بررسی استفاده از تصور سهامداران در ادبیات مدیریت پروژه, متا آنالیز

In project management it is commonly accepted that the interests of stakeholders need to be dealt with to support the success of a project. By doing a meta-analysis of project management literature it is investigated how the stakeholder notion is used in this literature. Forty two publications are assessed against the purpose of this notion, the stakeholder definition and how the identification of stakeholders is addressed. The analysis shows that only a minority of the publications provides a clear definition and addresses the identification of stakeholders. We argue that a role perspective on the stakeholders issue fits the project context and therefore could fill this gap in the project management literature. After comparing the stakeholder approach with project role classifications from the literature, we conclude that a role-based stakeholder identification method is a promising approach for identifying stakeholders in projects.

In the project management literature it is common knowledge that to make a project a success, the interests of the key stakeholders or even of all stakeholders should be taken into account (e.g. [1], [2] and [3]). We start with an example that illustrates the importance of identifying the stakeholders, but also the importance of understanding the role a stakeholder may play. This example is the prelude to specifying the goal of this article. A few years ago, a middle-sized city in the north of the Netherlands intended to modernise its city harbour. A large project was started and numerous stakeholders were heard. The core of the project was the construction of a bicycle bridge. This bridge should connect the old city centre with a new quarter in the vicinity of the city harbour. However, this part of the project was unexpectedly delayed by a protest action of the occupants of some houseboats which possessed a mooring place in the harbour (they blocked the entrance of the city harbour by moving their boats). The project management (coming from the firm the project was commissioned to) was completely taken by surprise. The protesters claimed that they were not heard, although the city council assumed they were represented according to the procedures of public involvement and that the matter was discussed with a number of neighbouring people. Furthermore, the city council assumed that these stakeholders were just powerless bystanders, whereas it turned out that they had the means to influence at least the process, but in the end also the outcome of the project. This example shows at least two things. First of all, the city council did not recognize this particular stakeholder of the project. They considered the houseboat occupants as an integral part of the neighbouring people. Second, even if the city council would have identified these specific neighbours as a separate group with its own wishes and demands, they presumably still would have misjudged the role these stakeholders could play. Of course, it will remain a question whether the delay could have been prevented. However, it is likely that if the city council (and acting project manager) had acknowledged this group as a party affected by the project, or as a party able to constrain the project, at least they would not have been taken aback by the blockade. The example indeed shows what is common knowledge in the literature: the importance of dealing with stakeholder interests for project management. It is therefore no surprise that the authors of several articles published in the International Journal of Project Management (IJPM) and in the Project Management Journal (PMJ) address the issue of stakeholder participation or in any other way use the stakeholder notion. This article reports the findings of a meta-analysis of these publications. We show the lack of attention paid to conceptualising the stakeholder notion in the context of projects as well as to make the notion operational for this context. Our main point is that if a clear stakeholder definition is lacking, it is not possible to determine whether the relevant stakeholders have been identified and, consequently, whether a stakeholder analysis (e.g. in preparation to a project) has been accomplished in a satisfactory way. The example shows that this could jeopardise a project. The article is structured as follows. First we discuss stakeholder notions, stakeholder definitions and stakeholder classifications stemming from stakeholder theory. In the meta-analysis on publications in project literature, we then show that neither these, nor other stakeholder definitions are used much in the project literature. In discussing this outcome, we consider a combination of project roles and an identification method encompassing a role based stakeholder classification model as a promising prospect for stakeholder management in projects.

We started this paper by recognizing the common idea in project management that the interests of stakeholders need to be dealt with to support the success of a project. Our analysis that the majority of the publications investigated relate the stakeholder notion to project success, confirms this idea. So, also within the context of projects, it is crucial to acknowledge the stakeholders or parties involved. It is therefore by no means a far-reaching stance to consider stakeholder involvement as a critical success factor in managing projects. Stakeholder theory shows the importance of an explicit stakeholder classification model plus an identification method as the first steps in stakeholder involvement. However, in the project literature, such an explicit stakeholder approach seems to be lacking. The combination of a role-based stakeholder classification model from the stakeholder literature and the project roles in the project management literature used in the role-based stakeholder identification method can fill this gap. Both researchers and practitioners could make use of such a method. Researchers might want to structurally identify the stakeholders of a project before studying the project aspects they are interested in. Project managers should benefit from identifying the stakeholders at the very outset of a project. Good stakeholder management can then lead to higher project performance. Furthermore, the managers might identify the stakeholders again in other phases of the project, for example when the project outcomes are implemented, since different stakeholders can play prominent roles in different phases of a project.