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Highlights• A theoretical framework for the interaction between vertical and horizontal leadership in projects.• Builds on the Archer's morphogenetic cycle to model structure and agency for project leadership.• Identifies the recursive cycles of nomination, identification, selection, execution & governance, and transitioning.• Empirical evidence from 166 interviews and a range of industries.

The contemporary discourse on organizational project management (OPM) complements project, program, and portfolio management with emerging elements, such as governance, projectification, the project management office (PMO), and organizational design. This creates the need for an integrated model that defines the content and roles in OPM. This article addresses this by conceptually developing a seven-layered model that organizes 22 OPM elements, ranging from the corporate level to the management of individual projects. A theory is developed to explain the interaction of the elements and the layers within the model.

Competitive advantages and access to competencies are among the most frequent motivations for developing various forms of collaborative relationships. While some firms claim to collaborate at a strategic level, as in joint ventures, others pursue collaboration at a micro level, as in projects. Collaborations at the project level involve a network of dispersed team members actively involved in common activities. This creates new challenges for effective decision making in distributed project teams, as processes are often ill adapted for facilitating collaborative work. Many researchers have studied aspects of these organizational problems. However, questions regarding team autonomy and decision-making processes remain largely underinvestigated. After reviewing the literature on key concepts related to organizational decision making, we conducted an empirical study using a quantitative approach that involved an online survey sent to project management professionals. The analysis of the data clearly indicates that success in managing distributed project teams is linked to team autonomy in conducting project activities and to formal decision-making processes. These findings also highlight the fact that a formal decision-making process is even more important for distributed teams that are highly dispersed.

Innovation portfolio management has been touted as a new dynamic capability following the evolution of team‐ and project‐based organizational forms. In this article, we conceptualize innovative dynamic capabilities as a multidimensional construct that comprises distinct but related aspects in managing innovation. We test our model, which links this capability to innovative performance by using survey data from a sample of 923 firms. We find empirical support for our conceptualization and its impact on firm innovative performance.

PurposeVirtual project teams are teams whose members use technology to varying degrees in working across locational, temporal, and relational boundaries to accomplish an interdependent task. Work in virtual project teams is a challenge for many organizations. Having studied the issue for several years, the authors propose in this paper to delve deeper into the question from the point of view of organizational support. More specifically, this paper seeks to focus on the organizational support systems and mechanisms provided by firms to their virtual project teams and their impacts on the components of these teams. The objective is to identify the structural factors and processes related to virtual teams that are affected by organizational support systems and mechanisms.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reports exploratory empirical case studies of two Canadian‐based international high‐tech companies. In‐depth interviews were conducted with managers with experience in virtual project team management.FindingsThe same organizational support systems and mechanisms were found to exist in both companies. Functional processes were found to be the virtual team components that were most affected by the implementation of support systems and mechanisms. They are followed by communicational processes, which were substantially supported by various support systems and mechanisms in Company A but less supported in Company B. To a lesser extent, the relational processes of both firms were also affected, while structural factors affecting virtual project teams were almost entirely unsupported.Practical implicationsVirtual project teams require various kinds of commitments by corporate management. For example, we find that top management supports virtual project teams by means of human resources (HR), resource allocation, coordination, and communication support systems. These support systems facilitate project coordination and monitoring, information exchange and access, trust building and cohesion between team members. These findings enable practitioners to better understand the effects of organizational support on the components of virtual teams, so that greater attention is paid to the configuration of these components and support systems can be better designed to improve virtual project team performance.Originality/valueOrganizational support is considered to have a strong impact on project success. Few publications have examined organizational support for virtual project teams, and even fewer have focused on its effects on such teams. This paper should contribute to fostering a better understanding of the effects of organizational support on the components of virtual project teams.

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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present a theoretical framework and the preliminary results from a research programme on organisational project management. It aims at exploring how organisational project management can be conceptualised as a function within the organisation.Design/methodology/approachThe methodological framework is based on a constructivist epistemology. This research programme contains two sequential phases based on a robust mixed method. The first phase of the qualitative approach, which is the focus of this paper, includes 20 interviews with executives and middle managers.FindingsThis approach is expected to be helpful in assessing the fit between organisational context, project management implementation and organisational strategy. The proposed theoretical framework draws from the exploration of organisational project management as a function. Preliminary results confirm that organisational project management can be best understood as a function within the organisation. Future research includes the second phase of this research programme based on a quantitative approach.Research limitations/implicationsThis research situates project management within the theoretical field of organisational design. It borrows from innovation literature the concept of function that serve as a foundation piece in the proposed framework, to integrate the various activities undertaken to manage multiple projects.Practical implicationsThis research provides some evidence for the organisation design that serves articulating different activities undertaken for the management of multiple projects into a coherent function throughout the organisation.Originality/valueThis research explores what organisations really do when they face the challenges of managing multiple projects while at the same time pursuing their operations. Interviews with executives and middle managers clearly justify the identification of a function dedicated to the overall project management.