Projects and Networks: Understanding Resource Flows and Governance of Temporary Organizations with Quantitative and Qualitative Research Methods

Abstract

Project-based organizing is becoming increasingly common, but projects are challenging for managers because they must coordinate resources, including people and information, under time pressure to achieve a one-off outcome. In this article, we suggest that a network lens is ideal for researching project coordination because it enables the interested party to study the flows of resources and the structures that allow the project to be effectively governed. Both qualitative and quantitative, including graph-theoretic methods for analyzing networks are suitable for examining project network governance and network resource flows. However, governance tends to be studied more with qualitative methods, and resource flows are more commonly researched with social network analysis. The article concludes with considerations regarding multi-method approaches to the study of project networks.