Orchestrating Regional Development Through Projects: The ‘Innovation Paradox’ in Rural Finland

Abstract

Projects and project management play a very prominent role today in both the private and the public sector. However, there is very little discussion of projects as a specific management method except for research and standardization work carried out in the private business sector and by such institutions as the Project Management Institute and the International Project Management Association. This article is an attempt to enliven this discussion. The article builds on the experience and results of several research projects carried out over a 10-year period in rural and regional settings in Finland. One insight emerging from these studies is that project management in regional and rural development is characterized by an ‘innovation paradox’; although people in the regions are supposed to be innovative a lack of genuine innovative initiative is more or less what defines these regions. As a result, project management is on the one hand ‘professionalized’ and on the other hand to a certain degree gendered. Another consequence of the paradox, and of professionalization and gender distinctions, is that the added value of the projects is markedly decreased. These tendencies could be counteracted by relaxing the innovation requirement, since this would help to release the innovation potential inherent in most projects.