Conceptual Framework for a Service-Ecosystems Approach to Project Management

Abstract

In response to calls for new and underexploited perspectives on project management, this paper proposes a conceptual framework to extend emergent project management thinking to a service ecosystems approach grounded in service-dominant (S-D) logic. Project management -- including project, program and portfolio management -- is examined, as an industry-agnostic discipline, through the S-D logic, service-ecosystems lens. Congruence between the S-D logic, service-ecosystems approach and emergent perspectives of project management -- including the motivation to see projects as complex, adaptable, dynamic, social processes undertaken to create value rather than products -- is highlighted. The research aim is to demonstrate that an S-D logic, service-ecosystems approach to project management offers a viable opportunity to strengthen the theoretical foundation of project management. This approach is positioned to consolidate current supportive, yet scattered research contributions and to, simultaneously, open new avenues to coalesce future interdisciplinary research contributions to strengthen and grow project management theory.