Abstract
This article contributes to the understanding of the changes that projectification — strongly reinforced by the European Union (EU) — causes in public labour market organisations in Poland. The introduction of project work to the hitherto hierarchical organisational structures found in public organisations influences them. There is, however, a research gap on how changes at the macro level affect individual public organisations and how these organisations change due to the introduction of project work into their structures. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate changes in Polish public labour market organisations caused by projectification. The author draws on a set of quantitative and qualitative data that include a survey conducted in 57 public local organisations as well as interviews conducted at 10 public offices at local and regional levels. A sequential mixed methods approach was used. The results indicate that projectification due to the EU caused changes in organisational structures of public organisations and influenced the selection of the projects. In particular, the findings relating to projectification of the EU and its impact on public labour market institutions in Poland deepen previous research by identifying the specific changes occurring at the level of individual public organisations. These changes are diverse in nature, yet the most important of these relate to the adaptation of organisational goals to the objectives of the grant applications as well as to the changes in organisational structures. The study also illustrates that while EU-funded projects are almost always completed on time, do not exceed their budgets, and achieve the indicators of the EU programs, such projects do not always provide the value that a local community would expect. Therefore, there is a need for the EU to not only assess project success on time, cost and quality measures, but also to assess project success on local impact and value created for stakeholders.
Highlights
The variability of environment has forced public organisations around the world to adapt many of the methods used in business (Denhardt & Denhardt 2007; Levy 2010; Osborne & Gaebler 1992) including project, program and project portfolio management (Wirick 2009)
In the European Union (EU), we can observe that the transformation of the public sector in particular countries is driven by mega programs and aims to harmonise the methods of public management in all member states
The purpose of this paper is to show some of the changes in Polish public organisations that have been caused by the projectification of the EU
Summary
The variability of environment has forced public organisations around the world to adapt many of the methods used in business (Denhardt & Denhardt 2007; Levy 2010; Osborne & Gaebler 1992) including project, program and project portfolio management (Wirick 2009). During the years 2004–2012 over 80 billion euro was allocated to Poland to be spent on projects This projectification process had to influence organisations, especially Polish public organisations which to a large extent were not familiar with project management. Researchers’ attention has been focused on the results of the EU programs, not the changes that occur in the organisations that contribute to the programs (eg, Kluve 2010; Luukkonen 1998; Casey & Gold 2005; Bradley 2006). This area has not as yet been the subject of scientific reflection.
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