Key Practices for Incorporating Sustainability in Project Management from the Perspective of Brazilian Professionals

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper presents a study that investigates which sustainability practices are used in project management. The focus was on Brazilian projects.
The paper basically addresses an interesting and important topic by questioning the extent to which sustainability aspects can be taken into account in project management. The focus remains somewhat unclear: is it about the actual process of project implementation or do the considerations refer to the fact that the end result, i.e. the product, fulfils sustainability criteria? Certainly, it is not always possible to clearly separate the two. However, it can be assumed that different methods and instruments are used. Since these are to be evaluated via the study, a clear allocation is needed.
The authors' research is obviously based on a very broad and in-depth literature research and shows the authors' competence in the field.
The study itself appears to be methodologically stringently designed and conducted. Unfortunately, the description of it seems somewhat incomplete. For example, a presentation of the research question and the underlying hypotheses for the study is missing. This is necessary to be able to evaluate and classify findings and results. In the demographic description, it remains open how the respondents were identified. Which sectors should be addressed? I assume that the practices mentioned in the enumeration on pages 5 and 6 are quasi the questions in the questionnaire and were rated by Likert scale. What was the significance of the values (1 and 5 in particular)? The evaluation of the questionnaires is very stringent and good, even if there are gaps, at least in the documentation. For example, it is somewhat unclear where the factors come from. Why these in particular? The results and especially the discussion do not always seem entirely comprehensible. Although the discussion is very detailed and provides a number of interesting insights and findings, the underlying questions do not seem to allow for such a detailed interpretation. For example, the practices only ask which ones are used, but not with what frequency or with what success. This is what the discussion suggests in some places. Can a description of the meaning of the Likert scale or the questionnaire itself as an appendix provide more clarity here? The summary describes that understanding the practices can contribute to sustainable decisions by the project management. Is this further research or concrete result?
In summary, a very interesting study is presented that provides added value for both research and industrial application. However, a clearer and more detailed description of the study design is needed to make better use of the results and findings.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

Dear Reviewer,

Here we are presenting our explanations for the comments received, which we agree with all. We are also attaching a version of the paper with the highlighted changes since we have kept Word in change tracking mode.

We take this opportunity to thank you for the time and effort you have taken to review our paper. The comments received undoubtedly improved the quality and level of the paper understanding.

We hope this new version is more suitable for publication.

Regards,

The authors

 

The comments show a scenario of correlated issues, which we deem important to be clarified in the article. Because of this, we decided to group our explanations to facilitate understanding.

Comments:  The focus remains somewhat unclear: is it about the actual process of project implementation or do the considerations refer to the fact that the end result, i.e. the product, fulfils sustainability criteria? Certainly, it is not always possible to clearly separate the two. However, it can be assumed that different methods and instruments are used. Since these are to be evaluated via the study, a clear allocation is needed. The study itself appears to be methodologically stringently designed and conducted. Unfortunately, the description of it seems somewhat incomplete. For example, a presentation of the research question and the underlying hypotheses for the study is missing. This is necessary to be able to evaluate and classify findings and results. In the demographic description, it remains open how the respondents were identified. Which sectors should be addressed? I assume that the practices mentioned in the enumeration on pages 5 and 6 are quasi the questions in the questionnaire and were rated by Likert scale. What was the significance of the values (1 and 5 in particular)? The evaluation of the questionnaires is very stringent and good, even if there are gaps, at least in the documentation. For example, it is somewhat unclear where the factors come from. Why these in particular? The results and especially the discussion do not always seem entirely comprehensible. Although the discussion is very detailed and provides a number of interesting insights and findings, the underlying questions do not seem to allow for such a detailed interpretation. For example, the practices only ask which ones are used, but not with what frequency or with what success. This is what the discussion suggests in some places. Can a description of the meaning of the Likert scale or the questionnaire itself as an appendix provide more clarity here? The summary describes that understanding the practices can contribute to sustainable decisions by the project management. Is this further research or concrete result?

We agree that we did not inform the text that the research refers to project management processes. We add this information in the Introduction:

“This work contributes to filling this gap by researching the sustainability practices most used in Brazilian project management processes from the perspective of 919 professionals with experience in the field. “

In addition, we expand the introductory part of section 2, “Materials and Methods,” to better contextualize the hypothesis we are working with, the objective and the factors, as follows:

“In this study, we work with the hypothesis that by analyzing the existing correlation between sustainability practices, it is possible to group them into dimensions (factors) that simplify the understanding and analysis of the set of practices. Thus, the main objective of this work is to research these dimensions. Then, project management professionals can use them to direct their efforts to improve the sustainability of project management processes.

The dimensions we researched can be considered latent variables because they cannot be identified directly but through the behavior of observable variables and because they represent manifestations of the reality in which they are inserted. A robust statistical technique widely used to identify latent variables is factor analysis. We use this technique since its main objective is to identify the structure of correlations between several variables and represent them through a set of dimensions (factors) that identify the latent variables that influence respondents' judgment and simplify the understanding and analysis of this set of variables. It makes it possible for the original variables to be replaced by these dimensions, which summarize the reality contextualized by the variables represented by each dimension. Thus, the five factors identified in this work were named according to the reality contextualized by the practices that compose it, being considered key practices for incorporating sustainability in project management. The Results and Discussion section will present and discuss the key practices.

To achieve the objective of this work, we adopted an approach formed by two main steps: A survey of Expert's Opinions and Data analysis.”

Concerning to survey respondents we added the following paragraph:

“To make sure that the respondents were able to participate in the survey, we adopted the strategy of using purposeful sampling, in which the invited professionals would have to be considered by at least one of the authors as capable of meeting only one inclusion criteria: having worked in at least one of the following project activities: planning, monitoring, execution, or inspection. We used email and social networks to invite professionals working in project management, of which 919 participated in the survey.”

In Materials and methods, we also added more information about the questionnaire, mainly regarding the question presented to the respondents and the Likert scale and word clouds:

“We used a questionnaire on an online platform (Google Forms), available for ten weeks, to carry out the survey. Respondents were asked to indicate how often the sustainability practice presented in each questionnaire item was used in project management based on their experience in the projects in which they participated. Thus, the form contained a table in which each line presented a sustainability practice, and the columns contained a five-point Likert scale, ranging from very infrequent to very frequent.”

“We also used word clouds to highlight the main themes represented in the adopted practices. The word cloud is a data visualization technique based on word frequency. Thus, for each key factor, we identified the keywords in the practices they encompassed and the frequency with which they appeared. The list of themes with their respective frequencies was inserted into a data visualization software (PowerBI) to generate the word cloud.”

We also concluded that the final excerpt of the abstract "The key practices can be used by professionals who work in project management to direct their efforts to improve the sustainability of project management processes", does not exactly reflect what the authors wanted to inform. We rewrote the abstract:

“Project management has incorporated sustainability concepts, but their relationship is still widely discussed. In this article, we research key practices for incorporating sustainability in project management from the perspective of 919 Brazilian professionals with experience in the field. We used factor analysis to explore the relationship between 37 sustainability practices. The results showed that these sustainability practices can be grouped into five key practices: Environmental Efficiency, Compliance, Social Responsibility, Continuous Improvement and Lessons Learned, and Project Success. We also used word clouds to highlight the main themes in the practices encompassed by each key practice. The results contribute to project leaders and other project management professionals directing their efforts toward improving sustainability actions related to these practices in project management processes."

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper explores most used sustainability related practices in project management with a focus on Brazilian context. A review of the literature was presented and culminated in the definition of the gap. The method and results are presented and discussed. The paper identifies five categories of practices based on the 919 responses by practitioners in the field.   

The topic of the paper is interesting as there is a lack of operationalisation of sustainability concept within projects in particular (despite some emerging works dealing specifically with this question). The paper contributes towards filling this gap although incorporating sustainability in practice may need further guidance among project managers and professionals at large.

The introduction could be split into a (real) introduction and background literature.

The authors might need to provide further detail on the method, in particular, the questionnaire itself, what exactly were the questions..

The authors might need to discuss the implications of having these categories of practice to decision makers and more generally practitioners in the field.

It might be also interesting to highlight the implication for future research to contribute to incorporate sustainability in projects considering the interdisciplinary nature of this field.

Some more detailed remarks:

·         Section 1, page 3: Yu et al. [52] probably the authors refer to Stanitsas et al. ?

·         Section 2, seems there is redundancy between first and second paragraphs of section 2.2.  

·         Section 3 , how word cloud were generated in terms of rules, minimum frequency…

·         Page 12: “environmental facto”

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

 

Dear Reviewer,

Here we are presenting our explanations for the comments received, which we agree with all. We are also attaching a version of the paper with the highlighted changes since we have kept Word in change tracking mode.

We take this opportunity to thank you for the time and effort required to review our article. The positive and constructive comments and suggestions undoubtedly improved the quality and level of the paper understanding.

We hope this new version is more suitable for publication.

Regards,

The authors

 

Point 1. The introduction could be split into a (real) introduction and background literature.

We created a new section called Literature Review, moved to it the background literature, and incorporated more recent references, mainly from the last five years, to better address the current state of the research field. In the Introduction, we expand the text that summarizes the main contributions of the work.

Point 2. The authors might need to provide further detail on the method, in particular, the questionnaire itself, what exactly were the questions..

We expand the introductory part of section 2, "Materials and Methods," to contextualize better the hypothesis we are working with, the objective, and the factors, as follows:

In this study, we work with the hypothesis that by analyzing the existing correlation between sustainability practices, it is possible to group them into dimensions (factors) that simplify the understanding and analysis of the set of practices. Thus, the main objective of this work is to research these dimensions. Project management professionals can use them to direct their efforts to improve the sustainability of project management processes.

 

“In this study, we work with the hypothesis that by analyzing the existing correlation between sustainability practices, it is possible to group them into dimensions (factors) that simplify the understanding and analysis of the set of practices. Thus, the main objective of this work is to research these dimensions. Then, project management professionals can use them to direct their efforts to improve the sustainability of project management processes.

The dimensions we researched can be considered latent variables because they cannot be identified directly but through the behavior of observable variables and because they represent manifestations of the reality in which they are inserted. A robust statistical technique widely used to identify latent variables is factor analysis. We use this technique since its main objective is to identify the structure of correlations between several variables and represent them through a set of dimensions (factors) that identify the latent variables that influence respondents' judgment and simplify the understanding and analysis of this set of variables. It makes it possible for the original variables to be replaced by these dimensions, which summarize the reality contextualized by the variables represented by each dimension. Thus, the five factors identified in this work were named according to the reality contextualized by the practices that compose it, being considered key practices for incorporating sustainability in project management. The Results and Discussion section will present and discuss the key practices.

To achieve the objective of this work, we adopted an approach formed by two main steps: A survey of Expert's Opinions and Data analysis.”

 

We added more information about the respondent selection process:

 

“To make sure that the respondents were able to participate in the survey, we adopted the strategy of using purposeful sampling, in which the invited professionals would have to be considered by at least one of the authors as capable of meeting only one inclusion criteria: having worked in at least one of the following project activities: planning, monitoring, execution, or inspection. We used email and social networks to invite professionals working in project management, of which 919 participated in the survey.”

 

 

We also added more information about the questionnaire, mainly regarding the question presented to the respondents and the Likert scale:

 

“We used a questionnaire on an online platform (Google Forms), available for ten weeks, to carry out the survey. Respondents were asked to indicate how often the sustainability practice presented in each questionnaire item was used in project management based on their experience in the projects in which they participated. Thus, the form contained a table in which each line presented a sustainability practice, and the columns contained a five-point Likert scale, ranging from very infrequent to very frequent.”

Point 3. The authors might need to discuss the implications of having these categories of practice to decision makers and more generally practitioners in the field.

We add in the Conclusions section:

“This study has practical implications for organizations and project leaders to make sustainability more tangible. Companies can consider the concepts and approaches in-herent in key practices as drivers to improve the mechanisms and criteria to select and manage their portfolio, adding perspectives to develop dimensions to evaluate projects according to their strategy.

For project leaders, key practices can be used to expand the traditional view of project management, focused mainly on time, cost, and scope. By understanding the themes and key factors, leaders can also establish goals (OKRs), processes, and mechanisms to meet the company's and society's demand for more sustainable practices. In addition, key practices can pose new challenges for project managers, especially in developing new skills and competencies. Concerning policymakers, it is also important that public policy and regulatory instruments are developed that encourage the improvement of the sus-tainability of project management processes.”

Point 4. It might be also interesting to highlight the implication for future research to contribute to incorporate sustainability in projects considering the interdisciplinary nature of this field.

We add in the Conclusions section:

 

“We envision some developments for this work. The first concerns the carrying out of new surveys with project management professionals from other countries. It would enable important conclusions about similarities and differences. The second involves the identification of the main competencies and skills that the incorporation of sustainability in project management demands from project managers. Finally, we recommend that new studies be carried out to expand the set of sustainable practices of project management.”

 

Point 5. Some more detailed remarks:

1. a)   Section 1, page 3: Yu et al. [52] probably the authors refer to Stanitsas et al. ?

We made a mistake with the numbering of the references. There are two articles by Yu, whose numbering appears wrong.

2. b) Section 2, seems there is redundancy between first and second paragraphs of section 2.2.  

We fixed this mistake

1. c) Section 3, how word cloud were generated in terms of rules, minimum frequency…

We add in the  Section 2.2.   Data Analysis

“We also used word clouds to highlight the main themes represented in the adopted practices. The word cloud is a data visualization technique based on word frequency. Thus, for each key factor, we identified the keywords in the practices they encompassed and the frequency with which they appeared. The list of themes with their respective frequencies was inserted into a data visualization software (PowerBI) to generate the word cloud.”

1. d) Page 12: "environmental facto"

We fixed some errors in the manuscript. A detailed review will be made at the end of the review process.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comment 1 – General comment:

The manuscript “Most used practices for incorporating sustainability in project management: The case of Brazilian projects” by Ricardo P. F. Ferrarez * , Claudia G. B. do Valle , Jeferson C. Alvarenga , Fabricio da C. Dias , Diego A. V. Calle , André L. A. Guedes , Christine K Chinelli , Assed N. Haddad , Carlos A. P. Soares *, explores a cornerstone of Project Management, investigating the most prevalent sustainability practices in Brazilian projects from the viewpoint of 919 experts with relevant experience in field. The study aims to help Project leaders make sustainability more tangible by comprehending the practices of each of the 24 categories depicted. 

Comment 2:

The introduction (Section 1. Introduction) is sufficiently developed. The authors are placing the study in the broad context (projects management) and highlight why it is relevant, as well as outline the factors underlying the approach of integrating sustainability in project management.

2.1. However, on one hand, although context is already created in the Introduction, background should further be developed. In this framework, and due to the particular content and length of the Introduction section (almost 4 pages), I recommend creating a new section, namely Section 2.  Literature Review.  More recent references should also be taken into consideration (especially from the last 5 years).

Hence, I suggest additional reading, from Sustainability J., that will surely help increase the study’s general impact, taking into consideration the international perspective:

• Toljaga-Nikolić, D.; Todorović, M.; Dobrota, M.; Obradović, T.; Obradović, V. Project Management and Sustainability: Playing Trick or Treat with the Planet. Sustainability 2020, 12, 8619.
• Farcane, N.; Deliu, D.; Bureana, E. A corporate case study: The application of Rokeach’s value system to corporate social responsibility (CSR). Sustainability 2019, 11(23), 6612.
• Apaolaza, U.; Lizarralde, A. Managing Multiple Projects in Uncertain Contexts: A Case Study on the Application of a New Approach Based on the Critical Chain Method. Sustainability 2020, 12, 5999.
• Blak Bernat, G.; Qualharini, E.L.; Castro, M.S. Enhancing Sustainability in Project Management: The Role of Stakeholder Engagement and Knowledge Management in Virtual Team Environments. Sustainability 2023, 15, 4896.
• Lima, B.F.; Neto, J.V.; Santos, R.S.; Caiado, R.G.G. A Socio-Technical Framework for Lean Project Management Implementation towards Sustainable Value in the Digital Transformation Context. Sustainability 2023, 15, 1756. 

Thus, in order to strengthen and improve this study, I advise adding a more comprehensive literature review, respectively more recent bibliographic references. The current state of research field should be reviewed carefully, key publications cited, and controversial and diverging hypotheses highlighted.

Project management oriented to sustainability is a recent and hot topic in the recent years, interest growing in regards to adopting a sustainability perspective in this field. Sustainable Project Management is the managerial practice aiming at pursuing the project objectives by maximizing the economic, social and environmental benefits through the proactive involvement of stakeholders, the consideration of the extended life-cycle of resources, processes and effects and a continuous organizational learning  (Armenia et al., 2019, p. 12).

 

Comment 3:

Regarding the methodology (Section 3. Matherials and Methods), the approach and method, as well as the instruments and techniques are described with sufficient detail so as to allow others to replicate and build on published results.

I would recommend, however, reorganizing the list of the 36 practices listed in Sub-section 2.1. Survey of Expert's (typo!) Opinion, pag 5-6. All 5 categories/pillars/approaches (Environmental efficiency; Compliance; Social Responsibility; Continuous improvement & lessons learned; Project success) should be presented here, from the start.

 

Comment 4:

The paper “Most used practices for incorporating sustainability in project management: The case of Brazilian projects” has valorous contributions and reached valuable conclusions. 

 

Comment 5 – Minor issues:

Please pay attention to topic of words, punctuation marks/paragraphs/spaces, and any other typos and errors. Likewise, please pay attention to MDPI’s Instructions for Authors regarding preparing and presenting the References Section (abbreviated journal name, authors’ names, punctuation marks, etc.).

As regards English language and style, moderate English changes are required – please review and revise the whole text, respectively rephrase some sentences, and ultimately proofread your mansucript.

 

Comment 7 – Final comment:

In conclusion, this study focuses on a very relevant topic, presents a convincing structure and is written relatively fluently, the research methodology being adequate. However, authors are kindly asked to address the amendments, suggestions and recommendations.

 

Good-luck with your paper,

Reviewer

 

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 3 Comments

Dear Reviewer,

Here we are presenting our explanations for the comments received, which we agree with all. We are also attaching a version of the paper with the highlighted changes since we have kept Word in change tracking mode.

We take this opportunity to thank you for the time and effort required to review our article. The positive and constructive comments and suggestions received undoubtedly improved the quality and level of the paper understanding.

We hope this new version is more suitable for publication.

Regards,

The authors

 

 

Point 1. Comment 2: The introduction (Section 1. Introduction) is sufficiently developed. The authors are placing the study in the broad context (projects management) and highlight why it is relevant, as well as outline the factors underlying the approach of integrating sustainability in project management.

2.1. However, on one hand, although context is already created in the Introduction, background should further be developed. In this framework, and due to the particular content and length of the Introduction section (almost 4 pages), I recommend creating a new section, namely Section 2. Literature Review. More recent references should also be taken into consideration (especially from the last 5 years).

Hence, I suggest additional reading, from Sustainability J., that will surely help increase the study's general impact, taking into consideration the international perspective:

• Toljaga-Nikolić, D.; Todorović, M.; Dobrota, M.; Obradović, T.; Obradović, V. Project Management and Sustainability: Playing Trick or Treat with the Planet. Sustainability 2020, 12, 8619.
• Farcane, N.; Deliu, D.; Bureana, E. A corporate case study: The application of Rokeach's value system to corporate social responsibility (CSR). Sustainability 2019, 11(23), 6612.
• Apaolaza, U.; Lizarralde, A. Managing Multiple Projects in Uncertain Contexts: A Case Study on the Application of a New Approach Based on the Critical Chain Method. Sustainability 2020, 12, 5999.
• Blak Bernat, G.; Qualharini, E.L.; Castro, M.S. Enhancing Sustainability in Project Management: The Role of Stakeholder Engagement and Knowledge Management in Virtual Team Environments. Sustainability 2023, 15, 4896.
• Lima, B.F.; Neto, J.V.; Santos, R.S.; Caiado, R.G.G. A Socio-Technical Framework for Lean Project Management Implementation towards Sustainable Value in the Digital Transformation Context. Sustainability 2023, 15, 1756.

Thus, in order to strengthen and improve this study, I advise adding a more comprehensive literature review, respectively more recent bibliographic references. The current state of research field should be reviewed carefully, key publications cited, and controversial and diverging hypotheses highlighted.

 Project management oriented to sustainability is a recent and hot topic in the recent years, interest growing in regards to adopting a sustainability perspective in this field. Sustainable Project Management is the managerial practice aiming at pursuing the project objectives by maximizing the economic, social and environmental benefits through the proactive involvement of stakeholders, the consideration of the extended life-cycle of resources, processes and effects and a continuous organizational learning  (Armenia et al., 2019, p. 12).

 

We created a new section called Literature Review, moved to it the background literature, and incorporated more recent references, mainly from the last five years, to better address the current state of the research field. In the Introduction, we expand the text that summarizes the main contributions of the work.

 

Point 2. Comment 3: Regarding the methodology (Section 3. Matherials and Methods), the approach and method, as well as the instruments and techniques are described with sufficient detail so as to allow others to replicate and build on published results.

I would recommend, however, reorganizing the list of the 36 practices listed in Sub-section 2.1. Survey of Expert's (typo!) Opinion, pag 5-6. All 5 categories/pillars/approaches (Environmental efficiency; Compliance; Social Responsibility; Continuous improvement & lessons learned; Project success) should be presented here, from the start.

We used the approach to present in Section 3, Materials and Methods, the data and procedures used to carry out the work. The 37 practices were presented in section 2.1, Survey of Expert's Opinion, because each of these practices was presented in each item of the questionnaire. Respondents were asked to indicate how often the sustainability practice presented in each questionnaire item was used in project management based on their experience in the projects in which they participated. Thus, the form contained a table in which each line presented a sustainability practice, and the columns contained a five-point Likert scale, ranging from very infrequent to very frequent.

The five factors ((Environmental efficiency; Compliance; Social Responsibility; Continuous improvement & lessons learned; Project success) were obtained through factor analysis. The main objective of factor analysis is to identify the structure of correlations between several variables and represent them through a set of dimensions (factors) that identify the latent variables that influence respondents' judgment and simplify the understanding and analysis of this set of variables. It makes possible for the original variables to be replaced by these dimensions, which summarize the reality contextualized by the variables represented by each dimension. Thus, the factors identified in this work were named according to the reality contextualized by the practices that compose it. The fact that they were not established a priori but instead being the result of using factor analysis caused them to be featured in the "Results and Discussion" section.

However, we have reorganized the list of the 37 practices to appear in the same sequence as in Table 2.

 

Point 3. Comment 4: The paper "Most used practices for incorporating sustainability in project management: The case of Brazilian projects" has valorous contributions and reached valuable conclusions. 

 Thank you very much for your comments.

Point 4. Comment 5 – Minor issues:

Please pay attention to topic of words, punctuation marks/paragraphs/spaces, and any other typos and errors. Likewise, please pay attention to MDPI's Instructions for Authors regarding preparing and presenting the References Section (abbreviated journal name, authors' names, punctuation marks, etc.).

As regards English language and style, moderate English changes are required – please review and revise the whole text, respectively rephrase some sentences, and ultimately proofread your mansucript.

 We fixed some errors. A detailed review will be made at the end of the review process

Point 5. Comment 6 – Final comment:

In conclusion, this study focuses on a very relevant topic, presents a convincing structure and is written relatively fluently, the research methodology being adequate. However, authors are kindly asked to address the amendments, suggestions and recommendations.

 Thank you very much for your comments. We hope this new version is more suitable for publication.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have responded very decisively to the reviewers' comments and suggestions. Especially the comments and suggestions I made were stringently incorporated and implemented. As a result, the paper has clearly gained in maturity, and nothing stands in the way of publication.