Editorial [International Journal of Information Systems and Project Management v. 7, n.º 2, 2019]

Abstract

[Excerpt] The mission of the IJISPM - International Journal of Information Systems and Project Managementis the dissemination of new scientific knowledge on information systems management and project management, encouraging further progress in theory and practice. It is our great pleasure to bring you the second number of the seventh volume of IJISPM. In this issue readers will find important contributions on project governance, project performance, Kanban, and IT governance. The first article, “Governance, governmentality and project performance: the role of sovereignty”, is authored by Ralf Müller. Considerable confusion prevails in the mutual positioning and relationship of concepts like management, leadership, governance and governmentality in projects. This article first develops a framework to distinguish these terms conceptually by use of Archer’s structure and human agency philosophy. This provides for clearer conceptualization and lesser redundancy in the use of terms. Then the interaction between governance and governmentality in the context of projects is assessed, using a contingency theory perspective. This addresses long-standing questions about the nature of the impact of governance and governmentality on each other and on project and organizational performance. The results show that higher levels of project sovereignty (as a measure of governance), are associated with lower levels of authoritarian, but higher levels of neo-liberal governmentality, as well as higher levels of project and organizational performance. The article continues with a discussion of the theoretical implications from different perspectives of causality, which provides for different approaches to improve project performance through deliberate fine-tuning of governance and governmentality. [...]