Changes in the Editorial Board of the Project Management Journal ®

Abstract

This editorial announces recent changes in the PMJ Editorial Board and discusses related changes to the journal moving forward.

After five years of service, Gary Klein has decided to step down as Co-Editor-in-Chief. We (the authors) and the editorial board are taking this opportunity to thank Gary for his tremendous support and accomplishments during this time. The latter includes raising the Project Management Journal’s (PMJ) impact factor from 2.0 to 4.9 and improving the Scopus CiteScore to 61 out of 423 journals in business and international management, thus pushing the journal into the top 15% in this category. Gary has contributed to a significant internationalization of the editorial board, establishing a scientific committee and an editorial review board. He co-published 10 editorials to help potential and existing authors improve the quality of their submissions; pushed forward the journal’s presence in social media, including a YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@projectmanagementjournal4610) and invented the thoughtlet article as a “shortcut” from the most senior academics to the project management research community. Moreover, Gary worked on joint activities of the International Journal of Project Management, the International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, and the Project Management Journal. These included several micro-conferences, contributing to the initiation of an academic project management society, and supporting the development of a project research manifesto. He accomplished all this, in addition to his activities for other journals, including establishing the Organizational Cybersecurity Journal. We wish Gary all the best in his new undertakings and welcome him as a new member of the PMJ Scientific Committee, where he will continue to support PMJ in its strategic direction.

Editorial Board Changes

We welcome Giorgio Locatelli as the new Co-Editor-in-Chief, along with Ralf Müller. In addition, we are very happy to welcome Jörg Sydow and Vittal Anantatmula as senior editor and editor, respectively. We introduce them in the following section.

Giorgio Locatelli, the new Co-Editor-in-Chief, is a Professor of Complex Projects Business at Politecnico di Milano–School of Management. Educated at Politecnico di Milano, he has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering (2006), a PhD (cum laude) in engineering management (2011), and a postgraduate certificate in education (2015, University of Lincoln). He spent the years between 2012 and 2021 in the United Kingdom, starting as a lecturer at the University of Lincoln and leaving as a professor at the University of Leeds. Since 2006, Giorgio has researched large and complex infrastructure projects and programs, particularly in the energy sector. Taking stock from his early sustainability research, Giorgio is now also focusing on projects for sustainability transition and NetZero. More recently, Giorgio has become increasingly interested in the dark side of projects, including corruption, modern slavery, discrimination, and unsustainable use of resources (Locatelli et al., 2022b). Since returning to Italy, Giorgio has been working with the space, satellite, and hydrogen industries. Giorgio attracted about €1,500,000 in research funds and he is included in the Stanford-Elsevier list of the world’s top 2% scientists (Ioannidis, 2022). Giorgio advises public and private organizations and is a frequent speaker and trainer for them. He has authored over 100 international peer-reviewed Scopus index publications, with nearly 3,000 citations; he also sits on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Project Management, Construction Management and Economics, and Progress in Nuclear Energy.

Following the vision of Ralf Müller and Gary Klein, Giorgio intends to further develop PMJ as a leading journal in management. Giorgio subscribes to the idea that articles in PMJ should be contemporary, theoretically rich (Müller & Klein, 2018), and scientifically rigorous. So, although PMJ authors and readers should not expect a major revolution in the journal, Giorgio’s vision for PMJ has three closely linked pillars:
Pillar 1: Contemporary phenomena. Looking at leading management journals, such as the Academy of Management Journal, it is clear how they consider contemporary phenomena central in their publishing strategy. For instance, the Academy of Management Journal recently published articles on contemporary phenomena, including discrimination (de Leon & Rosette, 2022), social class pay gap (Fang & Tilcsik, 2022), racial diversity (Richard et al., 2021), toxic organizations (Kahn & Rouse, 2021), gender differences (Huang et al., 2021), and intelligent machines (Man Tang et al., 2022).

All these phenomena are also relevant for project studies for at least two reasons.

First, projects and temporary organizations are a particular domain for such phenomena. Intelligent machines, cryptocurrency, quantum technologies, metaverse, and so forth, play an increasingly important role across society and, most likely, they can (and will) play a role in projects. Similarly, all kinds of people work on projects; therefore, discussions and research about discrimination/inclusion are relevant. For example, there are LGBTQIA + people in projects and temporary organizations, yet, we know very little about their experiences, which could be different in temporary organizations (e.g., a major construction project) than in permanent organizations (e.g., a car manufacturing company).

Second, projects are agents (or vehicles) of change. Projects are key for the sustainability transition, yet, there is limited project studies literature about sustainability, particularly sustainability by the project (Gareis et al., 2013; Huemann & Silvius, 2017). Research topics related to sustainability by the project might include managing projects intended to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or addressing Grand Challenges. Yet, for example, few studies have investigated how these projects create and distribute value to stakeholders or which stakeholders capture such value. We have very few insights into how policymakers shape such projects and their motivation for and influence on them.

In summary, research in projects matters, particularly on contemporary phenomena—not only for other project scholars but to also shape a more sustainable future. There is relevant scope to study contemporary phenomena and their links with projects. For example, is managing such projects similar to managing a traditional project intended to build infrastructure or code software? Are the theoretical lenses to investigate such projects any different? Submissions on contemporary phenomena are encouraged.

Pillar 2: Contemporary theories. As mentioned earlier, during the last few years, academic project management journals, including PMJ, have stressed the importance of having a theoretical lens for their articles (Müller & Klein, 2018). We are pleased that project studies have become more theoretically rich and relevant. Yet, project scholars’ quests to improve our articles’ theoretical lens should continue. In this venue, there are at least two ways forward.

The first way is to experiment with theories not commonly used in project studies. For instance, to study the perspectives of women in projects, a researcher could use the theory of selective incivility (Cortina, 2008) or the Fraud triangle theory to study the unethical behavior of decision makers (Cressey, 1953).

The second way is to keep developing theories relevant to projects and temporary organizations. Project scholars have already developed relevant theories, such as the theory of project success factors (Pinto & Slevin, 1987), the theory of project categorization systems (Turner & Cochrane, 1993), or the theory of the temporary organizations (Lundin & Söderholm, 1995; Packendorff, 1995; Turner & Müller, 2003), yet there is still more theoretical work to be done. Over the last few years, very relevant articles in project studies regarding the need for new theories and how project scholars can develop new theories (see, e.g., Geraldi et al., 2020, 2021; Svejvig, 2021; Tywoniak et al., 2021; Brunet, 2022; Keil, 2022; Pinto, 2022) have been published.

Pillar 3: More diverse and inclusive perspectives. Promoting diverse and inclusive perspectives is far more than soliciting the contributions of underrepresented minorities. Indeed, we encourage more contributions from, for example, different genders and historically underrepresented countries of continents, such as Africa, but such contributions need to bring a fresh perspective. For instance, an article about the “success factors of building power plants in country X” is likely to be desk-rejected even if country X is seldom discussed in project studies. The reason for this type of rejection is that there is already plenty of literature about success factors in planning and delivering infrastructure and, even if country X might have some specific peculiarities, the article might struggle to provide a relevant contribution to a global audience. Conversely, an article about “project governance in Africa, a case from building power plants in country X” might be interesting and passed on to reviewers. The key point of this article would be to explain why existing books and articles about project governance are inadequate to represent the governance of projects in Africa. A key aspect of this type of article would be to convince editors and reviewers that the existing literature on project governance might be representative only of a European/North American context (e.g., because most of the data used in such publications are from those areas); in Africa, project governance, perhaps in terms of informal governance mechanisms (Pemsel & Müller, 2012; Wang et al., 2021), can be radically different.

Diverse and inclusive perspectives can also be achieved by working with researchers from other communities, such as lawyers, philosophers, and behavioral scientists, to develop interdisciplinary research around projects and temporary organizations genuinely. For example, there are projects aimed at changing people’s behaviors (e.g., to persuade people to fly less or eat healthier). Yet, we know very little about the nature of these projects, although surely the perspectives of behavioral scientists on such projects would be incredibly useful. Diversity of perspectives can also apply to established topics such as the planning and delivery of infrastructures. So, while we traditionally asked questions, such as “Why is infrastructure often over budget and late? How can we improve cost estimations?” we could take a legal perspective and ask, “How do the different legal systems (common law, civil law, etc.) influence the management of infrastructure projects?” Reflecting on Pillar 1 and the discussion about SDGs: it would be relevant to see the perspectives of sustainable transition scholars on how projects can enact policies to foster a transition toward a sustainable future. Therefore, adopting Geraldi and Söderlund’s (2018) classification, we invite authors to take a fresh perspective and submit more Type 2 and Type 3 articles.

Jörg Sydow has joined the PMJ editorial board as a senior editor. He is a Professor of Management and Chair for Inter-firm Cooperation at the School of Business & Economics at Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. He was a founding co-editor of two leading German journals, Managementforschung and Industrielle Beziehungen – The German Journal of Industrial Relations, and he is currently one of the senior editors of Organization Studies. Jörg has served on the editorial boards of many leading academic journals, including Organization Studies, Organization Science, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, and Journal of Management Studies. In 2019, along with H. Berends, he co-edited a volume of Research in the Sociology of Organizations on Managing Inter-organizational Collaborations—Process Views (Emerald). In 2018, along with T. Braun, he was awarded the Global Research Award of the International Project Management Association (IPMA). Since 2021, he has been an Honorary Member of the European Group of Organization Studies (EGOS).

Vittal Anantatmula has joined the PMJ editorial board as a department editor. He is a project management professor in the College of Business, Western Carolina University, USA, and is a recipient of the University Scholar and Graduate Teaching Awards. He is also Global Guest Professor at Keio University, Japan, and a visiting professor of a PhD program at Skema Business School, France. Dr. Anantatmula was chosen as Endeavor Executive Fellow and worked with the School of Property, Construction, and Project Management, RMIT (Melbourne) in 2018. He is a member of the Academic Insight Team (AIT) of Project Management Institute (PMI) and served as director of the PMI Global Accreditation Center (PMI-GAC) in the past. Dr. Anantatmula has extensive experience in academics and industry and he has authored more than 90 publications. He received MS and PhD degrees from The George Washington University and the Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department at Andhra University, India.

We welcome all three editors to their new roles.

Moving Forward

The next few years will see PMJ continue to move forward in its mission to be a leading journal for scholars (and practitioners!) interested in projects and temporary organizations. To reflect this intention, we recently updated our mission statement:
Project Management Journal ^® aims to shape new thinking around the management of projects and other temporary organizations by publishing research that advances theory, meaningful discussion, and evidence-based practice.
A clear strategy, which includes the following four points, enacts this mission.

First, Thoughtlets. We will continue to commission and publish thoughtlets. Thoughtlets are authoritative articles written by leading experts that should inspire project scholars in their research. An example of this is a very thought-provoking thoughtlet by Keil (2022) on theories. Second, link with PMI. We also aim to leverage a unique feature of PMJ: its link with the Project Management Institute (PMI). PMJ is the academic and research journal of PMI. PMI has a membership of almost 700,000 people across 221 countries/territories. Members may access current and back issues of PMJ, providing PMJ authors with a unique visibility of their research. This exposition can be highly useful for authors to make an impact with their research outside academia. In addition to the positive impact on society, such impact is a key requirement by frameworks to assess academics and their research such as the Research Excellence Framework (REF) in the United Kingdom. As PMJ editors, we encourage this process through various mechanisms, for example, by promoting practitioners’ relevant research through summaries of PMJ scientific articles written for a practitioner audience. The first three PMJ Practitioner Insights summaries are available on [https://journals.sagepub.com/home/PMX] Third, social media. We will continue to promote research through social media. All the articles published in PMJ are posted on PMJ social media, including Twitter (with 1,622 followers), LinkedIn (with 1,766 professionals in the group), and YouTube. PMJ authors have the chance to transform their article into a 10-minute YouTube video that can be easily disseminated and shared with a wide range of stakeholders, including top managers and decision makers, who might not have the time to read a full article. An example of an article (Locatelli et al., 2022a) transformed into a video can be found at https://youtu.be/TsFZ7Fmv5jw

Fourth, Pillars 1, 2, and 3. By implementing Pillars 1, 2, and 3, we intend to promote special issues with more diverse co-editors and theories phenomena. Future special issues promoted in PMJ might include, as co-editors along project scholars, distinguished scholars from other scientific communities and domains. This will provide several advantages, including moving research in project studies forward to become even richer, more relevant, and more interesting; moreover, it will provide visibility of our research outside the existing audience.

We look forward to receiving many exciting manuscripts covering the topics mentioned in this editorial as well as new phenomena and theories.

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