Sociological Perspectives and Learning in Projects

This chapter presents an analysis and discussion on the project management literature that encompasses the sociological perspectives and learning perspectives in project teams. The first section of this chapter overviews this project management literature that is primarily targeted towards an audience within the project management field. Given the audience, this section may therefore be considered a view from within the field. Conversely, such literature which is directed primarily towards an audience external to the project management field, and contributes to the views those people have of project management can constitute a perspective on project management from outside the field — as presented in the second section of this chapter. These contrived, high-level literature groupings enable me to discuss with some clarity the diverse project management literature which has relevance to the issues reported on in this book. Furthermore, it is also representative of what is currently occurring in this literature field. That is, there is a steadily increasing volume of literature on the sociological aspects of project management appearing in other, external to the field publications — which are signalling an increasing and diverse interest in project management. Meanwhile, there is also an increasing literature within the field focused on an array of sociological aspects of project management.