TY - JOUR
T1 - The recursive interaction of institutional fields and managerial legitimation in large-scale projects
AU - Hetemi, Ermal
AU - Marrewijk, Alfons van
AU - Jerbrant, Anna
AU - Bosch-Rekveldt, Marian
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - Heeding recent calls for more studies on the relationship between projects and institutions, this paper reports on a collaborative case study to shed light on the recursive relations of large-scale projects and their institutional fields. Given the industry as the field-level institution, this study explores how two project organizations experienced the industry changes, its influence on the arrangement of large-scale projects, and the management response used to legitimize these arrangements. The qualitative secondary data analysis of two High-Speed rail projects in Spain and The Netherlands is based on semi-structured interviews, observations, and document analysis. This paper provides the institutional fields’ contextual detail and deepens our understanding of temporal institutional complexity that bound large-scale project arrangements. The findings suggest that in both cases the management responses altered across time and evolved depending on the salience of the institutional pressure, through the interplay with 1) regulative, 2) normative, and 3) dynamic cultural-cognitive forces, resulting in cycles of project legitimacy.
AB - Heeding recent calls for more studies on the relationship between projects and institutions, this paper reports on a collaborative case study to shed light on the recursive relations of large-scale projects and their institutional fields. Given the industry as the field-level institution, this study explores how two project organizations experienced the industry changes, its influence on the arrangement of large-scale projects, and the management response used to legitimize these arrangements. The qualitative secondary data analysis of two High-Speed rail projects in Spain and The Netherlands is based on semi-structured interviews, observations, and document analysis. This paper provides the institutional fields’ contextual detail and deepens our understanding of temporal institutional complexity that bound large-scale project arrangements. The findings suggest that in both cases the management responses altered across time and evolved depending on the salience of the institutional pressure, through the interplay with 1) regulative, 2) normative, and 3) dynamic cultural-cognitive forces, resulting in cycles of project legitimacy.
KW - Case study
KW - Industry
KW - Institutional field complexity
KW - Institutional theory
KW - Large-scale projects
KW - Legitimacy
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85097428745&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.ijproman.2020.11.004
DO - 10.1016/j.ijproman.2020.11.004
M3 - Article
JO - International Journal of Project Management
JF - International Journal of Project Management
SN - 0263-7863
ER -