The experience of wellbeing practices in project-based organisations

Maria Kapsali, Rea Prouska and Sara Hajikazemi

International Journal of Manpower, 2025, vol. 46, issue 3, 573-596

Abstract: Purpose - Project-based organisations (PBOs) experience high labour turnover due to wellbeing issues arising from inefficient policies. An in-depth review of previous attributes this to the fact that the experiences and perspectives of project managers are considered neither in organisational policy/practice nor in wellbeing research. This study addresses this gap with two questions: (1) How do project managers experience wellbeing practices in PBOs? (2) What factors enable or restrict the implementation of these practices from their perspective? Design/methodology/approach - This exploratory qualitative study collected interview data from 19 PBO employees in Western Europe across three sectors. Participants assessed the implementation and influencing factors of wellbeing practices in their organisations. Narratives were analysed thematically, followed by sentiment analysis to cross-reference the emotional tone of each theme. Findings - The findings provided a framework showing the necessary shift in the project managers’ role in PBO wellbeing policy and devolution of voice practices. The results also provided two new conceptual themes specific to wellbeing in PBOs: (1) voice structure and policy and (2) demarcation of the project leader role. Originality/value - The study introduces a new framework with two new theoretical concepts to improve wellbeing in PBOs. These concepts promote inclusivity of wellbeing concerns via new feedback structures and clarify the project manager’s role in advocating employee voice. The proposed solutions aim to improve knowledge in the research field of wellbeing providing the perspective of the project manager, which currently is lacking from theory.

Keywords: HR; Wellbeing practices; Project-based organisations; Project managers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:ijmpps:ijm-11-2023-0669

DOI: 10.1108/IJM-11-2023-0669

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Manpower is currently edited by Professor Adrian Ziderman

More articles in International Journal of Manpower from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().