ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how individuals are involved as participants within the project initiation process. Based upon insights gained from prior research, there was a presumption that there would be an influence from power, personality and rules in defining how project initiation decisions are made. It presumes that these dimensions had equal stature and would have broadly similar levels of emphasis. In undertaking the research the results revealed very different conceptual implications than had been anticipated at the outset. The relevance of the conceptual model proposed by Smith and winter is that it firmly establishes the role of the project shaper in the project initiation process, and frames that role as one that operates inherently within the social, political and power structures of the organization. In order to evaluate the degree to which their conceptualization of the role of project shaper is appropriate to the project initiation and it will be necessary to establish a firm theoretical foundation.
