Addressing Organisational Pressures as Drivers towards Sustainability in Manufacturing Projects and Project Management Methodologies

Fotios Misopoulos, Roula Michaelides, Mohammad Afiq Salehuddin, Vicky Manthou and Zenon Michaelides
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Fotios Misopoulos: Management School, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZH, UK
Roula Michaelides: Management School, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZH, UK
Mohammad Afiq Salehuddin: Management School, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZH, UK
Vicky Manthou: Department of Applied Informatics, University of Macedonia, 546 36 Thessaloniki, Greece
Zenon Michaelides: Management School, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZH, UK

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 6, 1-28

Abstract: The concept of sustainability continues to rapidly grow in interest from disparate academic and industrial fields. This research aims to elucidate further the implications of the sustainability drivers upon project management methodological approaches specifically in the manufacturing industry. This paper studies the three prevalent dialogues in the field of sustainability, relevant to the environmental and social aspects of the Triple Bottom Line, and utilises Institutional Theory to propose organisational pressures as affecting sustainability efforts in industrial manufacturing project management. Furthermore, the literature bodies of Lean and Life Cycle Analysis in manufacturing project management guided our reflection that the various drivers of sustainability put forward that do not consider the distinctive organisational pressures fail to address institutional and systemic project management issues holistically. The authors further conduct and draw on a systematic literature review on the constructs of sustainability in the manufacturing industry and their adopted methodologies, evaluating academic articles published from the year 2001 to 2017. The findings indicate that normative pressures prevail over coercive and mimetic pressures and are seen as the main drivers of sustainability in the manufacturing industry. In an incremental reductionist approach, project management knowledge areas are analysed, and the study posits that Stakeholder and Communications Management are two of the knowledge areas that need to integrate the above pressures to achieve cohesive sustainable industrial results. The principle contribution is to offer a new conceptual perspective on integrating project management knowledge areas with Institutional Theory pressures for more sustainable project management methodologies.

Keywords: sustainability constructs; sustainable project management; sustainability drivers; triple bottom line; institutional theory; organisational pressures; normative pressures (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:6:p:2098-:d:153419

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