Deciphering the black box of organizing for successful external stakeholder engagement in complex inter-organizational projects

Academics and practitioners have characterized external stakeholder engagement as crucial for delivering value and manifold project outcomes to a broad range of project stakeholders. Research on stakeholder management in the project management field provides valuable contributions to external stakeholder engagement, but further work is required to develop a more nuanced understanding about how to organize for successful external stakeholder engagement in the context of complex inter-organizational projects. This study explores what kind of organizing solutions contribute to successful external stakeholder engagement, how and why in complex inter-organizational projects. Our empirical study of two alliance infrastructure projects in Northern Europe offers novel understanding and insights about external stakeholder engagement. Our findings unravel three organizing solutions: governance elements, behavioral and value elements, and dynamism elements that enable the structure, content and timely deployment of successful external stakeholder engagement activities. The present study develops propositions and a static model that entail a mid-range theory about the organizing solutions and their relationships for successful external stakeholder engagement in complex inter-organizational projects, with implications for research in both project stakeholder management and alliance project management.