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H2020Individual fellowship2015–2017

PmSust · The project of Sustainability: the role of Project Management in developing a more sustainable economy and society

Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Duration
2015-09-01 → 2017-08-31
EU contribution
€183,455
Participants
1
Scheme
MSCA-IF-EF-ST

Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.

Results in brief

The project of Sustainability: the role of Project Management in developing a more sustainable economy and society

This project investigates the role of the Project Management (PM) profession in developing sustainable business practices. Sustainability has acquired a growing strategic importance over the last 10 years bringing with it a requirement for changes in traditional practices and paradigms of production for its successful implementation. These changes are typically managed as projects and delivered by dedicated project managers who are assumed to have the knowledge and skills to consider the social, financial, political, cultural and environmental sustainability of a project. As such project managers, through their distinctive roles, skills and competences occupy an important position in accomplishing sustainability, but little is understood about how they do this. Using qualitative methods such as interviews, content analysis and ethnographic observation, it focuses on how sustainability is incorporated in PM discourse and practice by studying: how the profession makes sense of sustainability, and also sustainability in practice. Therefore, the objective of this data collection is to understand the underlying ‘narratives’ that professionals use. The analysis of these data show how the concept of sustainability is conceived and applied throughout all the steps of the project. The main impact on the business world relates to the understanding of how the sustainability mechanisms are implemented. This would help practitioners of project management deal with those factors in different institutional contexts and increase the chances of developing a more sustainable economy (through project management). This study could boost the rate at which sustainability practices spread across the economy, and this could also help turn Europe into a more competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy (see first section).

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

This project will investigate the role of the Project Management (PM) profession in developing a sustainable economy. Sustainability has acquired a growing strategic importance over the last 10 years bringing with it a requirement for changes in traditional practices and paradigms of production for its successful implementation. These changes are typically managed as projects and delivered by dedicated project managers, that are assumed, have the knowledge and skills to take into account the social, financial, political, cultural and environmental sustainability of a project. As such project managers, through their distinctive roles, skills and competences occupy an important position in accomplishing sustainability, but little is understood about how they do this.Using qualitative methods such as interviews, content analysis and ethnographic observation, I will focus on how sustainability is incorporated in PM discourse and practice by studying: how the profession makes sense of sustainability, and also sustainability in practice.The topic of the project is very timely as it addresses the sixth point currently on the Horizon 2020 agenda: Inclusive Innovative and Reflective Societies. The expected contributions of this fellowship will be in: (a) explaining the institutionalization of sustainability within PM professional practices; (b) identifying under what conditions project managers adopt sustainability practices; (c) conceptualizing sustainability in PM contexts. This project will provides me with excellent training and collaboration opportunities, which will significantly advance my future career.This fellowship will be located in the Professions, Work and Organization (PWO) Research Group at Newcastle University where I will benefit from the groups’ world leading expertise on professional occupations and organizations, to enable me to develop theory and knowledge in the field of PM as a profession advancing sustainability as a practice and outcome.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

  • UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE · Newcastle Upon TyneCoordinatorUnited Kingdom

Links

Data: CORDIS, © European Union