The project (management) discourse and its consequences: On vulnerability and unsustainability in project-based work

Cicmil, Svetlana; Lindgren, Monica; Packendorff, Johann

Abstract

© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. In this paper, we examine how the discourses related to project-based work and management are drawn upon in the organising of contemporary work, and the implications they have for project workers. We are interested in how project workers and projectified organisations become vulnerable to decline, decay and exhaustion and why they continue to participate in, and so sustain, projectification processes. The critical perspective taken here, in combination with our empirical material from the ICT sector, surfaces an irreversible decline of the coping capacity of project workers and draws attention to the addictive perception of resilience imposed on and internalised by them as a condition of success and longevity. Under those circumstances, resilience is made sense of and internalised as coping with vulnerability by letting some elements of life being destroyed; thus re-emerging as existentially vulnerable rather than avoiding or resisting the structures and processes that perpetuate vulnerability.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 15, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Mar 21, 2016
• Publication Date: Mar 31, 2016
• Deposit Date: Mar 24, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 21, 2018
• Journal: New Technology, Work and Employment
• Print ISSN: 0268-1072
• Electronic ISSN: 1468-005X
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 31
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 58-76
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/ntwe.12058
• Keywords: critical sustainability, projectification, vulnerability, project-based work, resilience
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/913743
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ntwe.12058
• Additional Information: Additional Information : This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Cicmil, S., Lindgren, M. and Packendorff, J. (2016) The project (management) discourse and its consequences: On vulnerability and un-sustainability in project-based work. New Technology, Work and Employment, 31 (1). pp. 58-76, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ntwe.12058. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.
• Contract Date: Mar 24, 2016