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In his 1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation”, Maslow suggested the “Hierarchy of Needs” as a classification system that described the stimuli for human behaviour. Presently, project behaviour research, which inspired this work, encourages undertaking research on behavioural aspects within and across organisational and project settings. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to analyse project-based organisations’ (PBOs) seemingly reluctance in engaging in organisational learning from past project failures by drawing upon both institutional theory (since it focuses on how firms interact) and Maslow’s model within a project behaviour piece of research.

Interviews were held with purposively selected construction professionals from the UK construction industry, and data were analysed using thematic analysis.

Besides the need to learn from failures, PBOs’ main competing needs revolve around their “competitiveness”; “profitability and productivity”; “repeat business” and “reputation and partnering”. Mirroring these needs against Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, “competitiveness” and “profitability” are analogous to foundational “physiological” and “safety” needs. The need for “repeat business” and “reputation” is approximated with Maslow’s “affiliation” and “self-esteem” needs, and organisational learning is associated with “self-actualisation”. From an institutional theory perspective, such response to failure is influenced by the need to show legitimacy and conformity imposed by institutional factors.

Instead of taking a simplified approach to learning from failure such as the use of technological tools, PBOs and the sector at large should consider more robust approaches, by appreciating the influence of institutional factors and the external environment on their efforts to learn from failure.

Unlike past studies that present organisational learning within PBOs as a straightforward process, this study instead highlights the need of understanding various competing needs within a PBO and the external pressure.

Past studies on project-related failures (PRF) have focused more on developing criteria for measuring project success and failure and achieving project outputs without addressing the impact of PRF on team members. Therefore, this study aims to focus on reviewing the impact of PRF on team members and the support offered by leaders.

A qualitative research approach was adopted, and data was collected through interviews involving 15 construction professionals. The data was analysed using the narrative data analysis method whilst adopting just culture theory as a theoretical lens.

Failure impacts team members’ emotions and morale negatively in form of grief, stress and in some cases death. Family and personal relationships are strained due to the financial burden of losing employment. Support offered to team members mostly increased training and supervision with a focus on meeting the project outputs (time, cost and quality) without addressing the emotional and morale-related impact of failure on team members. Instead team members are blamed and punished, which demonstrates a prevalence of a retributive response to failure.

Considering the limited number of participants, the study’s findings cannot be generalised. Hence, future studies with a large population are encouraged.

The implications for practice are that team members should be supported emotionally besides retraining/upskilling and supervision. Accordingly, there is need to adopt a just culture which focuses on who are affected and how they can be supported instead of focusing on who to blame.

Unlike studies that focus on the criteria for measuring and mitigating project with the view of achieving project outputs, this study encourages providing emotional support to team members.