Sustainable project management concept development and research directions review

Purpose: The dynamic economic changes in recent years have made the principles of sustainable development gain more and more importance and there is a great need to maintain a balance in the social, environmental, and economic dimensions. This has also been observed in project management, whereby the concept of sustainable project management plays an important role in both practice and science. In recent years, there has been a significant increase in scientific publications on the concept of sustainable project management. The article presents the assumptions of sustainability in a project and the identification of research directions in this area. The study aims to present the results of the literature review and answer the two research questions: which research areas related to sustainable project management dominate the literature and what are the further research directions in the field of sustainable project management? Design/methodology/approach: The study was conducted based on a literature review in the field of sustainable project management and sustainability in project management. Scientific articles indexed in the Scopus database, published before 2022, were used. A keyword analysis was carried out, on the basis of which subject areas related to sustainable project management were distinguished, and the most cited articles were reviewed to extract recommendations for the directions of future research. Findings: The literature review, taking into account sustainable project management, show that project lifecycle, project success, and risk management are dominated research topic in the articles. Further research directions suggested in the literature indicate, inter alia, to extend the scope of research on sustainable project management to different countries and sectors. Originality/value: The literature review is based on the most recent publications. Moreover, in addition to the traditional literature review, keywords were analyzed and other research directions were analyzed, which was rarely seen in publications that focused mainly on the synthesis of conclusions.