Balancing Project Management Success and Operation Success in Public Projects: A Comparative Study of Intra- and Interorganizational Boundary Perspectives
Publication: Journal of Management in Engineering
Volume 40, Issue 3
Abstract
Public projects pursue both project management success and operation success, and tension between these two objectives is not uncommon. This research aims to examine how project management success and operation success are balanced under intra- and interorganizational boundaries. A qualitative research design was carried out, with semistructured interviews with 60 respondents and a multiple-case study on three public hospital projects. Through an inductive analysis, the findings revealed that (1) from the aspects of interface management and incentives, the intraorganizational owner–manager boundary can benefit the balance of project success, and (2) when considering controls and human capital resources, a contract-based interorganizational owner–manager boundary facilitates a moderate balance of project success, whereas the intraorganizational and noncontract-based interorganizational boundaries each tend to favor project operation success and management success, respectively. This research contributes to the literature by presenting a framework for understanding the balance between project management success and operation success in public projects through a comparative study of intra- and interorganizational boundary perspectives.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (72271118, 72301103), Shanghai Pujiang Programme (23PJC024), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (JKN02232203).
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Journal of Management in Engineering
Volume 40 • Issue 3 • May 2024
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© 2024 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: May 29, 2023
Accepted: Dec 14, 2023
Published online: Mar 5, 2024
Published in print: May 1, 2024
Discussion open until: Aug 5, 2024
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