Abstract
Megaprojects combine multiple external stakeholders, and a common narrative is essential to drive the project among often conflicting objectives. Narratives help organize people toward an agenda and therefore have performative and strategic implications. In this research, we explore how narratives are mobilized through narrative instruments and processes using the case study of the High Speed Two (HS2) megaproject in the United Kingdom. We record the use of three instruments—stories, labels, and comparisons—that undergo four processes: repeating, endorsing, humorizing, and actioning. These instruments and processes enable megaprojects to mobilize a narrative that helps in managing external stakeholders.
Introduction
Megaprojects are projects that cost more than US$1 billion (Flyvbjerg, 2014) or projects of a significant cost that attract a high level of public attention or political interest because of substantial direct and indirect impacts on the community, environment, and state budgets (Söderlund et al., 2017). Pitsis et al. (2018) suggest the distinguishing features of megaprojects are its reach, duration, risks and uncertainties, widely disparate actors, arenas of controversy, and legal and regulatory issues. Megaprojects combine multiple stakeholders with different interests, values, and rationality (Van Marrewijk, 2015). While internal stakeholders, such as the contractor building the project, have a contractual relationship with the client, external stakeholders do not have such relationships and rely on regulators, political influence, or public campaigns to enforce a claim (Winch et al., 2007). External stakeholders include stakeholders peripheral to the project, including owners of the land from whom the land is acquired; those inconvenienced by construction noises, vibrations, diversions, and so forth; and those who stand to benefit from the project improving the services (Viitanen et al., 2010; Ninan et al., 2021). Ignoring the needs and expectations of the external stakeholders can generate social unrest or community resistance through collective action against the project (Liu et al., 2018; van den Ende & Van Marrewijk, 2019) through petitions, protests, picketing, or even vandalism (Oppong et al., 2017). Mok et al. (2015) note that conflicts or resistance from the public can adversely affect or even kill the project despite the public being external stakeholders who lack a formal project authority. These external stakeholders seek to shape major megaproject decisions, including budget and scope in accordance with specific vested interests and are also referred to as the stakeholders of the shadows (Winch, 2017). Thus, as Smith and Love (2004) record, successful management of external stakeholders can result in reductions in waste of effort, time, and resources in project management.
In comparison to internal stakeholders who can be managed by systems integration through innovative contracts (Davies et al., 2009), decomposing the project into manageable entities (Davies & Mackenzie, 2014), improving communication across these organizations (Roehrich & Lewis, 2014) and collective decision-making processes (Gil & Pinto, 2018), external stakeholders cannot be governed by these. In such situations where different stakeholders have different objectives, there is a need to achieve strategic convergence among these conflicting objectives (Denis et al., 2007). A common narrative is essential to driving the project among these conflicting goals; after all, narratives help create common identities by bringing plausibility and coherence to disparate experiences (Humphreys & Brown, 2002; Vaara & Tienari, 2011; Grayson, 1997). As noted by Sturup (2009), narratives have significant importance in the context of megaprojects, which cause significant environmental, social, and political disruptions in the environments where they occur. By structuring a message as a narrative, it becomes more persuasive as people become absorbed in a story rather than an analytical illustration of a product’s features that distracts people’s attention (Escalas, 2007). Narratives of purpose, relevance, and scope act as gatekeepers in terms of inclusion and exclusion of meaning, and thereby influence the meaning production within the community (Veenswijk et al., 2010). Megaprojects require favorable narratives; as such, narratives can build strong brand attitudes and brand loyal behaviors (Ninan et al., 2019; Grayson, 1997). As Olander and Landin (2008) note, it is important to brand the project with a good reputation and media image right from its start; hence, building a narrative upfront is essential for the successful delivery of projects from an external stakeholder management perspective.
Organizational practices, such as achieving strategic convergence, can be understood as symbolic manipulation combined with persuasive rhetoric; there is a need for investigating such phenomena in the context of megaprojects (Bresnen & Marshall, 2001; Ninan et al., 2019). Sorsa and Vaara (2020) have longitudinally studied conflicts between proponents and challengers in building a new parking center in the historic square and constructing new high-end condominiums in the downtown harbor area of a Nordic city. They note how the use of narratives and rhetoric was instrumental in moving from initial contestation, through gradual convergence, to increasing agreement between the proponents and challengers. Hence, stakeholder acceptance of a project can be achieved through narratives. We argue that, despite the importance of narratives in achieving strategic convergence of objectives in megaprojects and thereby external stakeholder management, the practice of mobilizing narratives in the context of megaprojects has yet to be explored. This research seeks to explore the instruments and processes through which narratives are mobilized in the context of the High Speed Two (HS2) megaproject in the United Kingdom. We record the use of instruments, such as stories, labels, and comparisons, by both the promoters and the protesters of the project. It was observed that these instruments undergo multiple processes, such as repeating, endorsing, humorizing, and actioning to mobilize and bring people together.
In the next section, we review the project management and organization studies literature on narratives, following which two research questions are proposed. The research methodology section outlines the rationale behind focusing on the HS2 megaproject, the rationale behind selecting news articles as the source of data, and describes the process of analyzing the data. The findings from the megaproject case study are then discussed and anchored in the existing literature to, finally, create a framework to explain how narratives are mobilized in practice. Potential research implications of the findings are then discussed, and some future research directions are suggested. The concluding section summarizes the key insights of the article and highlights the limitations along with scope for future research.
Literature Review
In this section, we review the relevant literature associated with stakeholder management, stakeholder management discourses, project narratives, and mobilizing narratives. By doing so, we summarize the state of knowledge in the area, demonstrate the need for this research, and propose the research questions for this study.
Stakeholder Management
The literature on stakeholder management challenges the notion that shareholders are the only group that deserves the attention of an organization (Parmar et al., 2010). Stakeholders can include customers, suppliers, employees, financiers, and communities (Dunham et al., 2006). Among these, primary or internal stakeholders have contractual relationships with the project team, whereas secondary or external stakeholders do not have any contractual relationships, are not accountable to the detailed project report, and operate in permeable boundaries (Ninan et al., 2021). Poor relationships with stakeholders can result in lawsuits, boycotts, strikes, spreading negative sentiment, or a refusal to engage with the organization (Jones et al., 2018). However, poor relationships with external stakeholders in project settings can result in the stakeholders not only opposing the construction but also boycotting the project services during the operation phase and even causing a democratic government to withdraw support for fear of electoral consequences (Ninan et al., 2021).
Stakeholder theory, as recorded by Donaldson and Preston (1995), has four parts: (1) descriptive, which describes what organizations actually do; (2) instrumental, which focuses on outcomes of managerial behaviors; (3) normative, which provides moral or philosophical guidance on what organizations should do; and (4) managerial, which speaks to the needs of the customers. Of these, the most commonly used are the normative and instrumental views on stakeholder theory. Henisz et al. (2014) record that in the normative view there is only a moral management with no real returns, whereas in the instrumental view there is a focus on company image with more returns. Noland and Phillips (2010) explain instrumental and normative views as strategic and moral, respectively, based on the goal, manner, and method of management. Investing in the company image can alter stakeholder behavior, generate shareholder value, and ensure that the business plan will proceed on schedule and budget (Freeman, 2010). Instrumental stakeholder theory focuses on managing stakeholders for achieving an organization’s corporate objectives (Donaldson & Preston, 1995). Thus, stakeholder engagement stems from the normative perspective, and stakeholder management stems from the instrumental perspective.
Strategies, such as adaptation, compromise, negotiation, concession, and avoidance are used for managing stakeholders in project settings (Chinyio & Akintoye, 2008). However, Di Maddaloni and Davis (2017) note that despite attempts by project teams to adopt these strategies, stakeholders are often adversarial, and hence most projects lack the reservoir of support from the community. It should also be noted that the most affected stakeholder may not necessarily be the most vocal (Van Marrewijk et al., 2008), and the activities of the vocal few can result in the project not delivering on its intended benefits. In contrast to the normative view, strategies such as marketing (Turner et al., 2019) and branding (Ninan et al., 2019) can help project teams focus on the project image and ensure that the project will proceed as planned. In project settings, Derakhshan et al. (2019) explain instrumental stakeholder theory as managing stakeholders for their role in maximizing organization’s benefits, rather than because of their legitimate rights. One way of managing stakeholders for maximizing organizational benefits is through discourses.
Stakeholder Management Discourses
There are different types of discourses for managing stakeholders. Discourses for moral management include communication solely for the sake of reaching agreement rather than to pursue any particular interests (Noland & Phillips, 2010). Such communication should not be corrupted by power differences and strategic motivations. In contrast, discourses for strategic management have a strategic intent with a focus on achieving an organization’s corporate objectives (Zakhem, 2007); they are undertaken with strategic though not necessarily intentionally dishonest or malicious, motivations (Noland & Phillips, 2010). In project settings Ninan et al. (2020), using organizational power theories, differentiate between these two types of management in an infrastructure megaproject’s use of social media. Social media for persuasion involved the project reaching out to the community for mutual agreements and can be categorized as moral management. In contrast, social media for framing and hegemonizing involved the project team using strategic discourses to influence stakeholders to move toward the project’s interests and can be categorized as strategic management. Strategic discourses aimed at external stakeholders can also affect the project team’s rationalities and decision-making, because these discourses percolate and trickle down to the internal stakeholders (Ninan et al., 2021). In this article, our focus is on the strategic management of external stakeholders using narratives.
Project Narratives
Stakeholder theory is often highlighted as a genre as it includes a number of theories and a range of applications, all involving stakeholders at its center. The theory focuses on a broad array of disciplines, such as business ethics, corporate strategy, finance, accounting, management, and marketing (Parmar et al., 2010). Within these, a focus on marketing involves developing marketing theory and practice along stakeholder theory lines (Roper & Davies, 2007), which has implications for the instrumental view of stakeholders. For projects, it is important that the core narrative should be stable and promoted because that is the reason the project is there. A stable narrative is necessary to ensure that the objectives of the project do not change during the pre-construction or construction phase (Sergeeva & Winch, 2021). Narratives are defined as conversations, dialogues, and stories that communicate a phenomenon (Garud & Turunen, 2017). Narratives are cultural mechanisms that refer to a set of events and the contextual details surrounding their occurrence (Bartel & Garud, 2009). People make sense of their lives via narrative thought as the temporal and dramatic dimension of human existence is emphasized in them (Polkinghorne, 1991). They organize their experiences and create order out of random incidents and events (Grayson, 1997). Such order helps people describe and understand the passage of events (Ricoeur, 1991). Within projects, narratives determine how the project team deals with emergent problems and even how projects are perceived by others (Havermans et al., 2015; Enninga & van der Lugt, 2016).
Language is at the very center of project organizing as this helps construct project events instead of just representing them (Havermans et al., 2015). Therefore, projects can be understood as social constructions that are produced and reproduced in project team’s everyday narrative interactions (Lindgren & Packendorff, 2007). Project narratives are important vehicles through which meanings are negotiated, shared, and contested (Veenswijk & Berendse, 2008); they help create a shared memory or a collective brand image at firm levels and the sector as a whole (Duman et al., 2018). For example, the Environ megaproject employees considered in the work by Van Marrewijk (2007) were able to strongly identify themselves as innovative and entrepreneurial when they were referred to as Gideon’s gang—a biblical metaphor for a brave group of men who know no fear and use creative, innovative methods to reach their goals. Explaining this further, Havermans et al. (2015) note that whether the project is described as routine or groundbreaking, or whether those with opinions on the project are described as a nuisance or an important source of new ideas, is dependent on how leaders frame them. While coherent and consistent project narratives are required for the survival of the project, they are contested by different agencies across the project life cycle (Boddy & Paton, 2004). It is here that we situate this research to understand the dynamics through which megaproject narratives are mobilized in the external stakeholder environment.
Polkinghorne (1991) notes that how people organize is dependent on the cues emanating from external perpetual senses, internal bodily sensations, and cognitive memories. He argues that narratives are one of the main cognitive organizing processes because they give meaning to temporal events by identifying them as parts of a plot. Similarly, Rappaport (2000) claims that narratives can be treated as a cognitive instrument as they can impact the subject’s thinking and emotional life. Narratives can be targeted at audiences and can have performative and strategic implications, thereby making them effective in constructing organizational identities (Dailey & Browning, 2014; Sergeeva, 2019; Sergeeva & Winch, 2021). Thus, narratives can mobilize and bring people together (Duman et al., 2018). From a governance perspective, Abolafia (2010) records how policymakers employ plotted, plausible, and repeated narratives to shape the reactions of people to the changes occurring around them. Narratives are powerful mechanisms for translating ideas across the organization so that they are comprehensible and appear legitimate to others (Bartel & Garud, 2009). Vaara et al. (2016) claim that narratives are mobilized in many ways as parts of discourses and communication. Our research goal is to understand how project organizations mobilize narratives for external stakeholders.
Mobilizing Narratives
Stories are recorded as one of the main discourses used to mobilize narratives, particularly in the works of Boje (2008, 2014), who highlights that there is a story turn before the narrative turn, demonstrating the role of stories in creating a narrative (Boje, 2008). Stories exist in organizations as fully developed stories with a beginning and end or in fragments as bits and pieces (Boje, 1991). In all forms, stories are parts of the organizational discourse and can construct identities and interests across space and time (Vaara & Tienari, 2011). Literature records other discursive instruments employed to mobilize narratives. Sergeeva (2017) notes that narratives are also mobilized through labels, wherein she highlights how labels are used meaningfully and purposefully in organizations. Czarniaswka and Joerges (1995) argue that labels are quasi-objects that easily travel and translate ideas from one place to another. The strategic nature of labels is highlighted in the work of Granqvist et al. (2013), wherein they call labels a resource in organizations. Similarly, Suchman (1994) calls labels a technology of control. There are other discursive ways in which narratives are represented in organizations, such as in verbal, visual, written forms, or combinations thereof (Sergeeva, 2019). Narrative tools such as these can persuade people to change, get them to work together, enable knowledge transfer, neutralize the rumor mill, and create a compelling new future (Denning, 2005).
Along with discourses, there are also activities that help in mobilizing narratives. Notable among these is narrative repetition from the work of Dailey and Browning (2014). They record how stories are repeated in organizations, whether over the water cooler or in a formal quarterly meeting; yet, researchers give little attention to the forms, functions, and implications of the recurrence of stories. Dailey and Browning note that retelling is an important component of narrative theory as it performs functions such as control/resistance, integration/differentiation, and stability/change within organizations. Boje (2008) refers to dialectic of sameness and differences in narrated identity building upon the work of Ricoeur (1992): “Narrative control makes one way of coherence, the only (approved), talked about way of sensemaking in an organization. Yet the officially narrated identity (of sameness) is always susceptible to some new (different) way of making sense of an organization, that can turn into some new complexity, envisioning some new strategic plot, or device some way to transform a privileged way into a restored way to make sense in a storytelling organization” (Boje, 2008, p. 19).
Even though there are isolated instances of storytelling, labels, and repetition within organizational settings, there is still a lack of understanding on how these help create a narrative. Riessman (2002) stresses the importance of tools and structures employed by the narrator and calls for more research to uncover them. Similarly, Sergeeva (2019) highlights that multiple narratives exist in an organizational setting as a meshwork of discourses and activities. We argue that we can understand how narratives are mobilized in megaproject external stakeholder management practice by differentiating between narrative instruments and narrative processes. We define narrative instruments as tools, devices, or resources that enable the creation of a narrative, such as stories and labels, as reviewed above. We define narrative processes as the technique, method, or procedure that is followed for using instruments, such as narrative repetition, as reviewed above. Thus, narrative instruments are used in particular narrative processes to achieve a purpose, in other words, mobilizing the project narrative. The aim of this research is to empirically explore the different narrative instruments and narrative processes and show how they are used together to mobilize narratives in megaproject settings. Therefore, we seek to answer two research questions: (1) How do narrative instruments help in mobilizing megaproject narratives for external stakeholders, and (2) How do narrative processes help in mobilizing megaproject narratives for external stakeholders?
Research Methodology
To address our research questions, we used a qualitative approach as it enables a better understanding of people’s lived experiences and generates closer and empathetic understanding of these experiences (Pink et al., 2010). We conducted a single in-depth case study research as the study phenomena within a single context to retain the holistic and meaningful characteristics of real-life events (Yin, 1984). The aim of a single case study is to optimize understanding of some concepts, such as narrative instruments and narrative processes, in this instance, within the case rather than to generalize beyond it (Stake, 2005).
We chose to study the High Speed Two (HS2) megaproject in the United Kingdom. The megaproject is delivered in multiphases and plans to connect the city centers of London, Birmingham, Manchester, and Leeds by 345 miles of new high-speed railway track. The megaproject aims to bring UK cities closer to one another by effectively shrinking the distance and time taken to travel between them. The first phase of the megaproject intends to connect London and Birmingham with a 140-mile high-speed rail line to reduce the travel time between the two cities to 45 minutes at a cost of 30£ billion. The first phase was proposed in 2009 and is scheduled to be operational in 2026. We chose to study the megaproject for multiple theoretical reasons. First, the megaproject had very active resistance from the external stakeholders along the route of the high-speed rail line because they saw only the demerits of noise and vibrations, with no visible benefits as the rail line passed through their lands with no nearby stops. These stakeholders even campaigned their councils to invest huge sums of money in opposing the construction of the project as recorded in this news article: “Along the route more than £1.2 million has been pledged by councils fighting the plans, including £500,000 over three years by Bucks County Council” (Quoted from the news article ‘Extra 500,000 to be Spent on Fighting HS2,’ dated 15 August 2012). “The publicity team will include a ‘proactive press officer’ and ‘digital social media advisor,’ responsible for managing the rail route’s reputation on Twitter, Facebook, and other websites” (Quoted from the news article ‘HS2 Sparks a Jobs Boom for a Quango,’ 7 April 2012).
Thus, the data that inform this research are captured from naturally occurring news media articles. Naturally occurring data or naturalistic data arise without a researcher intervening directly or providing some stimulus to a group of respondents (Silverman, 2001), and hence do not have researcher’s biases during the data collection stage as those with interviews or questionnaires (Ninan, 2020). The news articles for the study were collected through a keyword search in the Google news repository. Google news is one of the major aggregators of news on the web and used as a scholarly source for research (Bandari et al., 2012). With the use of a news aggregator, we reduced the bias that would be created from the study of news from only one media outlet.
The early stages of the megaproject are the most critical and turbulent phases (Levitt & Scott, 2017), as the narratives shaped and the attributes acquired here are retained in later stages (Gioia et al., 2013). Hence, as part of theoretical sampling, we chose to study the early stages of the project, including events such as the first announcement of the project in 2009, the community consultation of the project in 2011, the green light from the government in 2012, and the judicial review of the consultation process of the project in 2012. We restricted our study to this period, as our aim was to study the narrative instruments and processes in the project, not to trace all the events relating to the project in its life cycle. Thus, we used the keyword HS2 to search for news articles relating to the project between 1 January 2009 and 31 December 2012. A total of 855 news articles were retrieved from the search. We manually screened the title of each news article to identify whether the article related to HS2, rail, infrastructure, or anything similar. There were 694 news articles that did not relate to HS2, but had the keyword HS2 within them as hyperlinks to HS2 news articles and these were excluded. Following this, we went through the text of the remaining 161 news articles and excluded 48 news articles that did not explicitly relate to the HS2. The remaining 113 news articles were included in this study. Figure 1 summarizes the process of inclusion and exclusion of news articles relating to the HS2 project.
Process of inclusion and exclusion of news articles relating to HS2.
We thus selected 113 news articles from different newspaper agencies, such as the Telegraph (32 news articles), British Broadcasting Company (29 news articles), Daily Mail (seven news articles), and Bucks Herald (five news articles). Other newspaper agencies, such as Independent, Financial Times, and others that had less than four articles each, were also considered for the study. We also studied the 612 comments by readers of the selected 113 news articles. The comments were studied to understand the community’s response to each news article.
For qualitative analysis, this research used open coding of the data collected from news articles to arrive at theoretical constructs and thereby build theory. For this, the research employed manual coding, as automatic methods could create a barrier to understanding (Kozinets et al., 2014). The data analysis was done in parallel with data collection and, with each new data point, the existing codes were revised. The analysis was done mainly in an inductive manner (Wodak, 2004), with some abductive reasoning as the researcher went back and forth between theory and empirical data to create an increasingly elaborative understanding of the instruments and processes for mobilizing narratives. For example, literature records the process of repetition for stories (Dailey & Browning, 2014); however, we found empirical data on the repetition for stories, labels, and comparisons. Thus, we moved back and forth between theory and data. Such moving back and forth between theory and data helped us to anchor data in the literature and extend it to sharpen generalizability, improve construct definition, and raise theoretical level following the guidance of Eisenhardt (1989). The coding pattern employed is shown in Figure 2.
Coding pattern.
We used thematic analyses of the statements from official spokespeople of the project, politicians, or resistance groups and did not use the journalists’ interpretations of these quotations. We tried to understand the narrative instrument and narrative process employed in these statements. From the open coding, we created codes such as sympathetic account, helplessness account, and angry account. We then employed axial coding and grouped these as stories. The categories or codes emerged from the data and were not predetermined. For example, when there were claims that HS2 created 10,000 jobs, we initially coded it as belonging to the narrative instrument numbers, because numbers were used as an instrument to describe the number of jobs created. Subsequently, when HS2 was claimed to be a fast, frequent, and revolutionary transport system, we noted that the project is being assigned to a well-established category and, therefore, we modified the narrative instrument category from numbers to labels. Thus, multiple revisions were carried out such that the categories extracted remain exclusive and collectively exhaustive (Golden-Biddle & Locke, 1997). When the same labels were highlighted by the prime minister, we categorized them as belonging to the narrative process endorsing. Careful and repeated readings are important, because some constructs often are not obvious until the second or third reading (Steger, 2007). We discuss the concise and insightful power quotes in the body of the article to show the essence of the category, whereas a few more instances and quotes are displayed in tables as proof quotes to show prevalence of the category following the suggestion of Pratt (2008). The constructs generated are anchored in existing literature (Eisenhardt, 1989) for external validity.
Findings and Discussion
The analysis of the news articles from the HS2 megaproject during the study period helped us understand the narrative instruments and narrative processes employed. We discuss both the narratives of the promoters and the protesters of the megaproject but do not differentiate between them, as our goal was to understand the instruments and processes employed in the context of megaprojects. The narrative instruments and narrative processes are discussed in the following section.
Instruments for Creating Narratives
The different narrative instruments employed in the HS2 megaproject by various stakeholders were stories, labels, and comparisons; each of these is discussed in detail as follows.
Stories
Grayson (1997) highlights that, for a long time, stories have been tools of persuasion, quoting the instances of Aesop’s fables and Sesame Street. Storytelling is defined as an activity of telling or sharing stories about personal experiences, life events, and situations (Sergeeva & Trifilova, 2018). Stories also entertain, explain, inspire, educate, convince, generate, and sustain meaning (Gabriel, 2000). They are conceived by the sender with an intention to convey a meaning to an audience (Pace, 2008). Here is a personal account of a farmer in an attempt to create a narrative that the community does not need the project: “I'm just gutted, and it will be horrifying if it happens. It would ruin the farm and our land won't be worth anything. We don’t need High Speed rail and we can’t even catch it here anyway” (Quoted from the news article ‘Woman Stunned by Plans to Bulldoze her Frith Hill Home for High Speed Trains,’ 15 March 2010). “I will lie down in front of the bulldozers. They cannot wreck such a beautiful part of England. It is not just about my house and my view but about many other people and what the Government is doing to this country” (Quoted from the news article ‘Middle England on the March as Revolt over 250 mph Rail Link Grows,’ 14 November 2010).
Proof Quotes for Stories
Gabriel (2000) notes that stories are not just descriptions but an avenue for emotional engagement with the audience. Stories are personalized, entertaining, and emotional in nature (Sergeeva & Green, 2019; Vaara et al., 2016). Accounts, such as suffering by the displaced people of the project, seek to create empathy and understanding from others (Gabriel, 2000) such as the readers of the news article. A reader commented on the news article quoted above calling for a fight to keep the countryside: “And there was me thinking we lived in a democracy! What is the point in working yourself silly to build up a business when the government can come along and make a compulsory purchase of your property if you just happen to be in their way! It’s a disgrace. Come on you people of Buckinghamshire, let's fight to keep our countryside!” (Quoted from the comments of a news article ‘Woman Stunned by Plans to Bulldoze her Frith Hill Home for High Speed Trains,’ 15 March 2010).
The stories of the people displaced by the project resulted in news readers empathizing with the people in these stories, which created a shared vision that the government is making compulsory acquisition of properties in their way. The shared vision resulted in a call for organizing among people to fight to keep their countryside as documented above. Thus, as Weick et al. (2005) claim, stories can be considered as being an integral part of organizing. As seen in the case of the HS2 project, stories help in organizing as they generate a common understanding and shared vision among people (Perkins et al., 2017; Sarpong & Maclean, 2012).
Labels
According to Weick (1995), Weick et al. (2005), and Weick et al. (2010), sensemaking is about noticing and labeling. Activities may be labeled in ways that predispose practitioners to find common sense. Logue and Clegg (2015) record that labels can be used as political tools or resources as they build or reinforce systems of meaning. Labels are typically nouns that are used to name a topic or issue (Surber, 2001). When organizations claim the label of a well-established category, it triggers assumptions of its products and practices similar to the category it claimed (Pontikes, 2018). The high-speed rail was labeled using adjectives, such as modern, reliable, and fast mode of transport, along with nouns such as prosperity and benefits. In a statement to the House of Commons, the transport secretary of the United Kingdom said: “A modern and reliable and fast service between our major cities and international gateways befitting the 21st Century will transform the way we travel and promote Britain's economic and social prosperity” (Quoted from the news article ‘HS2: High-Speed Rail Go-Ahead Prompts Mixed Reaction,’ 10 January 2012). “The chairman of the Stop HS2 group, called the project ‘a complete waste of taxpayers’ money when we can least afford it’ (Quoted from the news article ‘Government Starts High-Speed Rail Consultation,’ 28 February 2011). “This was one of the largest consultations ever undertaken by a government with over 30 events along the line of route attended by tens of thousands of people” (Quoted from the news article ‘Fury for Home Owners Booted out to Make Room for a High-Speed Rail Link…but Minister Behind it Halted a Similar Project in his Own Back Yard,’ 13 November 2011).
Similar to labels, we highlight that numbers also trigger assumptions of the topic in discussion and reinforce systems of meanings. It was observed from the HS2 megaproject that numbers are used in the process of creating a narrative by showing the magnitude of impact of the topic. In one instance, the protesters tried to create a narrative on the inefficient consultation process by claiming that the views of over 50,000 people were ignored: “They effectively excluded over half those affected by the proposal from participating in the consultation and in practice ignored the views of over 50,000 people and businesses who did respond” (Quoted from the news article ‘Councils-Launch-Bid-to-Block-High-Speed-Rail,’ 2 April 2012). “We have consistently said that there is no business, economic, or environmental case for HS2. Research has suggested that HS2 would cost each family in this country at least £1,000” (Quoted from the news article ‘Treasury Delays Put HS2 Plan in Jeopardy,’ 19 May 2012). “Lord Adonis said the project would create 10,000 jobs and yield £2 in benefits for every £1 spent” (Quoted from the news article ‘High-Speed Rail Plans Announced by Government,’ 11 March 2010).
Proof Quotes for Labels
When labels, such as complete waste of taxpayer’s money, were used the readers of the news articles echoed the same label: “HS2 is a complete waste of taxpayer’s money. It’s unnecessary, making the train journey slightly shorter for rich business people. Why not spend the money replacing more useful standard track, torn up by previous governments, to take some traffic off the roads and improve rural transport? Then nationalize the railways as we’re still paying for it anyway” (Quoted from the comments of a news article ‘Trains are a Rich Man’s Toy, says Transport Secretary,’ 13 November 2011).
The complete waste of taxpayer’s money label resulted in the news readers identifying and interpreting the project as unnecessary. The label resulted in readers claiming that taxpayer’s money can be put to better use by replacing existing tracks. Thus, as noted by Czarniawska-Joerges (1994), labels change the identity of the project and can influence the interpretation of the organization.
Comparisons
Comparisons involve comparing oneself or other with others (Suls et al., 2002). Davies et al. (2017) suggest that one of the rules of managing complex megaprojects is to assess what has been done before and learn from past similar projects, as has been successfully done with Heathrow Terminal 5. The HS2 megaproject was constantly compared with other projects in an attempt to create a narrative. To create a narrative on the need for the project, the promoters of the project compared the economic development of the United Kingdom with other countries and the contribution of the HS2 project toward it as recorded below: “Countries across Europe and Asia are already pressing ahead with ambitious plans for high speed rail, while some of our key rail arteries are getting ever closer to capacity. We cannot afford to be left behind—investing in high-speed rail now is vital to the prosperity of future generations” (Quoted from the news article ‘Government Starts High-Speed Rail Consultation,’ 28 February 2011). “I profoundly believe if you look around at what things that actually made a difference to our regions and to our cities and ask yourself what’s really helped drive economic growth I think the answer always comes back it’s those big transport schemes. My argument would be not can we afford HS2, but can we afford not to build high speed rail” (Quoted from a news article ‘David Cameron: High Speed Trains Crucial to Make Britain World Beating,’ 9 December 2011). “When the first high-speed line was built through Kent, compensation was limited to those that were subject to compulsory purchase orders … What we are talking about here is going wider, I think this is unprecedented, paying compensation to people who do not have their properties taken, but who will suffer a significant diminution in value” (Quoted from the news article ‘Philip Hammond High-Speed Rail Will be a Pleasant Surprise for Many,’ 11 December 2010).
Within the project context, Ninan et al. (2019) record how a megaproject team using comparisons and claiming that a team from another project in a different city admires them, resulted in a positive community sentiment and a favorable narrative for the project. Other representative instances and proof quotes that can be categorized as comparisons are recorded in Table 3.
Proof Quotes for Comparisons
When the promoters claimed that other countries are pushing ahead with high-speed rail and we cannot afford to be left behind, as highlighted above, one of the readers of the news article echoed: “The sooner we build it, the better. There’s always negativity around expanding motorways and railways, with the inevitable people in the area saying ‘Not in my back yard,’ but when it's up and running, it becomes the lifeblood of our nation. 40 years ago, there was outrage at the motorway, 100 years ago, it was the railways. Imagine us with neither today!” (Quoted from the comments of a news article, ‘Government Starts High-Speed Rail Consultation,’ 28 February 2011).
As discussed, the narrative instruments of stories, labels, and comparisons serve different functions in project organizing. While stories help in creating a shared vision of the project, labels help in creating an identity for the project, and comparisons help in enhancing the perception of justice for the community as shown in Figure 3. These different functions together contribute to a public image of the project, which can lead to external stakeholder support or resistance for the project (Oppong et al., 2017). The perception of justice can lead to external stakeholder acceptance or rejection of the project and the project purpose (El-Sawalhi & Hammad, 2015). Whether positive or negative, these community experiences with the megaproject organization can influence its legitimacy in the eyes of the external stakeholders (Derakhshan et al., 2019).
Narrative instruments and their different functions in megaproject organizing.
Processes for Maintaining Narratives
Narrative processes involve the procedure followed to put the instruments to use. The processes observed in the case of the HS2 megaproject are repeating, endorsing, humorizing, and auctioning; each of these processes is discussed as follows.
Repeating
We observed from the case of the HS2 megaproject that stories that tried to create a narrative that the community does not need the project was repeated in the news articles in different stories as highlighted as follows: “The Government are proposing to put a rail track through the back garden. It is a crazy idea. Why do we need it? How many people want to move from London to Birmingham and Birmingham back to London, cutting 35 minutes off their journey” (Quoted from the news article ‘A London to Birmingham Rail Link Would Destroy Swathes of Countryside and Hundreds of Homes. So is it Worth it?’ 13 August 2010). “This new line, with fast, frequent services could, with attractive fares, start to revolutionize intercity rail travel” (Quoted from the news article ‘High-Speed Rail Plans Announced by Government,’ 11 March 2010). “[The] MP for South Northamptonshire, said the proposals were ‘eye-wateringly expensive’ and did not represent value for money at £1,000 for each family in Britain.” (Quoted from the news article ‘Nimbys Begin Struggle over High Speed 2,’ 18 April 2011). “Countries across Europe and Asia are already pressing ahead with ambitious plans for high speed rail, while some of our key rail arteries are getting ever closer to capacity. We cannot afford to be left behind—investing in high-speed rail now is vital to the prosperity of future generations” (Quoted from the news article ‘Government Starts High-Speed Rail Consultation,’ 28 February 2011).
Proof Quotes for Repeating
Endorsing
Support from people who occupy a prominent status in society can help in mobilizing a narrative. The narrative that the community does not need the project was highlighted to be supported by academicians who have expertise in the area. In one instance, an honorary professor of public policy at the University of Warwick remarked: “This rail link and the 250 mph trains are economically unnecessary and environmentally destructive … The cost is enormous at a time when public finances are under severe strain, and the business plan is based on over-optimistic forecasts of passengers … The project does nothing to tackle the immediate problem of overcrowding on trains because it will not be completed for another 15 years” (Quoted from the news article ‘Middle England on the March as Revolt Over 250 mph Rail Link Grows,’ 14 November 2010). “If we want to be a world-beating country with world-beating businesses I think it is the right answer to be looking at high speed rail” (Quoted from the news article ‘David Cameron: High Speed Trains Crucial to Make Britain ‘World-Beating,’ 9 December 2011).
Proof Quotes for Endorsing
Humorizing
It was observed from the case of the HS2 megaproject that instances with humor in them were shared and enjoyed by the community, and these can help in the process of mobilizing a narrative. In an instance involving an attempt to create a narrative of the benefits of the project, the promoters compared the time taken for the journey with the duration of football matches and other daily activities: “London to Manchester in less time than it takes for United to play Arsenal? Birmingham to London quicker than it takes to enjoy a pint and an order of fish and chips down the way at the Queen’s Head pub? Birmingham to Leeds in the time it takes to enjoy a pot of tea? It could all happen—and via train, no less—now that the U.K. government has given the go-ahead to a national high-speed rail network called HS2” (Quoted from the news article ‘UK High Speed Rail HS2 Gets Go Ahead,’ 20 January 2012).
Proof Quotes for Humorizing
Actioning
Processes carried out to mobilize narratives include putting discourses into action. Walking along the entire HS2 route was highlighted in the news article as an activity to mobilize the narrative that the community does not need the project: “The line will go through the field where Colin Firth made his debut… it just won’t exist anymore,” says *** [name of person], from Culworth, who has campaigned relentlessly against the plans, including walking the entire HS2 route” (Quoted from the news article ‘The Chron Looks at What it Will Mean to Northamptonshire if the HS2 is Created,’ 16 January 2012). “Mr. Hammond is expected to tell MPs that he has “recognized the local impact” of the original plans after walking part of the route and meeting many concerned locals.” (Quoted from the news article ‘High Speed Line Noise Will Affect 50,000 People,’ 18 December 2010).
Proof Quotes for Actioning
The narrative instruments and processes observed from the case study of the HS2 project are depicted in Figure 4.
Instruments and processes for mobilizing narratives from the HS2 project.
The narrative processes mobilize and bring people together. As observed from the case, the stories, labels, and comparisons were—individually or together—repeated, endorsed, made attractive, and actionized for building the narrative. Together, the narrative instruments and processes can help megaprojects mobilize a narrative that can potentially help in managing external stakeholders, including gaining their acceptance and legitimacy.
Implications for Research and Practice
This research has implications for research and practice in the external stakeholder management of megaprojects. Megaprojects around the world affect numerous external stakeholders as they create economic, political, and environmental disruptions in society (Sturup, 2009). The vocal among these stakeholders campaign against the project and try to achieve their vested interests through the project, thereby changing many features of the project (Flyvbjerg, 1998). The most affected stakeholders may not necessarily be the most vocal (Van Marrewijk et al., 2008); hence, the activities of the vocal few can result in the project not delivering on its intended benefits. Using an instrumental perspective of stakeholder management, we argue that megaproject narratives can be employed to manage external stakeholders. The discourses for stakeholder management from an instrumental perspective have a strategic intent, with a focus on achieving an organization’s corporate objectives (Zakhem, 2007). This research highlights the instruments, processes, and mediums project team’s use to manage external stakeholders.
Research on narratives has emphasized the role of narrative tools or instruments, such as stories (Boje, 2008) and labels (Granqvist et al., 2013), which can neutralize the rumor mill and create a compelling new future (Denning, 2005). By using the case study of the HS2 megaproject, this research highlights how stories, labels, and comparisons are used as narrative instruments to create a project narrative. As contributions to the project management literature, we highlight how stories can create a shared vision of the project, labels can create a project identity, and comparisons can create a perception of justice. In this research, we did not separate the use of these instruments by the promoters and protesters because our objective was to explore the use of narrative instruments. Future research can explore the use of these instruments by promoters and protesters separately in order to understand the interactions among their functions.
The narrative literature also highlights how processes, such as repeating narratives can perform functions that stabilize or control the narrative (Dailey & Browning, 2014). Our empirical findings highlight how, along with repeating, other processes such as endorsing, humorizing, and actioning can help stabilize the narrative. We also contribute to theory by highlighting that all the narrative instruments, such as stories, labels, and comparisons, are repeated, endorsed, humorized, and actioned upon. The interactions between narrative instruments and processes, as shown in Figure 5, help us understand how narratives are mobilized in practice. It should be noted that the model created neither differentiates between the order of use of narrative instruments, such as stories, labels, and comparisons, nor narrative instruments such as repeating, endorsing, humorizing, and actioning. Rather, the model only shows how a project narrative is created by different cycles of narrative instruments and processes. Future research can explore the role of counternarratives (Andrews, 2002) or rhetorical contestations (Sorsa & Vaara, 2020) in the interactions between narrative instruments and processes.
Interactions between instruments and processes to mobilize project narratives.
We highlight news media as a medium for instrumental stakeholder management. To be resilient to interest groups, it is important that projects have a positive reputation and media image right from the start (Olander & Landin, 2008); hence, building a favorable narrative for the project in the media is essential.
Figure 5 shows the interactions between instruments and processes in the forms of two propositions:
We call on future studies to quantitatively explore the effectiveness of these instruments and processes toward achieving the project organization’s objectives. Practically, this research highlights the different ways in which narratives can be mobilized to improve external stakeholder’s acceptance of a proposed project or program. Even though we considered the pool of all instruments and processes and did not differentiate between their use by promoters or protesters, the findings have implications for improving stakeholder acceptance through narratives. As stories can help create a shared vision of the project, the project team can bring about stories and personal experiences of people who have benefited or are projected to benefit from the proposed megaproject. Such empathetic and real-life stories can be shared on social media, advertisements, and project websites. As labels can help create a project identity, the project team can create and use labels such as largest consultation or reliable service. Adding to these, labels against the resistance group of the project can bring down their legitimacy and arguments. As comparisons can affect the perception of justice for the community, it is important that the project team study the management of project affected stakeholders in other projects and propagate the considerate practices adopted in their own projects. As noted earlier, the resistance groups also leverage stories, labels, and comparisons to create their favorable narrative. Hence, it is important that the narrative instruments used by the project team are stabilized through repeating, endorsing, humorizing, and actioning. All the narrative instruments can be repeated in news media, social media, and other outlets by the project team. The project team should also reach out to leaders, celebrities, and other people with referent power to endorse the different narrative instruments. Humorizing and actioning of the narrative instruments can also help stabilize the project narratives. Recently, the project management literature has stressed the importance of marketing (Turner et al., 2019) and branding (Ninan et al., 2019) in project settings. The practices of marketing and branding strategies are prevalent in other sectors, and project settings can adopt these to create and maintain a stable narrative. Such a stable narrative can help projects subtly create a reservoir of support (Di Maddaloni & Davis, 2017) and thereby resist the negative press and protests that seek to topple the project.
Conclusion
Past research has found that the strategic front-end of projects is fundamental for understanding stakeholder dynamics, commitments, and actions (Aaltonen et al., 2015; Gil & Pinto, 2018). In our article, we focus on the strategic front-end of the HS2 megaproject in the United Kingdom. We argue that building a narrative upfront is essential for the successful delivery of projects from an external stakeholder management perspective. The early stages of the megaproject are the most critical and turbulent phases (Levitt & Scott, 2017), as narratives are shaped and attributes acquired here are retained in later stages (Gioia et al., 2013). The purpose of our article is to demonstrate narrative instruments and processes that potentially help in managing stakeholders. Throughout the project life cycle there is an ongoing flow of narratives mobilized by external stakeholders who are for and against the project. We record the use of discourses, such as stories, labels, and comparisons, from the case study of the HS2 megaproject. It is observed that these discourses undergo multiple processes, such as repeating, endorsing, humorizing, and auctioning, to mobilize and bring people together.
The research makes multiple contributions to project management theory. First, narrative processes stabilize narrative instruments and both of these are important in mobilizing a narrative. Second, while existing literature talks about stories being repeated in organizations, we highlight that labels and comparisons are also repeated along with stories. Third, we explore the role of numbers and adjectives as labels because they trigger assumptions of the topic in discussion and reinforce systems of meanings, thereby extending the current knowledge of labels as nouns that are used to name a topic or issue. Fourth, we record how comparisons with other projects are used outside project settings to create a perception of justice and fairness for external stakeholders. Finally, we highlight humorizing, such as exaggerating and being sarcastic, as a great way to get ideas across and as very influential in creating a narrative of the megaproject.
This study also makes contributions to megaproject practice and research methodology. With regard to megaproject practice, since narratives are essential for the success of a project, we explore the dynamics of mobilizing a narrative. It was revealed that multiple instruments and associated processes are central in mobilizing narratives of the megaproject. These narratives help shape the vision of the megaproject, the identity of the megaproject, or the perception of justice for the community regarding the megaproject. We also provide empirical evidence showing both promoters and protesters attempting to shape the megaproject narrative according to their vested interests. With regard to research methodology, we highlight news media articles as battlegrounds, where organizations with different interests, mindsets, and rationales battle to create a narrative favorable to their agenda in the project setting. Data from the news media articles afford multiple directions for the study of megaprojects, including the stakeholders’ perceptions of issues relating to the megaproject, how stakeholder concerns get mobilized, how megaprojects communicate, the power of the media, and even the role of media in decision-making.
There are some limitations to this study, which offer multiple avenues for future research. One limitation of this study is the length of the stories. The stories in this study are quotations and are between one and three sentences long compared with Feldman et al.’s (2004) recommendation of stories, which range from five sentences to one and a half pages. Regarding the structure of the stories, Gabriel (2000) notes that stories have a beginning, an end, and are held together by action that is entertaining for audiences. Since our stories are reported in news articles, the well-known parts of the story—in other words, the project acquiring land and the inconveniences caused to landowners—may be edited out in the news articles to be succinct in reporting. However, the news articles report the entertaining part of the stories and these are considered in our analysis as stories, as they disrupt an initial state of equilibrium (Franzosi, 1998) and reveal hidden aspects of the situation, which calls for thought and action (Ricoeur, 1983). Since the beginning and end are well known to the readers of the news articles, we do not think their absence and subsequent short lengths of the stories will affect the narrative effect of the stories. Another limitation of this study is that we do not differentiate between promoter and protester narrative and merely sought to study the instruments and processes employed in mobilizing a narrative. Future research can longitudinally explore how these instruments and processes are employed differently by the promoters and protesters and how they interact dynamically in the process of the narrative as it evolves along the project life cycle. The effects of the narrative instruments and processes on the management of external stakeholders can also be explored through a longitudinal study. Additionally, different stakeholders can have contrasting versions of the same event (Buchanan & Dawson, 2007). Future research can explore how different stakeholders attempt to use different instruments and processes for each major event in the context of megaprojects. It was observed that narrative instruments, such as labels, comparisons, and stories, were contested, which by itself is a broad topic that can be studied at depth in the future. This study is limited to the use of news articles. It would also be valuable to study how stories, labels, and comparisons regarding the megaproject are repeated, supported, and acted upon in different channels—including television, social media, community meetings, and so forth—and study how these instruments and processes vary in these channels. It is through the continuous interaction of narratives at multiple levels and mediums that the meaning is constructed and a shared vision is achieved.
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council Grant ES/R011567/1. The authors would like to thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions for improving the manuscript.
