Abstract
The need to consider sustainability has substantially increased the complexity of implementing construction and infrastructure projects and new management practices have emerged during the past decade to tackle the global sustainability challenges, where the engagement and coordination of broader competences from stakeholders throughout the supply chain is required. This new project management paradigm has been accompanied by greater attention to the concept of collaborative business arrangements, often called partnering, that has emerged in construction and infrastructure projects to improve project deliveries. However, there are uncertainties about the optimal strategy to foster, integrate and maintain the required collaboration, particularly in sustainable management practices in infrastructure maintenance projects. This paper addresses these uncertainties, based on a single case study of an infrastructure maintenance contract involving an extensive collaborative business arrangement. The findings reveal that different collaborative practices affect diverse aspects of sustainable project management. Further, the extensive collaborative business arrangement has promoted sustainable deliveries based upon organizational learning and continuous improvements. Thus, this study offers an encouraging example of how extensive collaboration can be fostered and play a key role in sustainable project management practices.
Highlights
Engagement of multiple specialties and competences, which are seldom present in a single organization, is required for the implementation of construction and infrastructure projects
This paper contributes to the ongoing discussion on sustainable project management, in complex infrastructure maintenance work that has long-lasting environmental and social effects
Our analysis of an arrangement for maintaining public infrastructure in a Swedish municipality extends the applied five-dimensional conceptual framework [8], by showing that a high degree of collaboration may play a vital role in all dimensions of sustainable project management
Summary
Engagement of multiple specialties and competences, which are seldom present in a single organization, is required for the implementation of construction and infrastructure projects. The following definition has been suggested for the emerging sustainable project management practices [1]: “Sustainable Project Management is the planning, monitoring and controlling of project delivery and support processes, with consideration of the environmental, economic and social aspects of the life-cycle of the project’s resources, processes, deliverables and effects, aimed at realizing benefits for stakeholders, and performed in a transparent, fair and ethical way that includes proactive stakeholder participation.” This definition implies a more holistic approach to projects in which multiple stakeholders are both engaged in project management activities [11] and gain from the project delivery in social and environmental as well as monetary terms The following definition has been suggested for the emerging sustainable project management practices [1]: “Sustainable Project Management is the planning, monitoring and controlling of project delivery and support processes, with consideration of the environmental, economic and social aspects of the life-cycle of the project’s resources, processes, deliverables and effects, aimed at realizing benefits for stakeholders, and performed in a transparent, fair and ethical way that includes proactive stakeholder participation.” This definition implies a more holistic approach to projects in which multiple stakeholders are both engaged in project management activities [11] and gain from the project delivery in social and environmental as well as monetary terms
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