In an increasingly competitive job market, practical experience can be the crucial element that helps graduates stand out. H-FARM College is the higher education arm of H-FARM, a venture builder that has been spreading the culture of digital innovation since 2005. The academic programs and student experience at the college are designed using a blended approach, combining theoretical and practical learning.

Experiential Learning

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are considered particularly vulnerable to crisis situations due to their limited assets and resources as well as their great dependency on local customers. Holistic risk management is critical to the development of resilience in organizations.

This book explores this situation by addressing risk management for SMEs holistically with a focus on continuous learning and the development of dynamic capabilities to increase resilience. It provides a broad overview of crisis/risk situations and their possible treatment in theory and practice discussed from different resilience perspectives.

Featuring contributions from carefully selected experts, this book explores different types of small businesses and sectors to map the diversity and complexity of small business resilience practices. It not only helps SMEs facilitate rapid recovery from crises, but it also helps managers and professionals look to the future of their business with success by providing them with unique comparative research.

Entrepreneurial Resilience, SME Leasing Firms, Gamification-Based Resilience Training, Resilience Maturity Models, Knowledge Risk Management, Organizational Resilience, Small Business Resilience Practices, Business Interruption Insurance

The conceptual shift, from a traditional task perspective and a managerial approach to project risks toward a value-centric view, underlines the challenge of creating different forms of value for multiple project stakeholders. This emerging theme arises the need for a new holistic framework for value creation through Project Risk Management (PRM). With this purpose, the paper aims at deepening the knowledge about PRM for value creation.

A systematic literature review has been conducted, extracting a database of 116 papers. To address the research questions, a descriptive and a content analysis have been performed. The results of a systematic literature review reveal that the value created through PRM includes both economic and intangible (not monetary) benefits. Moreover, even if international standards are giving greater relevance to value creation and protection, considering also the potential positive effects of risks, empirical results show significant discrepancies.

From the analysis of the results, a new theoretical framework emerges that integrates fundamental aspects not fully considered so far, incorporating the concepts of economic, ecological, and social impacts into the notion of value creation through PRM. This work extends the current research in this field and sets forth the definition of a holistic framework to promote the creation of value for project stakeholders in practice, through the management of negative and positive risks, providing a perspective on the sustainability orientation of projects.

Project Risk Management, Value Creation, Systematic Literature Review, Theoretical Framework.

In the supply chain risk management literature, many reviews have been conducted to provide a full understanding of various aspects such as role of simulation and optimization methods in risk management, classification of risks, classification of risk mitigation strategies, and supply chain risk definitions.

However, a structured review of risk impact on performance in supply chains is still lacking. Such a review is useful because the literature implies that maintaining and improving performance in risk environments are critically important to the business survival of firms in supply chains. This review synthesizes and analyses 48 papers published in journals from 2006 to 2020 based on the following criteria: risk type, impact mechanisms of risk (i.e., direct and indirect), performance, research method, research setting, and risk mitigation strategy.

The findings conclude that the impact of risk on performance is complicated and influenced by many factors namely antecedents, mediators, and moderators. This review contributes to the theoretical development of SCRM research through the analysis of SCR impact mechanisms, and indicate gaps of knowledge and future research opportunities. Moreover, it helps managers to devise appropriate risk mitigation strategies thanks to a full understanding of risk impact mechanisms.

Supply chain risk, Supply chain risk management, Supply chain performance, Literature review.

This study aims to empirically investigate the impact of operational risk (i.e. supply, manufacturing and demand risks) on supply chain performance and the moderating role of integration (i.e. supplier, internal and customer integrations) in mitigating the impact of these risks, respectively.

A research framework of hypotheses is tested by structural equation modeling with data collected from the fourth round of the high-performance manufacturing project. It is revealed that manufacturing and demand risks negatively impact operational performance, and more importantly, internal and customer integrations help to reduce the impact of these two risks.

Additionally, the effects of both supply risk and supplier integration are only significant for large firms. Supply chain managers need to appropriately develop the levels of integration to mitigate the adverse impact of operational risk. Operational performance is always threatened by different types of risk that adversely affect the supply, production and demand sides of manufacturing firms. Despite this fact, large-scale data-based empirical research on the impact of operational risk on the performance of supply chains has been scarce. This study aims to fill this literature gap.

Operational performance, Supply chain management, Operational risk, Supply chain integration.

Projects are the main vehicles of innovation and growth and are characterised by inherent uniqueness and uncertainty, particularly in the current complex, dynamic, and highly uncertain business environment.

In most types of organisations, much effort is expended on dealing with risk-related issues in order to ensure project success. For this reason, there is growing interest from both academia and practitioners in Project Risk Management (PRM) as a value generation process for different stakeholder groups, particularly to understand what value can be generated in projects through PRM and how value generation can be improved, while considering contextual factors and the impacts on the individual, organisational, and societal levels.

This study analyses value generation through PRM in a pilot case study in the IT consulting sector. From the analysis of the results, it is possible to grasp preliminary indications on how to promote value generation in projects through PRM; in addition, the integration of ecological and social impacts into the notion of value generation through PRM provides a perspective on the sustainability orientation of projects.

This work contributes to filling a gap in the literature and provides guidance to organisations on how to tailor the PRM system to maximise value generation in projects to different stakeholder groups.

Project risk management, Value generation, Case study.

Projects are initiated to introduce change and manage innovation. Without projects, organizations would become obsolete and unable to cope with today’s competitive business environment (Shenhar et al., 2001).

For this reason, there is a greater emphasis on value generation as the main focus of Project Management (PM), both from an academic and a managerial perspective, and an increasing interest in understanding how uncertainty can be managed to maximize value generation in projects (Winter et al., 2006; Willumsen et al., 2019), while considering the different interests and diverse perspectives of stakeholders (Lepak, Smith and Taylor, 2007).

However, the current complex and dynamic business environment characterised by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity is creating relevant challenges in managing projects (PMI, 2004; Maylor et al., 2006; Shimizu, Park, and Hong, 2012), both for project-based companies and for more traditional process-based companies.

Furthermore, recent directions of international standards on risk management (RM) consider RM as a value generation process (COSO, 2017; ISO 31000, 2018; de Pooter, 2019). In particular, the RM stream applied to projects is called project risk management (PRM); it is a systematic process that implements systems and procedures to identify, analyse, and manage risks in projects (Raz and Michael, 2001). The goal of PRM
is to mitigate the probability of occurrence and the impact of negative risks, as well as to improve the probability of occurrence and the impact of positive risks in the context of projects (Borge, 2002; PMI, 2013).

However, while international standards have been assuming that PRM creates value for project outputs and results, and also other strategic and organizational benefits, empirical literature reports conflicting results (Willumsen et al., 2019), suggesting that they have been performed in diverse contexts, while adopting specific and diverse perspectives and different levels of analysis.

This work presents the results emerging from a case study in the pharmaceutical sector, suggesting new and previously missing aspects of PRM value generation for stakeholders. The results give guidance to organisations on how to improve the generation of value in projects for multiple stakeholders and contribute to fill a gap in the PRM literature, while providing indications about future directions.

Value Generation, Project Management, Project Risk Management, Stakeholder Management, Case Study, Pharmaceutical Sector.

The concept of sustainability is embedded in project management, with sustainable project management (SPM) being used to support organizations in achieving competitive advantage. More precisely, SPM can be defined as “the management of project-orientated change in policies, assets or organisations, with consideration of the economic, social, and environmental impact of the project, its result, and its effect, for now, and for future generations” (Silvius, 2007).

Characteristics of SPM emerging from project outcomes and project management are recognized in (Silvius, 2017): applying triple-bottom-line criteria, that is, the balanced integration of economic, environmental, and social perspectives (Elkington, 1997), in taking a values-based approach to project management, including a stakeholders management approach, and considering projects via a societal perspective.

Despite valuable existing studies focused on specific subjects in SPM, and a few relevant literature reviews summarizing the state of the art of SPM (e.g. Silvius, 2017; Marcelino-Sadaba et al., 2015), an integrated methodology supporting the effective implementation of sustainability in each phase of the project management lifecycle (Martens and Carvalho, 2016), providing activities, tools and practices, and including organizational and cultural issues is still lacking; there are numerous important topics that remain unexplored by scholars.

On this basis, the purpose of this Special Issue is to increase our knowledge of sustainable project management with the aim of highlighting the most promising paths and fostering a systematic development in the field.

Sustainable project management, Stakeholder management, Project value management, Project knowledge management, Portfolio management.

In the context of projects, there is a growing emphasis on value creation, rather than solely on the delivery of products or services, as the main focus of Project Management (PM) (Winter et al., 2006). Particularly, Project Risk Management (PRM) is the stream of RM that deals with the management of risks in projects.

The growing interest in PRM is due to the fact that projects are the main vehicles for innovation and growth, but at the same time they are characterized by inherent uniqueness and uncertainty (PMI, 2004; Maylor et al., 2006), particularly in the current complex, dynamic and highly uncertain business environment. For this reasons, PRM is one of the major approaches implemented by companies to guarantee project success (Elkington and Smallman, 2002), and to foster value creation through the management of risks (Willumsen et al., 2019).

However, while international standards have been assuming that PRM creates value for project outputs and outcomes and provide also other strategic and organizational benefits, on the other side empirical literature reports conflicting results, even when they are compared with the indications provided by international standards and normative literature (Willumsen et al., 2019), suggesting that they have been performed in diverse contexts, while adopting specific and diverse perspectives, and different levels of analysis.

To address the contradictory findings reported in the literature, and to support companies to enhance value creation in projects, this study aims to investigate value creation through PRM testing a holistic framework that has been design to effectively reconcile the diverse perspectives on PRM.

Project Risk Management, Project Management, Value Creation, Case Study.

Given the relevance of project risk management (PRM) for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which need to adopt an efficient and effective methodology coherent with their peculiarities to support their innovation and growth, this research provides a framework derived from systematic literature that could foster the adoption of PRM in SMEs.

It offers an extended and iterative PRM process that includes the strategic selection and evaluation of projects, a flexible a dynamic approach according to the characteristic of the SME and the project, the inclusion of the stakeholders’ perspective, the mitigation of potential bias on risks evaluation, the use of risk clustering to improve project organization, the adoption of systematic and transparent communication to increase awareness on risk exposure, and the integration of Risk Knowledge Management into the PRM process, in order to obtain an enterprise learning process.

Project Risk Management, SMEs, Systematic Literature Review.

Project Risk Management (PRM) is a systematic process that aims to identify and manage risk, implementing systems and procedures to identify, analyse, evaluate and address risks inherent in any project (Raz and Michael, 2001). PRM is one of the major approaches implemented by companies to achieve success in their projects (Elkington and Smallman, 2002).

In recent years PRM is increasingly seen as a value creation process for companies. Indeed, recent directions of ISO 31000: Risk Management and COSO framework (Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission) are giving greater relevance to value creation and protection, changing the traditional focus on adversity and extending the view also to potential positive effects of risks (ISO 31000, 2018; COSO, 2017).

Within these standards, there is a basic and underlying assumption that PRM creates value; however, both standards remain silent concerning any definition or explanation of this value (de Pooter, 2019). Extending the view to the empirical literature on PRM, it can be noticed that value created with PRM is often associated to project outputs and outcomes, increased probability of project success and other strategic and organizational benefits, and value creation is often related to PRM best practices. Nevertheless, empirical results range between extreme opposites, showing significant discrepancies, even when results are compared with standards and normative best-practices (Willumsen et al., 2019).

The purpose of the study is to foster PRM knowledge and to support companies to enhance value capturing from their own projects and the whole organization, in relations to benefits generated through PRM, when compared with the costs of its implementation (what is
value), to project stakeholders’ perceptions and expectations (to whom is valuable), and to which contextual factors affect value creation and capture (where/when value is captured).

Project Risk Management, Project Management, Value Creation, Value Management, Literature Review

Risk management (RM) is a fundamental knowledge area of Project Management (PM), essential to execute a project succesfully and widely discussed in PM guides such as the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMI, 2017). A risk is an uncertain event that, if occurs, will affect positively or negatively the achievement of one or more of the project´s objectives.

RM is adopted to face these threats as well as to pursuit opportunities (Bartlett et al., 2004). The objective of Project Risk Management (PRM) is to systematically identify, analyse, treat and monitor & control project-related risks during the project lifecycle (Borge, 2002; PMI, 2017). Risks and uncertainties are inherent to projects since a project is always unique venture and therefore faces unknown factors (Carvalho & Rabechini, 2015).

The positive effects of PRM have widely been acknowledged in PM literature (de Bakker et al., 2011), but little has been studied in the specific context of SMEs. In Europe, and also specifically in Spain, nine out of ten enterprises are SMEs and they generate two out of every three jobs (European Commission, 2015; Spanish Ministry of Industry, 2018). The PRM studied and developed in large companies, must be adapted to the SMEs, so that they can efficiently implement it, but little attention has been devoted to this purpose so far.

Asking Scopus and Web of Science databases using different combinations of the keywords “risk management”, “SMEs” and “small business”, and excluding proceedings, editorial materials, non-English language papers and non-pertinent articles, the obtained papers were classified into the different RM streams, resulting only six papers about PRM in SMEs. These were all empirical studies, being half of them case studies and the other half model proposals with model testing. The applications regarded specific industrial sectors and, in most of the cases, not all PRM phases or project risk types were considered.

Given the importance of the theme and the abovementioned results, it can be affirmed that there is a significant gap in the literature. To contribute into filling in this gap, the main objective of this research is to analyse how is it possible for SMEs to adopt PRM with a positive cost-benefit ratio. More specifically, PRM phases, activities, tools, techniques, procedures and organizational aspects implemented will be investigated.

Project Management, Risk Management, SMEs, Literature Review.