Sustainability in project management literature: main themes, trends and gaps

Abstract

The relationship between project management and sustainable development is rapidly attracting the interest of professionals and academics. It is known that sustainability is an emerging issue both within and outside project management, so it is essential for the advantageous positioning of a project that its management considers aspects of sustainability. The present work was elaborated with the objective of analyzing the evolution of sustainability in the scientific literature about project management over the last ten years, in order to identify the development and relevance of the theme for academia , analyzing the main themes and approaches in this interface, and presenting a panorama, with trends and gaps, that may motivate future research. The methodological approach of a systematic literature review includes bibliometrics and content analysis techniques. The final sample is composed of 155 articles taken from the ISI Web of Science database. The main results indicate that there is a growing interest in sustainability in project management. The following thematic clusters were identified: sustainable project management, ethics, social, natural resource management, infrastructure, energy, and product and process development. In terms of sectors examined, the sample highlights that of civil construction and information technology.

Keywords

• Project Management
• Sustainability
• Sustainable development
• Bibliometric research