Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

www.elsevier.com/locate/ijproman

International Journal of Project Management 26 (2008) 771–772

Guest editorial

Change management and projects

It has long been suggested within the project manage-ment literature that projects and programs are a way oforganizing change within organizations [1]. However, whilesignificant research has been conducted in both the changemanagement and project management literatures, there hasbeen little engagement between the two. To make a start infilling that gap, we plan a special issue of the InternationalJournal of Project Management on Change Managementand Projects. This will be linked to the international projectmanagement conference, happy projects on the topic ‘‘Pro-jects and Change (again)” sponsored by the Projektman-agement Group of the Vienna University of Economicsand Business Administration held in Vienna in June 2009.

1. Change management

Social systems, such as teams, organizations, and socie-ties, change [2]. Permanent organizations, such as compa-nies and profit centres, as well as temporaryorganizations, such as projects and programs, can all besubjected to change.

Levy and Merry [3] offer a development model for orga-nizations which differentiates between ‘‘first order change”

and ‘‘second order change”. The first order change leads toa quantitative, content-related and gradual change, the sec-ond order change, however, is qualitative and sudden. Itleads to a new identity of the considered organization. Sec-ond order changes, which are required because of a discon-tinuous development of the organization, can bedifferentiated in ‘‘Radical New-Positioning” and ‘‘Trans-forming” according to the demand for and the potentialto change (see Fig. 1).

Discontinuities comprise crisis and chances of organiza-tions. Crises can result from a basic shift of the market orfrom a necessary recall campaign of a faulty product.Chances can arise from entering into a strategic alliance,from a merger with another company or as a result ofthe accessibility of new technologies [4].

2. Designing of the change process by projects

Many organizations apply projects for organizingchange. Projects can provide an impetus to overcome resis-

0263-7863/$34.00 � 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.ijproman.2008.09.009

tance, allowing the change to build up a momentum andthey can be used to pilot the change [5].

Different change management models describe differentphases of a change process (for example see [6,7]). The dif-ferentiation of the change types allows the design of specificchange processes and relating selected phases to projects orprograms [8]. Fig. 2 is based on the change process devel-oped by Heitger and Doujak [7] and relates different phasesto possible organization forms.

While the project management practitioner communitysuggests that projects and programs are applied for manag-ing change in organizations [9], the research communityhas been slow to respond. Research has been publishedin the project management literature (for example see[10–12]) but to date there has been very little interaction be-tween the project management and change managementcommunities, and very little recognition in the change man-agement community of the value of project and programmanagement in implementing change. We propose this spe-cial issue of the International Journal of Project Manage-ment to stimulate further debate on the role of projectmanagement in implementing change. The special issue willbe linked to the annual international project managementconference in Austria.

3. The conference, happy projects ‘09: projects and change(again)

The conference will be held on 4th and 5th of June 2009in Vienna, Austria. It is one of a series of conferencesstretching back 25 years. It is hosted by the Projektman-agement Group of the Vienna University of Economicsand Business Administration, and is organized by RolandGareis Consulting. The topic for 2009 is ‘‘Projects andChange (again)”, as organizations not only change oncebut must change again and again.

4. Call for papers

We seek for papers that focus on second order changeand especially discuss the relationship between changemanagement and project management. Papers may includetopics such as

Radical New- Positioning

Transforming

Organizational developement

Organizational learning

low highPotential for change

Demand for change

Second order

First order

low

high

Fig. 1. Change types after Gareis.

Interrupt the routine

Develop a vision, a plan

Make decisions Implement

Conception Pilot Implementation

Working groupor project

Project or program

Further implementations and stabilize success

Project or program

Fig. 2. Design of the change process ‘‘Transforming”.

772 Guest editorial / International Journal of Project Management 26 (2008) 771–772

� Relationship between change management and projectand program management.� Projects and programs for the design of the change

process.� Project and program management for different change

types and change processes.� Relationships between roles in the change process and

project and program roles.� Relationships between interventions in the change pro-

cess and in projects and programs.� Individual and organizational change management com-

petences in project-oriented companies.� HR and change management in the project-oriented

company.

The papers will go through a double blind reviewingprocess. Following the schedule is outlined.

� As a first step we welcome abstracts (800-1000 words) by1st March 2009.� Authors will be notified by 30th March 2009.� The Conference happy projects ’09: Projects and Change

(again) takes place 4th and 5th June 2009.� Full papers are to be submitted by 10th June 2009.� Papers are finally selected for the special issue by 30th

July 2009.

� Authors return revised papers by 30th August 2009.� The papers are published in the IJPM special issue in

November 2009.

If you wish to submit an abstract please send it to Mar-tina.Huemann@wu-wien.ac.at. We are looking forward toreading your work and meeting you at the happy projects’09 conference: projects & change (again) in Vienna.

References

[1] Turner JR, Grude KV, Turloway L, editors. The project manager aschange agent. London: McGraw-Hill; 1996.

[2] Luhmann N. Social system. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press;1995.

[3] Levy A, Merry U. Organizational transformation: approaches,strategies, and theories. New York: Praeger Publisher; 1986.

[4] Gareis R. Change-management and projekte. In: Wald A, editor.Advanced project management. Berlin: Lit Verlag; 2008.

[5] Turner JR, Muller R. On the nature of the project as a temporaryorganization. Int J Project Manage 2003;21:1–8.

[6] Kotter JP. Leading change. Why transformation efforts fail. HarvardBus Rev 1995;52(2):106–14.

[7] Heitger B, Doujak A. Harte Schnitte, neues Wachstum. Die Logik derGefuhle und die Macht der Zahlen im Changemanagement. Vienna:Ueberreuter; 2002.

[8] Gareis R. Happy projects. Vienna: Manz; 2006.[9] Office of Government Commerce, Managing Successful Programmes,

second ed. London: The Stationery Office; 2007.[10] Pellegrinelli S, Partington D, Hemingway C, Mohdzain Z, Shah M.

The importance of context in programme management: an empiricalreview of programme practices. Int J Project Manage 2007;25:41–55.

[11] Lehtonen P, Martinsuo M. Change program initiation: defining andthe program-organization boundary. Int J Project Manage2008;26:21–9.

[12] Johansson S, Lofstrom M, Ohlsson O. Separation or integration? Adilemma when organizing development projects. Int J Project Manage2007;25:457–64.

Guest editorsRoland Gareis

Martina Huemann *

WU-Wien,

Projektmanagement Group,

Franz-Klein Gasse 1,

1190 Vienna,

Austria* Tel.: +43 1 4277 29406

E-mail addresses: Roland.Gareis@wu-wien.ac.at(R. Gareis)

Martina.Huemann@wu-wien.ac.at (M. Huemann)