Search results

The contribution of project success and the organisation's efficiency is consensual in the literature. However, the value of project management (PM) brings to the organisation's effectiveness through the alignment with strategy, contributing to its competitiveness and business success, is yet little explored. This study addresses the literature gap that concerns the relationship between PM and the organisation's competitiveness, proposing a holistic conceptual model to understand of how PM brings value to the organisation. This work also aims to demonstrate the practical implications of theoretical contributions to the value of PM. For this, a detailed action research (AR) was planned to show how researchers and practitioners could work and collaborate in a real problem and prove the AR approach's adequacy to the PM field.

The methodology starts with a systematic literature review (SLR), followed by content analysis to develop a conceptual model of PM's value. To validate the theoretical constructs and transfer the results to real context, an AR plan is then carried out to support a specific PM problem presented by an automotive industry company.

The results have theoretical and practical implications. An original conceptual model is developed–the value of PM: Key factors–defending a multidimensional and holistic perspective to understand the PM's value. A set of key factors was identified, structured, interrelated and exemplified their practical implementation in a single company. In addition to the technical key factors identified in the literature review, the AR plan unveils crucial social aspects to improve PM's value, such as leadership, strong communication and open processes. This work shows the central role of PM methodologies in integrating and interconnecting the key factors, emphasizing the projects' strategic level.

The present work was developed in a specific and particular organisational context and industry.

The AR plan presents a company's original programme–Hyper Competitiveness (HC) Temple–implemented in an automotive company. Project management professionals could understand how this company implemented each key factor, defended in a conceptual model and lead the project's results to the business value.

The research originality lies in rethinking PM's value to organisations from a holistic perspective: multi-dimensional, temporal, life cycle, multi-organisational, pointing out a set of technical and social key factors.

Organizations must focus on increasingly complex and customized products and production processes integrated into technological and digital evolution. Thus, shop floor operators have a more significant number of complex tasks with responsibility for their quality control, looking for high productivity levels. However, there are human limitations to deal with the increased amount of information/data resulting from the integration of new technologies. As such, the main research objective is to answer the following research question “How can the combination of recent smart technologies with the human factor contribute to employees' involvement at the shop floor level and thus improve quality control?”

This study follows a qualitative research approach by developing a singular case study in CPMG PSA Group – Peugeot Citroën, where two innovative information technology (IT) projects were implemented following the continuous improvement methodology PDCA cycle (Deming, 1986).

This work contributed to highlighting the human-centered approach in the discussion of Quality 4.0 development. The main theoretical contribution of this research is the identification of a set of key elements that should be present in the integration of the information technologies in quality control, namely: Prioritizing the quality problems supported by the fundamentals knowledge and tools of traditional quality management (QM); building multidisciplinary teams at different organization levels; following approaches that promote continuous improvement; developing the human-centered and user-friendly perspective; implementing solutions as directly as possible in the workstation; finally, enabling an effective communication and motivation strategies.

The research addresses a singular case study and solely explores the vertical integration process of Quality 4.0.

The projects presented may inspire other organizations to integrate information technologies solutions in quality control, following the implementation process and the essential elements described in these examples. Thus, this research stresses that one should customize these projects with the involvement of shop floor operators in a human-centered and user-friendly perspective, both at the preliminary and succeeding stages.

This research presents two original and customized projects, bridging the technological perspective with the human factor in the digital transformation era, supporting the worker, not replacing it.

In this chapter the authors portray the situation of the Roma population in Portugal as a changing picture. They present a description of the social situation and living conditions of the Roma people of Portugal through the systematisation of the main results obtained from research conducted recently as part of the ‘Strategy for the integration of Roma communities 2013–2020’ and give a detailed analysis of the educational dimension in various levels of education, highlighting a public policy created in 2016, the Operational Program for the Promotion of Education. This programme, inspired by a civil society project and converted into a public policy due to its innovative character, supports Roma students in higher education and is funded by the Office of the High Commissioner for Migration. The authors describe the Roma Communities in Portugal with special regard to their social situation, their culture and language. Then the authors present an analysis about the educational attainment of the Roma in Portugal and the most important policies and support programmes for Roma education, which are considered as the key to the social integration of Roma communities. Finally, they describe some successful programmes: the OPRE, RESCUR and Dreams Teens Programs.

This study aims to envisage the impact of green project management (GPM) practices on sustainable competitive advantage (SCA). Moreover, this study also accessed the mediating role of green knowledge acquisition (GKA) as a mechanism between GPM and SCA.

Using a quantitative field survey, the data were collected from the multi-sector manufacturing enterprises (n = 265) in Pakistan. The measurement and structural model were tested through Analysis of Moment Structure by conducting a covariance structure analysis.

The findings suggest that GPM practices are positively related to SCA. In addition to this direct effect, GKA play a significant role in explaining the associations between GPM practices and SCA. The findings bring essential insights for the enterprises, policymakers, practitioners and project managers to promote GPM practices for low-carbon projects to achieve SCA.

The data used in this study is cross-sectional in nature. The geographic location is limited to firms in Pakistan, while well-validated subjective measures are used to make the survey more convenient for participants.

The practitioners in general, while project managers in particular, are recommended to implement GPM practices and GKA to achieve high performance of SCA.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies to examine GPM practices and its effect on SCA directly and via GKA in a single model.

Significant interest in Integrated Management Systems (IMS), as a key area within ISO-related Management System Standards (MSS) literature, has been evident from both academia and industry over the past three decades. This study aims to map the evolution and current state of IMS research and propose possible directions for future studies.

A comprehensive content and bibliometric analysis of 846 documents from the Scopus database across the period 1995 to 2023 was conducted. This included performance analysis to track publication trends and identify key contributors, and content analysis to specify dominant research methodologies and the MSS most commonly integrated. Furthermore, science mapping techniques—such as co-authorship networks, keyword co-occurrence analysis, and bibliographic coupling—were utilized to outline the collaborative networks and the conceptual and intellectual structure of the field.

The study identifies three principal IMS research themes: the practical implementation of IMS, their role in promoting sustainability and social responsibility, and their impact on continuous performance improvement. It also highlights the field’s evolution and key research constituents—including influential works, prolific authors, leading academic institutions and countries, and top publishing journals. It further reveals that IMS research exhibits strong collaboration across authors and countries, and a rich methodological plurality, notably with a marked increase in empirical surveys in recent years. Additionally, it identifies the most frequently referenced MSS for integration, prominently featuring ISO 9001, ISO 14001, and ISO 45001/OHSAS 18001.

This study is original in its application of a dual analytical approach—bibliometric and content analysis—to provide a holistic overview of IMS research. It offers new insights into the integration of diverse MSS and proposes several promising paths for future research. Among the most prominent are standardizing IMS fundamental specifications, conducting more empirical research with advanced methods to evaluate the effects of MSS integration, providing practical support for organizations in IMS implementation through tailored methodologies and tools, and exploring the potential of Industry 4.0 and 5.0 technologies to advance IMS practices.