ABSTRACT
This book is about relationships and their management. It is located in the social space of conduct for project businesses and projects. Therefore, it forms part of organizational behaviour, which is how the features of the organization affect the way people work. It also resides at the interface between organizational behaviour and systems integration, where systems are high-level processes drawing together activities to deliver value to customers profitably. Collaboration, integrated teams and forms of relational contracting, for example partnering and supply chain management, have all received a great deal of attention in the management of projects over the last two or more decades. Teamwork, learning, social and psychological contracts and other aspects of organizational behaviour have also received attention. The relationships between people, through which value is created, have been overlooked in comparison to their significance in the performance of projects and their benefits. Success in project management is based more on human factors than on tools and techniques (e.g. Slevin and Pinto, 1986; Pinto and Slevin, 1988; Morris and Pinto, 2004; Pryke and Smyth, 2006). It is the relationships that articulate project teams; the tools and techniques of project management are means. It is the relationships that articulate the interface with the project business, supported by systems with specific procedures. It is the relationships that articulate the interaction with customers and other network organizations.
