Establishing Project Portfolio Management: An Exploratory Analysis of the Influence of Internal Stakeholders’ Interactions

Abstract

Project portfolio management (PPM) is viewed as a management innovation that must be further established and professionalized in many firms. Stakeholder behavior and stakeholder management are key success factors for project portfolios. Furthermore, stakeholder management must not only focus on single stakeholders but also account for stakeholders influencing one another in fairly complex interactions of multiple and potentially interdependent stakeholders. Our quantitative study of internal key stakeholders’ engagement in the PPM process is based on a survey using 223 project portfolios from medium to large firms in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. We investigate the intensity of stakeholders’ engagement in the three phases of the PPM process compared with expectations from PPM standards and role descriptions. Further, we analyze the interdependencies between the levels of stakeholder engagement and identify patterns of stakeholder behavior. Our study assists in explaining the relevance of stakeholders to PPM. We further integrate stakeholder theory with a highly relevant management approach (PPM) and thus enhance the explanatory value of stakeholder theory. Finally, the current findings enable managers to address stakeholders more effectively through an increased understanding of stakeholder behavior and its consequences.

Stakeholder Inclusiveness: Enriching Project Management with General Stakeholder Theory1

“…In future research, it could be interesting to apply an even more in‐depth longitudinal case study in order to link the concept stakeholder inclusiveness to the various project phases, for example, project front‐end versus project execution. It seems relevant also to relate the topic to project‐related decision making (see e.g., Rolstadås, Pinto, Falster, & Venkataraman, ), as well as the interactions between internal actors (see e.g., Beringer, Jonas, & Gemünden, ). Further, it could be interesting to examine the interplay between internal and external actors performing stakeholder management in a project, for example, a consultant and an internal project manager.…”

Stakeholder Dynamics during the Project Front-End: The Case of Nuclear Waste Repository Projects

“…Following Cleland's () work, various definitions and categorizations of stakeholders—some broadly conceived and some more constricted—have been presented in the project management literature. Broad definitions (Beringer, Jonas, & Gemünden, ; Fraser & Zhu, ; Kolltveit & Gronhaug, ; Project Management Institute, ; Turner, ; Ward & Chapman, ) accentuate the fact that project stakeholders can affect or are affected by the project. In turn, definitions that adopt a narrower view highlight the nature of the interest or stake that a particular stakeholder has with regard to a project (Chinyio & Akintoye, ; Cleland, ; McElroy & Mills, ; Olander, ).…”

Online Stakeholder Interactions in the Early Stage of a Megaproject

“…The intensity of connections among stakeholders can indicate complementary and competing interactions. Once identity is established, stakeholders may seek to increase or decrease their degree of commitment to the overall initiative, regardless of its’ current status (Beringer, Jonas, & Georg Gemünden, ). As groups with a coherent identity and an awareness of the overall structure of relationships, stakeholders can apply influencing strategies that impact project activities and outcomes in the form of manipulation strategies and pathway strategies.…”