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Wellbeing management in project-based firms: is strategic leadership the missing piece?

Xu, Jing; (2024) Wellbeing management in project-based firms: is strategic leadership the missing piece? In: Proceedings of the 15th International Research Network on Organizing by Projects conference: 15th IRNOP 2024. IRNOP: International Research Network on Organizing by Projects: Stockholm. Green open access

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Abstract

The specific characteristics of project organising impose leadership challenges for promoting employee wellbeing in project-based firms (PBFs). Existing studies in project management have predominantly focused on leadership in project teams and its impacts on workers’ wellbeing. Less emphasis has been on strategic leadership within PBFs, which is pivotal in shaping the broader organisational context, including the strategies, organisational structures and systems. This study aims to explore how strategic leadership is enacted to promote employee wellbeing in PBFs. Data were collected from 24 semi-structured interviews with a diverse group of participants, including senior managers, heads of functional departments as well as project workers such as project managers and designers. The findings uncover various wellbeing management practices in PBFs, including showing, enabling, telling, bonding and supporting. Nevertheless, these wellbeing management practices are developed and implemented in isolation by different functional departments, namely, senior management, human resource management, health and safety management, project management and line management. There is a noticeable absence of strategic leadership in PBFs to align and address competing initiatives, develop a firm strategy to integrate wellbeing into operations and projects, and create structures and systems to facilitate cooperation and knowledge sharing between functions and projects. Wellbeing is not well embedded in the project management practices. There is a lack efforts to reform organisational practices in ways that would more effectively support the wellbeing of employees and supply chains. This paper contributes to wellbeing management in projects by revealing various wellbeing management practices and examining the enactment of strategic leadership for employee wellbeing in PBFs. It links strategic leadership with employee wellbeing that have not been explicitly connected previously in project management research.

Type: Proceedings paper
Title: Wellbeing management in project-based firms: is strategic leadership the missing piece?
Event: International Research Network on Organizing by Projects
Location: Stockholm
Dates: 11 Jun 2024 - 14 Jun 2024
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
Publisher version: https://www.kth.se/irnop
Language: English
Additional information: This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.
Keywords: employee wellbeing, project worker, strategic leadership, wellbeing management
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10193779
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