Project governance interface and owner organizational identity: The Venice Biennale case

Abstract

There is a considerable body of work on managing the governance interface in project organizing, yet there has been little consideration of how the organizational identity of the project owner might shape the design of that interface. This is important because organizational identity is known to shape various aspects of project organizing, such as how an organization is perceived by team members, so we might expect it also influence the performance of projects. We explore this question through a case study of how the Venice Biennale owner organization governs one of its temporary project events – the 2019 Venice International Film Festival. Through our empirical fieldwork, based on multiple data sources including a participant ethnography of the 76th Venice International Film Festival and semi-structured interviews, we found that the organizational identity of the project owner organization influences choices made for the governance of a delivery project. The study contributes to theory on project organizing by highlighting the importance of owner organizational identity for the design of the governance interface in project organizing and identifying the importance of an interpersonal approach to governance interface design for an owner organization with an identify of innovation and experimentation on its delivery projects.