Social Media for Project Management

The number of projects is increasing worldwide as traditional and repetitive tasks are carried out through automation. Projects being temporary and unique while being adopted globally across sectors presents a challenge for the effective management of environmental, economic, and social parameters. Projects are people centric and require the effective management of internal and external stakeholders. In the modern age, social media is seen as a tool that connects people across the world having significant implications on everyone’s daily life. Social media is used for different purposes and encompasses multiple affordances as these are often free and also bring together people from different walks of life who tend to use them differently. However, the role of social media in managing projects is still under explored.

In this edited book, multiple authors working on the application of social media in projects come together to craft an agenda for the future. First, the use of social media for internal stakeholders, such as managers and engineers, are discussed. Following this, the use of social media for external stakeholders, such as communities and project affected persons are discussed. Finally, the guidelines for education using social media and research using social media is discussed. Thus, the book brings together multiple authors to discuss how social media can be used in project settings
to facilitate interactions and strategic conversations across hierarchical levels and geographic boundaries for diverse goals. The book is a valuable resource for all project management academics, researchers and practitioners who are interested in learning about the application of social media in project settings.

Dr Johan Ninan is an Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IIT-G). He did his postdoc from University College London (UCL) and his Ph.D. jointly from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M). He has hands-on experience in the planning and construction of multiple infrastructure megaprojects in India prior to delving into researching the project management complexities surrounding such projects in Australia, the UK, and India.

His research focuses on stakeholder engagement, innovation, coordination, and project organizing with an emphasis on the role of social media and other digital media. He has published in leading project management journals such as International Journal of Project Management, Project Management Journal, Construction Management and Economics, Engineering Project Organization Journal, and many others. He has presented in conferences and workshops in India, USA, Australia, China, and the UK.

He has won the 2020 Global Young Research Award from the International Project Management Association (IPMA), Netherlands and the 2020 paper of the year award from the Association for Project Management (APM), UK. He was also awarded the 2017 Outstanding Student Award by the Engineering Project Organizations Society (EPOS), USA. He was a recipient of the prestigious L&T Built India Scholarship, India and the UTS Presidents Scholarship, Australia.