Tensions and Paradoxes in Project Environments

Editors

• Anna Wiewiora, Queensland University of Technology (QUT)
• Jörg Sydow, Freie Universität Berlin
• Josh Keller, University of New South Wales (UNSW)
• Medhanie Gaim, Oslo Metropolitan University

Description

This special issue examines how tensions and paradoxes emerge, interact, and evolve across project environments at multiple levels—individual, team, organizational, and interorganizational. Rather than viewing tensions as problems to eliminate, the issue encourages research that explores how project actors and leaders can navigate, leverage, and productively work with persistent, interdependent contradictory demands that are inherent in complex project work.

The call invites theory-informed contributions that move beyond binary either/or framings to adopt both/and and more-than approaches for understanding tensions. Topics of particular interest include tensions in project learning, sustainability integration, stakeholder management, and the emerging role of algorithmic technologies in project decision-making. The special issue welcomes conceptual, qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method research, with emphasis on longitudinal and comparative designs that capture how tensions evolve over time.

Potential topics

• Individual-level tensions including identity conflicts, leadership styles, and emotional responses of project actors
• Team-level tensions in collaboration, decision-making styles, and balancing competitive and cooperative behaviors
• Organizational and interorganizational tensions arising from embedded projects, strategic duality, and governance systems
• Tensions in complex and megaproject environments with multiple institutional contexts and knowledge domains
• Project learning paradoxes and tensions between knowledge creation, transfer, and performance pressures
• Sustainability tensions between environmental goals and traditional project delivery objectives
• Stakeholder-related tensions including inclusion versus exclusion, cooperation versus competition, and competing narratives
• Tensions involving artificial intelligence and human judgment in project decision-making and knowledge management
• Methodological approaches including longitudinal case studies, comparative designs, action research, and engaged scholarship to capture dynamic nature of tensions