Building stakeholder engagement: the impact of project manager behaviors

Higgs, Malcolm, Clarke, Nicholas, D'amato, Alessia and Vahidi, Ramesh (2018) Building stakeholder engagement: the impact of project manager behaviors. Academy of Management Annual Meeting. 01 Apr 2018. (doi:10.5465/AMBPP.2018.13970abstract).

Abstract

Whilst in today’s complex environment the use of projects to manage a diverse range of business changes has become the norm, evidence suggests that a high proportion of projects fail to deliver. A significant cause of failure in complex contexts is seen to be the failure to engage stakeholders. Within the project management literature, the significance of stakeholders has been emphasised for a considerable time. However, the research into stakeholders has tended to focus on stakeholder analysis and failed to deliver practical applications that can guide managers in the process of engaging stakeholders. This paper reports a longitudinal case study that was designed to explore the capabilities and behaviors of managers in engaging stakeholders in the implementation of four complex projects within the case study organization. The findings point to eight areas of capability and related behaviors associated with effective stakeholder engagement. The paper contributes to stakeholder theory through the granularity of evidence of managerial behaviors that are required in complex projects and the significance of organizational culture as a major contextual factor, as well as contributing to practice and addressing this gap in the project management literature.

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Contributors

Author: Malcolm Higgs

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