Major construction projects are characterized by a heterogeneous audience of stakeholders who can create severe reputational risk to project organizations when not properly addressed. The inclusion and support that project organizations devote to local communities form a crucial part of a project's delivery and social sustainability considerations, yet this has only recently attracted attention in project studies. To address social sustainability, project managers should reinforce accountability and the inclusion of ‘new voices’ in the project decision-making process. Through mixed-methods research, this paper contributes to the project stakeholder engagement discourse and normative stance of stakeholder theory concerning the role of local communities and examines the ways in which inclusion can provide a response to the sustainability challenges of major projects. Findings suggest means-ends decoupling situations where current project management practices towards communities' engagement are weakly linked to their goals and induced by convergent pressures and reactive mechanisms, thus preventing an inclusive decision-making process.
Purpose – This study primarily aims to analyse stakeholder management challenges and how these emerge in the stakeholder landscape in a large hospital project. From this analysis, the authors aim to identify the implications that stakeholder management has on value creation in a hospital project.
Design/methodology/approach – The research method is qualitative. Empirical data were collected in three cycles: project internal documentation, thematic interviews and survey. The literature related to hospital projects, stakeholder analysis and management, stakeholder salience and landscape is summarised, informing the qualitative design of the study.
Findings –The authors noted the importance of project-specific stakeholder identification, salience analysis and landscape description. The regulatory, formal and contractual stakeholders give an over-simplistic picture on stakeholder map. The operative stakeholder map and landscape describe the complexity, uncertainty, dynamism and institutional context inducing the challenges for the stakeholder management. There is an
evident potential of utilising the stakeholder landscape and its elements in the resulting collaborative value creation in hospital projects. Multiple and changing stakeholders with differing expectations are an important opportunity to improve the value creation process.
Originality/value – Stakeholder management has recently attracted much attention in the industrial project setting. This research attempts to identify the operative stakeholder landscape in a large hospital project, not to mention its impact on value creation. This study offers a framework that can help academics and project management practitioners tackle the challenges amongst project stakeholders.
Stakeholders in infrastructure projects should be steadily engaged starting from the earliest stage of the project i.e pre construction, until completion of the project. Stakeholder which directly and indirectly engaged in a large infrastructure projects, has different desires, interests, rights, and also can be voiceful. The main purpose of engaging of with the stakeholder is to promote fairness and trustworthy both to the external and internal stakeholder because as individuals and groups who are excluded from the decision-making processes are unlikely not to have their needs and preferences reflected in the outcome. The purpose of the paper aims to focus on improvement on the process of stakeholder engagement in Malaysian railway case study focusing on planning stage. This paper applies a qualitative research methodology based on semi-structured interviews and observation from a single case study of a mass rapid transit railway project in Malaysia. Empirical study from the case study will lead to establish lesson learned that could improve the stakeholder engagement scheme in infrastructure projects. The findings explained the sequence by showing the improvement of stakeholder engagement processes that need to be done during the pre-construction process. The suitable engagement process involves internal preparation and alignment, consulting, monitoring and planning. Albeit engagement process is a difficult to manage, it requires courage and humility when dealing with the public and community.
Stakeholder engagement has grown into a widely used yet often unclear construct in business and society research. The literature lacks a unified understanding of the essentials of stakeholder engagement, and the fragmented use of the stakeholder engagement construct challenges its development and legitimacy. The purpose of this article is to clarify the construct of stakeholder engagement to unfold the full potential of stakeholder engagement research. We conduct a literature review on 90 articles in leading academic journals focusing on stakeholder engagement in the business and society, management and strategy, and environmental management and environmental policy literatures. We present a descriptive analysis of stakeholder engagement research for a 15-year period, and we identify the moral, strategic, and pragmatic components of stakeholder engagement as well as its aims, activities, and impacts. Moreover, we offer an inclusive stakeholder engagement definition and provide a guide to organizing the research. Finally, we complement the current understanding with a largely overlooked dark side of stakeholder engagement. We conclude with future research avenues for stakeholder engagement research.
This study focuses on the effects of megaproject social responsibility (MSR) on participating organizations’ performance. Using a survey of the participating organizations in Chinese megaprojects, this study reveals that the impact of MSR on a participant’s performance goes beyond the scope of the current megaproject. The empirical results indicate that MSR positively affects both financial and social performance of the participating organizations. The interactions of primary stakeholders weaken the positive effects of MSR on both financial and social performance, whereas the interactions of secondary stakeholders strengthen the positive effects of MSR on social performance.
This study focuses on crises in megaprojects and on the strategies used to cope with them. The context examined is the Islamabad-Rawalpindi Metro, a megaproject in Pakistan. Our empirical data comprise semistructured interviews, illustrative materials, and archival data, analyzed using grounded theory. In the crisis management model, we divide crises into four categories: (1) internal technical/economic; (2) internal social; (3) external technical/economic; and (4) external social crises; and link them to six distinct coping strategies: communication, coordination, resource mobilization, planning and multitasking, negotiation , and compensation. We observe that the first three of these strategies are generic in nature, whereas the three latter are crisis-specific strategies.
Infrastructure projects such as metro rails are being increasingly built in busy cities mainly to improve mobility and reduce congestion. However, assessment of benefits realized from these projects is complex. One reason for this is that promoters of these projects often misrepresent the projects’ benefits to get them approved. Although some benefits from infrastructure projects can be measured using economic data, such data are insufficient for measuring social benefits. This article reports on an exploratory study on how social media could provide an opportunity to evaluate benefits qualitatively by analyzing tweets from metro rail projects in India and Australia. Although the analysis of tweets from these projects indicated that citizens who use these transport facilities report benefits, they do not seem to use the same terms as the project’s promoters to describe these benefits. The article concludes with some suggestions on how social media can supplement current methods used in evaluating benefits from transport projects.
The purpose of this study is to understand the role of social media content on users' engagement behavior. More specifically, we investigate: (i) the direct effects of format and platform on users' passive and active engagement behavior, and (ii) we assess the moderating effect of content context on the link between each content type (rational, emotional, and transactional content) and users' engagement. The dataset contained 1,038 social media posts and 1,336,741 and 95,996 fan likes and comments, respectively based on Facebook and Instagram. The results reveal that the effectiveness of social media content on users' engagement is moderated by content context. The findings contribute to understanding engagement and users' experience with social media. This study is a pioneering one to empirically assess the construct of social media engagement behavior through the effects of content types and content contexts on a dual social media platform.
Public engagement is founded on idealistic principles of democratic decision making and public stewardship. Yet, the logistical realities of managing these processes are fraught with difficulties. In this article, we explore the ways in which material artifacts are used in formal public engagement proceedings on urban development projects in Hong Kong. The findings show that material artifacts used—in addition to serving as boundary objects that facilitate communication across knowledge boundaries—form part of a network that directs, controls, and manages the information flow among participants. These artifacts thus play an active role in managing the divergent interests of external stakeholders on projects.
The global infrastructure sector is thriving. But community opposition to major projects is also rising. Australian examples demonstrate the policy backflips, reputational pitfalls, and financial costs of project delays and cancellations. Failures to engage communities are surprising, given the widespread adoption of community engagement (CE) principles and the increasing professionalization of CE roles. If acceptance of the need for CE in infrastructure is more widespread than ever, why are we not seeing smoother project delivery, reduced protest, and cost savings? This paradox is the driving force behind the Next Generation Engagement project. This article offers a practitioners’ perspective to introduce the project and present key findings from its 12‐month pilot study aiming to establish a transdisciplinary, industry‐led research agenda for CE in Australia's infrastructure sector. The article contributes to our understanding of CE literature and research codesign. It maps out the top five priority themes for future research to support infrastructure selection, planning and delivery. The research agenda provides guidance for policy, and practice, offering consolidated, research‐based insights for policymakers and practitioners.
This paper organizes and synthesizes different extant research streams through a systematic literature review to identify connections and major assumptions on the influence of stakeholders in major Public Infrastructure and Construction projects (PIC), at the local community level. Findings suggest that research on stakeholder management has focused strongly on those stakeholders able to control project resources, whilst the effect on the legitimate 'secondary stakeholders', such as the local community, remains widely unexplored. Due to the unavoidable impact of major PIC on both people and places, it is suggested that seeking local community opinions in the initiation phase of the project and monitoring the megaproject impact at the local level can help to improve project performance. The output provides scholars and practitioners with future research directions and practical implications for an inclusive stakeholder management approach in construction megaprojects.
While there is an important and growing body of research literature on listening, it is predominantly focused on interpersonal listening. Meanwhile, in contemporary industrial and postindustrial societies, organizations play a central role in society and the lives of citizens. People need to interact on a daily basis with government departments and agencies, corporations, and a plethora of nongovernment and nonprofit organizations. Despite theorization of the disciplinary practices of public relations and corporate, organizational, government, and political communication as two-way communication involving dialogue and engagement with stakeholders and publics, a transdisciplinary literature review of these fields reveals that little attention is paid to listening. In addition to identifying this gap in the literature, this article reports empirical research that shows organizations listen sporadically, often poorly, and sometimes not at all. To address this socially and politically significant gap, this analysis makes recommendations as a contribution to a theory and practice of organizational listening.
Governance gives life to an organization by establishing the rules that shape organizational action. Structures of governance rest on stakeholder engagement, particularly on how stakeholders assess the prospects for earning a return by committing their specialized resources to the organization. Once formalized, governance structures and processes can resist change. Yet, under special circumstances, some stakeholders that are a party to an organization may seek to adapt governance in response to changes in the external environment that surrounds the organization. Adaptation often requires renegotiation: who has claims on the organization and who gets what? In this article we analyze the relationship between the institutional change that drives adaptation and the outcome of renegotiation. We draw on institutional economics and organization theory to identify four pathways of governance adaptation: continuity, architectural change, enfranchisement change, and redistribution. We call for further theoretical and empirical research on governance adaptation and its implications for organizational value creation and capture.
Public engagement is an umbrella term that encompasses numerous methods for bringing people together to address issues of public importance. In this article, we focus on direct public engagement in local government, exploring what we know and proposing areas where more research is needed. We first define direct public engagement and distinguish it from related concepts and terms. We then introduce a simple framework for exploring variations in direct public engagement at the local level. Next, we use this framework to examine the extant literature on why, how, and to what effect direct public engagement in local government is used. Finally, we identify gaps in the literature and propose a research agenda for the future.
Research dealing with various aspects of* the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1985,
1987) is reviewed, and some unresolved issues are discussed. In broad terms, the theory is
found to be well supported by empirical evidence. Intentions to perform behaviors of different
kinds can be predicted with high accuracy from attitudes toward the behavior, subjective
norms, and perceived behavioral control; and these intentions, together with perceptions of
behavioral control, account for considerable variance in actual behavior. Attitudes, subjective
norms, and perceived behavioral control are shown to be related to appropriate sets of salient
behavioral, normative, and control beliefs about the behavior, but the exact nature of these
relations is still uncertain. Expectancy value formulations are found to be only partly
successful in dealing with these relations. Optimal rescaling of expectancy and value
measures is offered as a means of dealing with measurement limitations. Finally, inclusion of
past behavior in the prediction equation is shown to provide a means of testing the theory*s
sufficiency, another issue that remains unresolved. The limited available evidence concerning
this question shows that the theory is predicting behavior quite well in comparison to the
ceiling imposed by behavioral reliability.
This paper answers the question, "Why do organizations process information?" Uncertainty and equivocality are defined as two forces that influence information processing in organizations. Organization structure and internal systems determine both the amount and richness of information provided to managers. Models are proposed that show how organizations can be designed to meet the information needs of technology, interdepartmental relations, and the environment. One implication for managers is that a major problem is lack of clarity, not lack of data. The models indicate how organizations can be designed to provide information mechanisms to both reduce uncertainty and resolve equivocality.
Purpose
The study emphasizes the importance of human perception in engaging stakeholders and sheds light on the way the often “disregarded” actors (i.e. local communities) make sense of an organization's behavior at the corporate, project and individual level.
Design/methodology/approach
Departing from the normative stance of stakeholder theory, this conceptual paper aims to unfold the benefits of a more holistic and inclusive organizational approach to stakeholders. The conceptual framework is elucidated through the lens of attribution theory, which points to communication as the source of stakeholders' attributional processes and thus their perception of fairness.
Findings
Focusing the authors’ attention on construction and infrastructure projects, this research suggests that early transparent and informative communication with local community stakeholders motivates them to perceive fairness, from both the process of decision-making (distributive) and the outcome of decisions (procedural), as well as the way in which they are treated (interactional). Such communications lead to less biased attributions as they reduce the influence of personal beliefs in achieving a conscious and non-biased attribution mode.
Originality/value
In this paper, the authors adopt attribution theory as their lens with which to interpret the process whereby individuals attempt to make sense of an organization's behavior. Focusing on secondary stakeholder engagement such as local community, the authors’ conceptualization shapes both a framework highlighting communication as the mediator for shaping human perceptions, and a process model to guide project organizations and practitioners to embrace an inclusive approach toward the often-disregarded stakeholders, which is aimed at enhancing their perception of fairness at the corporate, project and individual levels. The authors highlight the need for organization to provide clear and transparent communication to a broader range of stakeholders, such as those that have had little to say in the decision-making process (the often-disregarded voices). By seeking collaboration rather than manipulation, a project organization might promote stakeholders' non-biased perception of fairness, in terms of both the process and outcome of the project.
Social media offer new opportunities for project community stakeholder engagement due to its spatial and temporal independency. This study reveals implications for project stakeholder identification, assessment, and response strategies in the social media context. It analysed Facebook communication sequences in two cases related to establishing the Western Sydney International Airport. The analysis showed that existing stakeholder identification and assessment guidelines only apply to social media to some extent. Information about stakeholders and their concerns is limited. We suggest identifying and addressing thematic issues shared across stakeholders. Regarding possible response strategies, the project in the case study surprisingly often refrained from responding to community stakeholder comments, foregoing the opportunity to engage with community stakeholders and acknowledging supportive comments. We suggest that projects consciously apply an ‘always respond’ response strategy on social media and extend response strategies to cover engagement with an 'acknowledgement' response strategy.
Purpose
The research problem in this study is how a client (as a project owner) should organise early stakeholder involvement and integration in the front-end phase of a project. This study aims to create normative managerial statements as propositions from the client's perspective and to combine them into a set of activities enabling efficient organisation in the front-end phase of a hospital construction project.
Design/methodology/approach
Action design research (ADR) was carried out in a large hospital construction project where the first author acted as an “involved researcher” and the other authors acted as “outside researchers”.
Findings
The authors created seven normative managerial propositions that were verified by the case project stakeholders and developed a managerial framework describing the client's essential stakeholder involvement and integration activities in the front-end phase of a hospital construction project based on these propositions. The authors have also depicted the subphases of the front-end phase: value definition phase in the client permanent organisation, value proposition phase in the client Programme Management Office (PMO) and finally development phase in the alliance organisation ending on the final investment decision.
Practical implications
The collaborative contract delivery model enables the early involvement and integration of stakeholders. It has been somewhat surprising to note the extent to which collaborative contracts change the client role in the project front-end. The results offer practical activities for how clients can manage front-end activities in collaborative contracts.
Originality/value
The case project offered a platform to analyse how the collaborative contract delivery model changes the emphasis of activities in the front-end of a project. One of the key benefits of collaborative contracts is that development, design and delivery occur partially in parallel, thereby enabling contributions from production to be included in the design and development. The benefit of having a real-life case under study provides the possibility to triangulate and analyse rich data, however limited by the qualitative case method.
Organizations invest in digital transformation (DT) programs to digitize, digitalize, and integrate products, processes, services, and data. This research explores the management disciplines, both accepted and emerging, underlying program management in the context of DT. Case analyses from two DT programs explore program management elements. Findings suggest strong support for the existing program disciplines of governance, benefits management, and change management. Three disciplinary elements also emerged—aligning multiple digital architectures, developing product management capabilities, and transforming human capital in low-code environments. Research into DT programs has much to contribute to our understanding of program management and successful DT initiatives.
Purpose
Transport megaprojects often struggle to offer social value (SV) that meets local communities' needs. This problem is embedded in how local communities' views are captured and incorporated into SV plans through local community engagement (LCE). By problematising the literature, this article aims to identify LCE issues and their impacts on SV plans at the front-end of transport megaprojects.
Design/methodology/approach
The theoretical lens of the study is the practice theory developed by Schatzki (2016, 2005). The authors conceptualised LCE as a practice and conducted 32 semi-structured interviews with UK practitioners. The authors collected data in three steps from three types of practitioners involved in LCE practice and SV planning: project managers, LCE experts and SV experts.
Findings
The authors identified 18 LCE issues with thematic analysis and clustered them into five themes. These issues impact LCE with five mechanisms. Findings show that a weak link between LCE and SV plans due to the issues reduces LCE to a tick-box exercise and presents a distorted view of local communities. This reduces SV plans to the bare minimum for project approval instead of offering relevant SV to local communities. Addressing the issues goes beyond changing the approach of project teams to engagement (from instrumental to normative) and requires changing the practices.
Originality/value
For the first time, the study uses practice theory to conceptualise LCE as a practice, following the notion of project as practice. The study problematises the literature to address the under-represented link between LCE and SV plans.
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the role of project monitoring and evaluation (M&E) in international development (ID) project stakeholders' relationships. This study draws on agency theory to examine the specific role M&E plays in improving ID project impact.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative data comprising of in-depth interviews were collected from ID project stakeholders such as project donors, implementing partners and steering committee members.
Findings
Results of the study show that project M&E activities can serve multiple purposes including the collection of data for the assessment of inputs, outputs, outcomes and impact. This information is shared with stakeholders to assist in evidence-based decision-making to improve project impact on community. This study shows that M&E activities strengthen the relationship between stakeholders by involving multiple stakeholders at different stages of ID projects to identify community needs and to demonstrate the positive community impact. Agency issues such as goal incongruence, information asymmetry and risk-sharing affect the relationship between the stakeholders. Investing in different M&E activities can reduce these issues, ultimately leading to a positive impact at the community level.
Originality/value
There has been limited research that explores the principal-agent relationship between project stakeholders of ID projects through the lens of agency theory. The role of M&E to collect project data and address agency issues between project stakeholders to improve project impact is the novel contribution of this paper.
Previous studies have paid scarce attention to engagement of various stakeholders in urban development projects. Therefore, this paper examines the possibilities of using digital tools to enhance stakeholder participation in urban development projects and how digital tools may be associated with value creation in the project planning phase. This qualitative case study builds on data we collected through 17 semistructured interviews and participation in four planning workshops in a middle-sized city in Finland. Our data analysis resulted in a categorisation consisting of six types of digital tools that can be used to engage stakeholders in urban development projects. Our results indicate that digital tools provide multiple opportunities for stakeholder participation and that each tool is associated with specific benefits and sacrifices that contribute to value creation. Furthermore, digital tools were found to positively influence project success and stakeholder satisfaction. Our study offers practical recommendations, especially regarding social media, for effectively integrating various stakeholders, including individual citizens and private actors, into urban development projects.
This article offers some significant insights on the challenges of using social media in project management, using survey responses from 167 managerial and senior-level staff to an open-ended question. Data analysis, underpinned by SCT, was performed using systematic coding and matrix coding query techniques in NVivo (version 12.0) software. Results show that the use of social media in project management leads to challenges, including (1) behavioral (a “write first, think later” tendency; a lack of direction and focus in discussions), (2) cognitive (impaired decision-making owing to a lack of suitable and complete information), and (3) environmental (management of access control and accountabilities; information leakage) challenges. Implications are discussed.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) requires a fundamental change in the way we live, work and relate to one another. It requires a new type of intelligence to deal with this fundamental change. This new type of intelligence requires new competencies. Yet, it is not crystal clear what these new competencies should be, especially those relating to the discipline of project management. Project leaders are required to implement and manage 4IR-related projects but do not necessarily have the required competencies. This is especially the case in a developing country such as South Africa. The study explored the digital competencies that are deemed important by project managers in managing projects in the digital economy. Q-methodology was used to determine potential perspectives, and three confirming perspectives and one emergent perspective were identified. The main competence deemed important is online communication and collaboration, whereas cybersecurity is deemed unimportant. This study is the first of its kind and provides insight into the digital intelligence of project leaders. It contributes to the current debate around the future digital competencies and skills that are required. It also provides guidelines for organisations on how to plan and structure training and to upskill their current project leaders. A concerted effort needs to be in place to upskill project leaders. It cannot be left to fate.
This essay sharpens and refreshes the multi-case theory-building approach, sometimes termed The “Eisenhardt Method.” The Method’s singular aim is theory building, especially with multiple cases and theoretical logic. Its defining features (e.g. research questions without obvious answers, careful case selection, well-identified constructs and relationships, theoretical arguments, boundary conditions) reflect this aim. I begin with the influence of the 1980s, including grounded theorizing and case logic. Relying on exemplars, I illustrate the Method’s defining features. I also address common misconceptions (e.g. types of data, number of cases, performance emphasis). These miss the Method’s essence and imply a rigid template that does not exist. Instead, the Method’s relatively few defining features enable a wide variety of research possibilities. I conclude with what I would write today like a richer palette of research choices, more emphasis on time, and flexible philosophy of science. Yet the core message of theory building would remain.
Customer journey has become an increasingly important concept to understand complex customer behaviours and get insights into their experiences. While the term has been used in diverse disciplines since the 1990s and its literature has grown more than sevenfold over the last eight years, understanding of the topic remains incoherent. This paper adopted a stream-based systematic review approach to identify the underlying themes of the customer journey presented in the business literature up to May 2020. 147 relevant papers were retrieved from Scopus, Web of Science and EBSCO for the analysis. The quantitative content analysis identified five underlying themes of the customer journey, namely, service satisfaction, failure and recovery, co-creation, customer response, channels and technological disruption. The results section reviewed and discussed each theme and its sub-themes in turn. The review identified important gaps in the literature related to the key stages of a customer journey.
Collective actions against major construction projects are becoming common because of the public's increasing civil rights awareness and environmental consciousness. Thus, it is important to explore the critical factors responsible for collective actions against major construction projects. This study initially developed 25 indicators inducing collective actions based on a comprehensive literature review. An empirical study with 127 samples was conducted using questionnaire surveys and semi-structured interviews from projects located in Central China. Furthermore, ranking analysis and factor analyses were implemented to conclude that collective actions in major construction projects can be explained by a six-dimension critical factor system: benefits to the public, characteristics of project performers, layout of projects, living quality of the public, perceptions of the public, and influence from the authority. This study contributes to government administration for collective actions against major construction projects and serves as a useful reference for further studies of this type.
Brands use social media to engage consumers in all stages of the customer journey. Prior work on consumer engagement with brand-generated content on social networking sites has not taken into account the different needs and gratifications sought by consumers during consecutive stages of customer journeys over time. We propose that what drives consumer engagement with brand posts on social networking sites is contingent on the stage of the customer journey. We test our hypotheses by analyzing over 24,000 brand posts by event organizers on Facebook. Adopting a multilevel approach, we find that informative posts generate more Likes, shares, and comments in the preconsumption stage, whereas entertaining posts generate more consumer engagement in the postconsumption stage. A higher degree of activation in brand posts is associated with higher engagement in the pre- and postconsumption stage but not in the consumption stage. Finally, we find support for an optimal level of vividness during all stages of the customer journey. These findings suggest that brands can benefit from adapting their content on social networking sites to the stage of the customer journey over time. On a theoretical level, this study deepens the understanding of how brands’ activities on social networking sites drive consumer engagement throughout the customer journey and offers an empirical link between the domains of customer journeys and consumer engagement.
Purpose
The implementation of public–private partnerships (PPPs), particularly in low- and middle-income countries, has been hampered by external stakeholders’ opposition leading to the failure of several projects. The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework to improve external stakeholder management in PPP projects.
Design/methodology/approach
Two case studies consisting of 23 interviews with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders were employed. This was supplemented with a focus group approach to validate the framework.
Findings
A new framework for the management of external stakeholders is developed. It encompasses new features such as the dynamic identification of stakeholders at each project phase and their corresponding interests.
Research limitations/implications
The scope is road transportation projects in Nigeria and thus the recommendations may not be globally applicable.
Practical implications
The findings can help the public sector and their agencies to manage external stakeholders and maintain successful relationships on PPP projects.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to existing knowledge in four key areas: it confirms that the skill and actions of internal stakeholders are vital to the stakeholder management process; it shows that one-off stakeholder identification proposed in literature is a flawed approach; it proposes that the identification of external stakeholders’ interests be dynamic; and it adds the perspective of low- and middle-income countries in stakeholder management in PPP projects.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the practice of stakeholder engagement as a social network dynamics for stakeholder satisfaction and project success in the lifecycle of mega transport infrastructure projects (MTIPs).
Design/methodology/approach
Hypotheses indicating the positive relationships between stakeholders’ effective attributes, stakeholder engagement as social network dynamics and project success through stakeholders’ satisfaction have been developed. Based on a questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews, responses have been gathered from the representative groups and organizations on their social network dynamics for their satisfaction and project success. A hypothesized structural equation model has been tested using AMOS statistical software package.
Findings
The analysis highlighted the engagement of the stakeholders within the strategic intents of the project with the public needs and expectations. The model depicts the processes of building social network models based on the capturing of the project’s data in relation to the stakeholders’ communication and satisfaction across the key issues for success in the lifecycle of MTIP.
Practical implications
The model is applicable on most MTIP with a diverse stakeholder base and the underlying complexity associated with the community participation and consultation processes. The model will also support wider stakeholder engagement in the planning of MTIP with optimal operationalization and service delivery from a community perspective.
Originality/value
The research involves an approach for rationalizing the stakeholder engagement policies of the MTIPs by providing an empirically grounded model simultaneously linking various aspects of stakeholder effective attributes, stakeholder engagement and their relationships to stakeholder satisfaction and project success in MTIPs.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to investigate strategies that external stakeholders can employ to affect construction project outcomes and, second, to identify essential requirements for utilising each strategy.
Design/methodology/approach
A new theoretical framework of stakeholder influence strategies was proposed and applied. The research design is a multi-case study, comprising four cases in the construction industry in Vietnam.
Findings
Seven specific strategies were found, including inputs withholding, inputs compromising, communication, direct action, coalition building, conflict escalation and credibility building. When possessing project inputs, stakeholders can affect a project directly via a withholding or compromising strategy. Communication is available to those who have basic communicating skills; however, direct action is only employed by groups that include a large number of members. Objectors must have common interests or goals with their potential allies for using coalition building. Conflict escalation is restricted to communities having distinctive characteristics which can be used to create new problems sensibly, while credibility building is used by parties possessing adequate resources and expertise.
Research limitations/implications
This study’s generalisability may be limited by the main source of data and the types of projects in the selected cases.
Practical implications
This study provides directions for project managers to predict stakeholder influence by taking project inputs and utilisation requirements of the strategies into consideration.
Originality/value
This study is one of the first investigations on stakeholder-attributes-related requirements for utilising influence strategies in projects.
Recently, practitioners have begun appraising an effective customer journey design (CJD) as an important source of customer value in increasingly complex and digitalized consumer markets. Research, however, has neither investigated what constitutes the effectiveness of CJD from a consumer perspective nor empirically tested how it affects important variables of consumer behavior. The authors define an effective CJD as the extent to which consumers perceive multiple brand-owned touchpoints as designed in a thematically cohesive, consistent, and context-sensitive way. Analyzing consumer data from studies in two countries (4814 consumers in total), they provide evidence of the positive influence of an effective CJD on customer loyalty through brand attitude—over and above the effects of brand experience. Importantly, an effective CJD more strongly influences utilitarian brand attitudes, while brand experience more strongly affects hedonic brand attitudes. These underlying mechanisms are also prevalent when testing for the contingency factors services versus goods, perceived switching costs, and brand involvement.
The authors address the role of marketing in hypermedia computer-mediated environments (CMEs). Their approach considers hypermedia CMEs to be large-scale (i.e., national or global) networked environments, of which the World Wide Web on the Internet is the first and current global implementation. They introduce marketers to this revolutionary new medium, propose a structural model of consumer navigation behavior in a CME that incorporates the notion of flow, and examine a series of research issues and marketing implications that follow from the model.
Based on an exploratory study conducted in the UK using thematic and cluster analysis, this paper investigates how the local communities' stakeholder is perceived, defined and categorized by project managers in major public infrastructure and construction projects (MPIC), and how their involvement could improve the performance of these projects. Due to the perceived benefits shortfall of MPIC, well organized actions from 'secondary stakeholder' groups have led to delays, cost overruns, and significant damage to the organization's reputation. Stakeholder management is an essential process which aims to maximize positive inputs and minimize detrimental attitudes by taking into account the needs and requirements of all project stakeholders. However, current project stakeholder management mechanisms are reactive rather than proactive, mainly offering an instrumental perspective, which aims to make the stakeholders comply with project needs. Therefore, a broader inclusiveness of secondary stakeholders who could be harmed by the organization's strategy, such as the local communities, is required to enhance the performance of MPIC.
Understanding customer experience and the customer journey over time is critical for firms. Customers now interact with firms through myriad touch points in multiple channels and media, and customer experiences are more social in nature. These changes require firms to integrate multiple business functions, and even external partners, in creating and delivering positive customer experiences. In this article, the authors aim to develop a stronger understanding of customer experience and the customer journey in this era of increasingly complex customer behavior. To achieve this goal, they examine existing definitions and conceptualizations of customer experience as a construct and provide a historical perspective of the roots of customer experience within marketing. Next, they attempt to bring together what is currently known about customer experience, customer journeys, and customer experience management. Finally, they identify critical areas for future research on this important topic.
This paper describes the process of inducting theory using case studies-from specifying the research questions to reaching closure. Some features of the process, such as problem definition and construct validation, are similar to hypothesis-testing research. Others, such as within-case analysis and replication logic, are unique to the inductive, case-oriented process. Overall, the process described here is highly iterative and tightly linked to data. This research approach is especially appropriate in new topic areas. The resultant theory is often novel, testable, and empirically valid. Finally, framebreaking insights, the tests of good theory (e.g., parsimony, logical coherence), and convincing grounding in the evidence are the key criteria for evaluating this type of research.
IPD from a stakeholder perspective
K Aaltonen
M Huemann
C Kier
P Eskerod
D H Walker
Minutes Village of Flat Rock Council meeting
Rock Flat
Council
Airport expansion consultation
Heathrow Airport
Social media marketing: a practitioner guide. 4e, Opresnik Management Consulting
S Hollensen
P Kotler
M O Opresnik
Modernization plan for Portland’s Jefferson High taking shape