|
on Project, Program and Portfolio Management |
| By: | Marie-Alix Deval (CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - Mines Paris - PSL (École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris) - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, ISTEC - Institut supérieur des Sciences, Techniques et Economie Commerciales - ISTEC); Sophie Hooge (CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - Mines Paris - PSL (École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris) - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Benoit Weil (CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - Mines Paris - PSL (École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris) - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | The contemporary transitions of climate change, technology evolution, and social inequality present profound challenges for engineering project management. It requires the coordination of a multitude of stakeholders who are facing diverse forms of unknown ranging from technology robustness to reassuring social expectations about the solutions to develop. In other words, technological managers and experts are witnessing a complex and multifaceted phenomenon, comprising a "messy mix of emergent problems, unintended consequences, cacophonous stakeholders voicing contradictory demands, changing technologies, evolving knowledge, and new and untried business models" (Mahdavian et al., 2021). These are the so-called Grand Challenges (Ferraro, Etzion, & Gehman, 2015; George, Howard-Grenville, Joshi, & Tihanyi, 2016; Ika & Munro, 2022). This study explores how grand challenges impact the nature of unknowns addressed by engineering actors in their project management. To respond to this question, an initial section seeks to comprehend the nature of problems encountered at the inception of engineering projects. To this end, two fields of literature have been crossed - the management of the unknown as a risk in engineering projects versus as a generative resource at the genesis of design activities – resulting in a fine description of unknown' specificity for grand challenges where goals are unclear and consensus lacking. Our results describe how they impact the nature of unknowns addressed by engineering actors in their project management. Firstly, through a historical analysis of innovation projects within a century-old automotive manufacturer, we propose a typology of unknowns addressed by engineers—desirable, undesirable, endogenous, and exogenous—and examine the processes required to manage them, including endogenization and desirabilization. Secondly, we demonstrate that the unknowns generated by grand challenges represent a densification and complexity beyond those traditionally managed by engineering experts, necessitating new knowledge management processes focused on a collaborative elicitation of unknowns diversity and undesirability. From a scientific perspective, this research enriches the understanding of unknowns in design activities and adapts this concept to the context of grand challenges. From a practical perspective, it provides actionable insights for engineering departments to address these unknowns independently, without relying on ecosystemic coordination. |
| Date: | 2025–07–25 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05167270 |
| By: | Sabrina Scherzer (Department of Geography and Social Anthropology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology); Christa Brunnschweiler (Department of Economics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology); Tiara Elgifienda (Universitas Bangka Belitung, Indonesia); Håkon da Silva Hyldmo (Department of Geography and Social Anthropology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology); Nanang Kurniawan (Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia); Paivi Lujala (University of Oulo); Primi Putri (Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia) |
| Abstract: | Mineral producing countries increasingly mandate corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives to mitigate negative impacts of mineral extraction through local development projects, but evidence of their effectiveness is scarce. The Indonesian Program Pengembangan dan Pemberdayaan Masyarakat (PPM) requires mining firms to fund local development projects. However, its effectiveness is limited by low public awareness and governance issues. We run a survey experiment with 610 respondents in 35 tinmining communities to test whether information on the PPM scheme and real-world examples of projects funded through it, presented through two video treatments, enhance knowledge and impact rights perceptions and behavior regarding PPM. Our findings show that a pure information treatment (T1) has a positive impact on respondents’ beliefs that they have a right to benefit from mining revenues but reduces their likelihood of making a donation to an NGO that supports PPM project implementation. Adding examples of successful PPM projects to the information treatment (T2) further strengthens respondents perceptions of their rights to benefit and influence decision-making and also increases the likelihood that they will request more information on PPM and local development, with no impact on actual behavior. We conclude that awareness of such revenue-sharing schemes like PPM could be enhanced with tailored information but whether this would be enough to increase involvement by local communities is uncertain. |
| Keywords: | accountability, Indonesia, tin revenues, survey experiment, information treatment |
| Date: | 2026–06–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nst:samfok:20726 |
| By: | Dumav, Martin |
| Abstract: | We study self-enforcing contracts in a continuous-time Poisson framework, where a risk-neutralagent with limited liability exerts effort to increase the likelihood of success in a good-news project.Dynamic enforcement is irrelevant for contracts aimed at avoiding bad outcomes but importantwhen effort generates positive outcomes. We propose a two-step approach: first, we characterizethe optimal commitment contract under an exogenous bound on the agent's continuation utility;second, we determine the maximal bound the principal can credibly offer to implement the optimalself-enforcing contract. The resulting contract backloads payments and features a terminationthreshold, a partial-bonus threshold, and a full-bonus threshold. Comparative statics show thatself-enforcing contracts more closely approximate the commitment benchmark when projects areeither gradualist—featuring more frequent, smaller successes—or smaller in scale, with lower effortcosts and reduced success payoffs. These patterns imply that, in environments lacking stronginstitutions, ambitious or high-scale projects are unlikely to be unde |
| Keywords: | Self-enforcing contracts; Relational contracting; Dynamic moral hazard; Gradualist and small-scale projects; Institutions; Investment and development |
| JEL: | C73 D24 D82 D86 L14 O43 |
| Date: | 2026–06–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:werepe:50300 |
| By: | R. Paci; A. Pireddu; G. Caruso |
| Abstract: | Activation policies are increasingly expected to address not only labour market exclusion but also broader territorial challenges. This paper investigates LavoRAS, a regional programme introduced in Sardinia (Italy) that combines employment activation with the provision of local public works and services, thereby linking workfare-oriented instruments to place-based development objectives. Drawing on an integrated mixed-methods design—combining administrative evidence on project portfolios and job starts with qualitative insights from interviews and focus groups—we analyse how institutional arrangements and governance capacity shape implementation across territories. The evidence suggests that LavoRAS operated as a place-based policy instrument by mobilising local actors and resources, yet its effects were strongly mediated by administrative capacity and coordination mechanisms. In particular, changes in the governance architecture contributed to the emergence of a "two-speed" implementation pattern, with stronger municipalities and localities capturing more complex projects and opportunities, while weaker areas remained confined to lower-capacity interventions. We argue that activation programmes can contribute to territorial development when embedded in stable multi-level governance and supported by coordination infrastructures; conversely, governance discontinuities risk amplifying spatial inequalities. The paper advances planning and regional policy debates by specifying the institutional mechanisms through which activation measures interact with territorial capital and produce differentiated spatial outcomes. |
| Keywords: | workfare policy, place-based policy, territorial inequalities, regional governance, institutional capacity |
| JEL: | J68 R58 H83 R11 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cns:cnscwp:202609 |
| By: | Murillo Campello; Guilherme Junqueira |
| Abstract: | Do tax subsidies prompt investors to take on risk? We address this question by looking at investors' responses to changes to the Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS) program, which reduces capital gains taxes on startup investing. We do so under a framework in which some startup investors — venture capitalists (VCs) — combine outside funding with incentive-based compensation, while others invest their own funds. Using bunching, triple-differences, and matching designs that exploit industry eligibility, investment vintage, and holding-period requirements, we analyze data from 158 thousand investor–firm pairings over two decades. We identify strategic investment timing, with subsidies prompting bunching at tax-eligible holding-period thresholds. Most notably, when and where tax subsidies apply, VCs shift their project selection toward riskier ventures: they invest more in pre-commercial stage startups, become more likely to provide startups with their initial capital, and invest more in startups with pre-existing debt, while becoming less likely to co-syndicate their investments. Tax-subsidized VC-backed ventures show higher failure rates, but on the flip side, attain higher valuations at exit and are more likely to reach "unicorn status." None of these patterns are observed for comparable non-VC investors in startups exposed to the same tax subsidies. Our tests further show that tax incentives lead to reallocation toward more innovative industries, yielding more impactful patents. Our study is the first to show that tax policy can shift entrepreneurial financing toward riskier, more innovative, and valuable startups. |
| Keywords: | tax policy, venture capital, risk-taking, entrepreneurial financing, innovation |
| JEL: | G24 G23 H25 O31 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12776 |
| By: | Vahideh Manshadi (Yale School of Management, Yale University); Faidra Monachou (Yale School of Management, Yale University); Ilan Morgenstern (Yale School of Management, Yale University) |
| Abstract: | To meet voluntary climate targets, firms often complement internal decarbonization efforts by purchasing carbon credits in the voluntary carbon market (VCM), which finance projects that reduce emissions elsewhere. However, these emissions reductions are difficult to verify, and growing evidence of overcrediting has cast doubt on the VCM's potential to genuinely offset emissions. We investigate how the VCM's defining features shape its climate effectiveness. Our model captures three central elements: adverse selection, as high-quality projects that truly reduce emissions are costlier yet difficult to distinguish from low-quality ones; imperfect third-party certification, as projects are screened based on a noisy signal of quality; and buyer preferences for non-carbon attributes, as some firms value credits that generate observable social or economic co-benefits beyond reducing emissions. We show that the market fails to sustain trade if certification is sufficiently noisy, as quality uncertainty erodes buyer confidence and triggers a market-for-lemons collapse. However, demand for co-benefits can sustain markets that would otherwise collapse. Yet in such cases, the market remains active but yields limited carbon abatement, as most traded credits are low-quality. We then examine policy and market design interventions reflecting recent developments in practice, such as penalizing buyers for greenwashing and offering credit portfolios. We show that these measures can be counterproductive for carbon mitigation if certification remains inaccurate. Accordingly, we demonstrate that the certifier's incentives for accuracy can be strengthened by modifying its fee structure so that its revenue is tied to the market value rather than the volume of credits. |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2536 |