & Jansson, 2019), stating that ‘pro-
jects/project management constituting both a means and
an end in sustainable development practice’(p. 240). In
other words, both sustainable development through pro-
jects and sustainability of projects should be considered.
The two blocks emanating from SPM in the model repre-
sents these two aspects. Finally, SPM should lead to bene-
fits that are economic, ecological and societal (Gareis
et al., 2013).
7|CONCLUSIONS
In this article, we have attempted to use a multilevel
perspective to understand project management as a
sustainable management innovation, emphasizing the
importance of moving with the times by being conscious
of events that are happening at the horizon (or landscape
level) and be relevant to deliver outcomes. One challenge
that project management will face in the post-Covid-19
world is the increasing importance of sustainable devel-
opment (Tollefson, 2020). Therefore, the project manage-
ment community needs to evolve as it has done so well
in the past to embrace the societal demand to take
sustainably into account while delivering projects and
implement projects that are established towards sustain-
able development. These could be projects that strive
towards reducing the carbon footprint or deal with
climate change, which may require considerations differ-
ent to conventional projects. Based on recent literature,
this article concludes with a model that could be used as
a framework for further evolution of project management
towards sustainable project management.
While we have carried out our own analysis of how
project management has transitioned as an innovation,
this article has also some limitations that can be
addressed by project management researchers in the
future. First it has only considered sustainable develop-
ment as a challenge project management faces, while
ignoring how project management will transition to han-
dle digital disruption. This is because the focus of this
special issue is on sustainable development. The second,
as one of the reviewers, has pointed out that focusing
only on project management could be a partial view from
a systemic perspective but should also embrace an orga-
nizational development perspective with bureaucratic
control and power relationships. These issues are dis-
cussed in part in the project management literature in
dealing with stakeholders but would require further
investigation that is beyond the scope of this article.
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M., & Blomquist, T. (2021). The history and future
of projects as a transition innovation: Towards a
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