Construction project management fiction: Individual values

Journal article, 2021

Works of fiction are used in organizational studies for pedagogical purposes and as sources of data. The aim here is to analyse fictional treatments of construction project management, with a focus on project managers’ individual values. Fourteen novels, two short stories and four plays are included. Among the 18+18 individual Rokeach values, imagination, love, ambition, courage and happiness are frequently highlighted by authors. Earlier research on project managers has not shown imagination and love to be important. Studying fiction offers a broader representation of human aspects of project work, such as unethical behaviour, than can be gained from biographies, interviews and questionnaires. Works of literature can be used for more than pedagogical purposes. The relation between project managers’ project commitments and their personal ties outside the project context is a recurring topic in fiction.