Interorganizational Design for Collaborative Governance in Co-Owned Major Projects: An Engaged Scholarship Approach

Abstract

Co-ownership of major projects increases organizational complexity but remains underexplored in project studies. This article examines these complexities, employing an engaged scholarship approach with a group of practitioners facing a significant challenge regarding collaborative governance of a major project. This approach enables us to develop a framework for major projects, which includes four types of collaborative governance mechanism: sensemaking, structural, procedural, and relational. Our work has implications for interorganizational design, suggesting that a project management office (PMO) could play a leadership and integrative role in collaborative governance.