Vanguard projects as relay races: A historical case study on the building of Eurocan pulp and paper mill, 1965–1970

Institutionalization of a collaborative governance model to deliver large, inter-organizational projects

Purpose

In this study, we develop further understanding of how institutional change is created within a mature and local industry. In this pursuit, we examine how a collaborative large project governance model was institutionalized at an industrial sector-level through both industry-level activities and “institutional projects”.

Design/methodology/approach

This study builds on the foundations of institutional fields and institutional change, suggesting that projects are not only shaped by their contexts but also produce institutional change themselves. We conducted extensive fieldwork on the institutionalization of a collaborative project governance model in Finland.

Findings

The findings illustrate how institutional change in governance of large and complex inter-organizational projects is created at the institutional field level. The institutionalized collaborative project governance model includes aspects of both relational and contractual governance. The change was facilitated by temporal links between the institutional projects as well as vertical links between the institutional projects and the field-level development programs.

Originality/value

This is one of the first studies to address how a collaborative large project governance model becomes the norm at the institutional field level beyond the boundaries of an individual project or organization.

Vanguard Projects as Intermediation Spaces in Sustainability Transitions

In response to climate change issues, increasing numbers of vanguard projects are being established to help governments achieve sustainability goals through rapid technology development. We focus on the transition intermediation literature to argue that vanguard projects, as intermediation spaces, enable core and external project actors to assume intermediary characteristics to align, negotiate, and pursue policy level goals beyond the remit of conventional project goals. We contribute to project studies by providing a macrolevel contextualization of vanguard projects in the wider sociotechnical transitions debates. We suggest that transition intermediation is key for understanding projects and their achievement of wider policy goals.