Scopus Journal Call for paper: International Journal of Managing Projects in Business (Multimodality in Project Studies: Integrating Discourses, Visuals, and Materiality )

Project studies, defined as “an integrating label for the family of studies in, on and around projects” (Geraldi and Söderlund, 2018, p. 57), has revitalized our research community over the past decade, by exhorting scholars to move beyond the classical paradigm rooted in “structured, mechanistic, top-down, system-model-based approaches” and “engineering-focused traditional system-based research” (Blomquist et al., 2010, p. 6). Characterized by inclusivity and cross-fertilization, project studies has led to the increasing appreciation of the socially constructed nature of project governance (Song et al., 2022) including building project capabilities for digital delivery (Lobo and Whyte, 2017), crises (Daood et al., 2024), legitimacy (Song et al., 2025), contracts (Clegg, 2025), the role of social media to influence decision making (Lobo and Abid, 2020), narratives (Ninan et al., 2025), sensemaking (van Marrewijk et al., 2016), and even projects themselves (Floricel and Brunet, 2023), which transcend the metaphors of traditional project management research grounded in a unitary and objectivist view of the world where the strict, sequential, and linear application processes in each stage of project life cycle will lead to a successful project outcome (Clegg and Biygautane, 2025; Clegg et al., 2017). In this sense, narrative, rhetoric, discourses, and texts are not only reflections of inner thoughts but also as potentially formative of institutional reality (Cornelissen et al., 2015). While this socially constructed ontology has significantly extended our understanding (Locatelli et al., 2023), however, it inevitably creates a strong reliance on cognition and language while overshadowing the non-discursive practices and multimodal ensembles in projects (Phillips and Oswick, 2012; Song and Song, 2025).

To be clear, we distinguish “multimodality” from its usage in logistics or transportation (Algaba et al., 2019), where it refers to the integration of diverse ways of transporting goods. Within project studies, and following its roots in management and organization research, we define multimodality as both a social semiotic phenomenon “that all communication integrates a range of meaning-making resources, that is, images, words, sound, etc.” (Höllerer et al., 2019, p. 24), and a practice-based perspective of “situated constellations of parts of practices through which actors accomplish strategy as a social activity” (Knight and Wenzel, 2025, p. 730).

Against this background, a few scholars in general management have illustrated the indispensable role of multimodality in constituting project realities (Orlikowski and Scott, 2008), such as drawings, slides, and sketches, serve as boundary objects that can either galvanize collective decision-making (Garreau et al., 2015) or, conversely, derail collaboration among project partners (Zuzul, 2019). Regrettably, multimodality has received surprisingly short shrift from the existing literature in project management. While upholding to formulaic genres and a language-centric ontology ensures commensurability and intellectual security (Daft and Lewin, 1990), it would be less helpful for breaking out of the epistemological “straitjacket” of traditional project management research (Geraldi et al., 2025). More importantly, multimodality represents a fertile ground for phenomenon-based (Fisher et al., 2021) and emancipatory style of inquiry (Toraldo et al., 2026; Comi et al., 2025). This aligns well with the original ethos of project studies: a commitment to deeply engaging with practitioners’ actualities, questioning established edifices of knowledge, and producing insights that are both reflexive and pragmatic (Geraldi et al., 2021; Geraldi and Söderlund, 2018).

List of Topic Areas

How do visual, material, olfactory, or other sensory elements and resources shape project management and project governance? What affordances are at play?
How do discursive and non-discursive elements interact with one another and jointly contribute to project management?
How do different stakeholders employ these elements to influence decision making, build project capabilities and include largely invisible voices of environmental stakeholders, for instance?
How are power relations enacted and stabilized through the interplay of discourse, bodies, technologies, and material artifacts in project work?
How does the multimodal constitution of project organizing shape temporal experiences such as urgency, delay, rhythm, sequencing, and anticipation?
How are spatial arrangements, physical settings, and digital environments implicated in the accomplishment of coordination and control in projects?
How do multimodal practices constitute professional identities, group belonging, and role boundaries within project organizations?
How are multimodal practices reconfigured during moments of disruption, conflict, or transition in projects?
How can researchers use video ethnography or sensory mapping to capture the unspoken and embodied dynamics of project work that traditional interviews might miss?
In what ways can computational tools like computer vision or automated sentiment analysis of voice recordings enhance our understanding of stakeholder engagement during major project disruptions?
How does the use of nontraditional formats, such as visual essays or graphic narratives, change the way practitioners and scholars conduct project studies?
How to capture and analyze highly personal multimodal data, such as facial expressions or emotional biometrics, within project organizations?

Submissions Information

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Journal Information: Scopus Journal Q2, H-Index 57