How do engineering suppliers create project value for buyers? A micro-foundational perspective

Abstract

Purpose

Value creation in engineering projects has received considerable research attention. However, buyers’ expectations regarding project value do not always translate into the actions of project team members (actors). Drawing upon resource orchestration theory to explore the micro-foundations of project value creation (PVC), we investigate how suppliers organize project team members to create project value that meets buyers’ expectations.

Design/methodology/approach

We adopted two instructive engineering projects as comparative cases to analyze patterns in actor interactions in PVC.

Findings

The results reveal “social interaction-based value creation” and “structural interaction-based value creation,” which explain the PVC process from the collective-level buyer’s expectations and supplier’s value orientation, to individual-level actor interactions (mobilizing, connecting, and networking), knowledge orchestration activities (structuring, bundling, and leveraging), and finally the value creation process (identifying, configuring, and generating) in project teams to generate collective-level project benefits and values.

Originality/value

We propose a macro-approach to micro-foundations, with a focus on the buyer-expected PVC process on the supplier side. Furthermore, we explain how suppliers organize individual actions and orchestrate the individual knowledge through two patterns of individual-level actor interactions for collective-level PVC.

Citation

Yu, M., Wang, X., Yang, X. and Sun, L. (2025), "How do engineering suppliers create project value for buyers? A micro-foundational perspective", International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 45 No. 2, pp. 542-569. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOPM-07-2023-0578