Coping and Constructing: A Narrative Perspective on Project Dynamics

Recent studies on collaborative practices in large infrastructural projects address the importance of discursive strategies and power relations in dynamic project arenas [1]-[3]. This paper focuses on the coping narratives developed by contract team members during the building phase of a large-scale infrastructural project. Coping narratives relate to the management based grand narrative of the project and are produced and shaped in the process of sense making. By analyzing this interaction and the developments in a specific sub-team of a project, which is faced with multiple identity claims, this paper aims to contribute to the knowledge on how policies, views and decisions on an organizational level work out in project teams. The empirical material relates to a recent Dutch Mega-Project regarding the construction of a new sea defense and boulevard in Scheveningen. This paper shows that developments, discourses and decisions on an organizational level are of importance for the commencing coping narratives in project teams.