A Relational Process Perspective on Joint Value Creation With Nonmarket Stakeholders in Unwanted Projects

Abstract

Although nonmarket stakeholders fundamentally shape project performance, their engagement in “unwanted projects”—initiatives perceived by the general public and/or local communities as undesirable due to contested values or negative impacts—remains undertheorized. This editorial advances project studies by establishing a relational process perspective on value creation with nonmarket stakeholders. Rather than viewing stakeholder engagement as a linear delivery mechanism, we argue that it unfolds as an ongoing process of negotiation shaped by contested values, resistance, legitimacy struggles, distributional tensions, and temporality. Drawing on eight contributions in this special issue, we develop a relational process view of unwanted project organizing in which value is continuously cocreated through framing across temporalities, generative conflict, mediative dialogue, sociotechnical mediation, and distributed enfranchisement rather than delivered linearly. Finally, we propose a forward-looking research agenda centered on governing value plurality and temporal dynamics, engaging generative conflict in value creation, cultivating mediate capabilities and internal sensemaking, reconfiguring engagement through sociotechnical infrastructure, and governance of value distribution and stakeholder enfranchisement.