Branding and governmentality for infrastructure megaprojects: The role of social media

Sergeeva, Natalya; Clegg, Stewart; Mahalingam, Ashwin

doi:10.1016/j.ijproman.2018.10.005

Cited by 68 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 77 publications

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“…More importantly, managers associated with projects regarding the activities of the public sphere more often emphasized (72%) the importance of using social media in the promotion of projects. That point of view is similar to Ninan et al. (2019) findings where they researched the use of social media for promoting a metro rail mega-project.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 85%

Opportunities and threats presented by social media in project management

Hysa

Spałek

2019

Heliyon

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The application of new technologies is rapidly increasing, not only in private but also in professional spheres, including project management. However, the use of social media (SM) may be both beneficial and dangerous. Therefore, the goal of the article is to investigate in which areas it is possible to use social media in project management and what the opportunities and threats surrounding it are. In order to reach the goal of the article and obtain answers to the research questions, the methods of diagnostic survey and questionnaire technique were used. The research was carried out on a sample of 108 respondents involved in the project's implementation. To complement the obtained data, additional qualitative research using unstructured interviews was conducted. The presented research indicates that managers who work in an Agile or Hybrid way are more likely to use SM than managers who work in a traditional way. A significant dependency between the use of SM and the way the project team works was confirmed, but no age differences were found. Moreover, the results of the study show that social media usually supports project managers and team members in such areas as communication, cooperation, engagement, knowledge management, work productivity, promotion of the project and employee development. Threats concerning the use of social media in project management are noted in relation to the security of the project and loss of sensitive project data. Analysis of the study and interviews resulted in a broad set of principles of SM usage within projects. Future research could provide further confirmation of these findings by using larger samples.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 85%

Opportunities and threats presented by social media in project management

Hysa

Spałek

2019

Heliyon

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“…Subtle shaping of preferences in this way creates a practical hegemony (Gramsci, 1971). Strategies for managing external stakeholders based on the third dimension of power include educating the community about the benefits of a project (Ng and Loosemore, 2007) as well as subtle branding strategies that associate the project with desirable outcomes while glossing over those less desirable (Ninan et al, 2019a). Also, 'corporate diplomacy' (Henisz, 2017), where an organisation strives to win the hearts and minds of external stakeholders, can be used.…”

Section: Organizational Power Theoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A recent example of this was the Melbourne east west link project which was cancelled after spending 1 billion AUD of taxpayers' money due to public protest and a change of state government. On other occasions, communities may well be proactive in proud support of the infrastructure (Söderlund et al, 2017) expressing sentiments (Ninan et al, 2019a) celebrating its achievements.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Power and Strategies in the External Stakeholder Management of Megaprojects: A Circuitry Framework

Sergeeva¹,

Mahalingam²,

Clegg³

2020

EPOJ

Self Cite

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Infrastructure megaprojects can cause considerable inconvenience to external stakeholders such as project communities, stakeholders in lands and stakeholders in existing services. Managing these external stakeholders is difficult as they interact with the project across permeable boundaries, are unaccountable to the requirements of the project and cannot be governed with contractual instruments or conformance to standards, as is the case with internal stakeholders. Hence the project team must resort to other strategies to manage these stakeholders. There is at present little other than scattered accounts of the use of these strategies in the literature. What is missing is a framework to explain how such strategies work to manage external stakeholders. We use organizational power theories drawn from frameworks stressing both the dimensions and the circuits of power to understand how strategy and power interact in the process of managing external stakeholders. This research uses the case study of a metro rail project in India compiled from 30 semi-structured interviews, 168 news media articles along with their 446 user comments, and 640 social media tweets along with 435 community comments. Using a qualitative research methodology, we highlight relations of persuading, framing and hegemonizing strategies employed for managing the external stakeholders in the project. Covert power-based framing and hegemonizing strategies shape the visible overt power-based persuading strategies employed to manage external stakeholders.

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“…As a first step, a branding effort needs to be made to promote the sustainability sublime to politicians, engineers and scientists, business leaders and design thinkers. Branding has been used to promote branding of megaprojects (Ninan, Clegg, & Mahalingam, 2019). Branding also requires the support of designated bodies within the UN that are responsible for marketing efforts towards the SDGs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Creating a ‘sustainability sublime’ to enable megaprojects to meet the United Nations sustainable development goals

2020

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Despite cost and schedule overruns and benefits shortfalls, megaprojects (which are large-scale projects that typically cost over a billion dollars and take years to develop and build) continue to be promoted and built creating a megaproject paradox. Prominent megaproject scholar Bent Flyvbjerg (2014) argued that this could be motivated by four 'sublimes'-technological, political, economic and aesthetic that drive new megaprojects being put forward despite their poor performance. Recent evidence shows that better governance practices are helping to improve the overall performance of megaprojects. Despite the United Nations setting 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030, there are severe shortfalls in initiatives from governments, public organizations and private businesses endangering the achievement of targets set for these goals. In addition, time is running out to achieve these goals with only a decade left. The current initiatives contributing to these goals appear to be focused on individual SDGs even though many of these are interrelated. This article proposes that if politicians, engineers and scientists, businesses leaders and design thinkers could be motivated by a 'sustainability sublime' to create megaprojects that contribute to SDGs, it could benefit both the society and the planet. It also argues that a more integrated view of UN SDGs and a suitable governance structure should be applied to ensure that megaprojects created as a result of the sustainability sublime deliver benefits towards achieving UN SDGs.

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Branding and governmentality for infrastructure megaprojects: The role of social media

Cited by 68 publications

References 77 publications

Opportunities and threats presented by social media in project management

Opportunities and threats presented by social media in project management

Power and Strategies in the External Stakeholder Management of Megaprojects: A Circuitry Framework

Creating a ‘sustainability sublime’ to enable megaprojects to meet the United Nations sustainable development goals

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