Project Portfolio Management in the Public Service: A Literature Review

Although the NPM begins in the early 1980s, the papers‘ publication distribution shows that the research area of project portfolio management in public sector has the majority of the studies made after 2000, but it does not appear to have any indication of a growing interest in this research area in the recent years. Notwithstanding, there is a peak in the academic publication in years 2006 and 2008. It is also important to note the large quantity of authors and journals were the papers were published and, in all papers, there are only two authors and only five journals that have published more than one study. The journals were from many different research´s fields and, among them, could be highlighted the public sector and governmental research´s field, with 6 journals, and the project management research´s field, with 2 journals. In the papers, the geographical focus is mainly in the developed countries, but there is no correlation between the geographical focus and the methodological approach used. The percentage of each methodological approach in the geographical focus is very similar between the developed or developing countries. portfolio‘s aspects, one of them is that the the R&D project´s portfolio´s has a need to maintain a balance between projects‘ quality and quantity (Litvinchev and López, 2008). However, there is diversity in the projects´ type as agriculture projects (Mulder and Brent, 2006) and academic research projects (Maccari et al, 2015). In the keywords‘ analysis, the most cited words are ―management‖, ―project‖ and ―portfolio‖ that are easily explained by the literature review‘s focus. The word ―governance‖ is well cited due to the important role of the governance in the introduction of the project management in public sector that are pointed by Hansen and Kræmmergaard (2013) and also in the effectiveness of the project management (Heindrickson and Santos, 2014). The governance also affects in the decision process that appears in the analysis in the word ―decision‖. The relation between governance and decision are strong in the public sector due to existence of an administrative area that has a technical decision process and a political area that use their influence to modify the administrative area‘s decision (Fernandez et al, 2006; González, 2003; Nielsen and Pedersen, 2014; Odeck, 2010). Other well cited word is ―requirements‖ that is related with the public sector contractual and legislation requirements that affects the portfolio management (Griffith, 2011; Kulk and Verhoef, 2008).

The project portfolio management in public sector evolves with the NPM and is one of the techniques that went from the private sector to the public sector. Although, this research area doesn‘t appear to have a notable growing trend in the academic studies, many authors and journals had the attention attracted for this research topic, demonstrating the breadth of the topic and its importance. The literature covers developed and developing countries what demonstrate that the project‘s portfolio management are presented and could benefit public sector with different stages of development and managerial skills. Furthermore, the presence of many project‘s portfolio‘s types like R&D, infrastructure and IT projects brings the same idea of the great coverage that the portfolio management has in the public sector. The results of the current study could elucidate the more important topics related with the research area. The decision-making‘s process, techniques and tools seem to be the most researched theme and had the portfolio management as a very close topic, what means that the decision-making and the governance are interdependent of each other and should be Another important topic is the portfolio‘s performance and success measurement. This is a difficult topic even in the private sector and, when analyzed in the public sector, brings even more complexity due to public sectors‘ objectives and stakeholders‘ variety and diversity. Two other important topics are linked with the portfolio‘s performance and success measurement: portfolio‘s risk management and control. The difference in portfolio‘s risk management from private sector to the public sector is the lower risk aversion in the public sector due to the project‘s longer term. Another divergence between the private and public sector in the portfolio management topic is related to the portfolio‘s control that in the public sector is higher because the politic sector has, additionally to the internal control, an external control in all its activities that is accomplished by the citizens. In order to expand this study, the literature review analysis in project portfolio management in public sector can be enlarged with future researches that could be developed using different and more deepen literature review techniques like content analysis.

Anderson, T. E. (2008). Making GIG information assurance better through portfolio management. CrossTalk 21(7): pp. 9-11. Baker, E., S. Solak (2014). Management of energy technology for sustainability: How to fund energy technology research and development. Production and Operations Management 23(3): pp. 348-365. Benjamin, C. O. (1985). Linear Goal-Programming Model For Public-Sector Project Selection. Journal of the Operational Research Society 36(1): pp. 13-23. Bozeman, B., J. Rogers. 2001. Strategic management of government-sponsored R and D portfolios. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 19(3): pp. 413-442. Cáñez, L., M. Garfias. 2006. Portfolio management at the Mexican Petroleum Institute. Research Technology ―2017 Investment Company Fact Book: A Review of Trends and Activities in the Investment Company Industry.‖ Vol.57, www.ici.org_factbook.pdf. Accessed 19 Apr. 2017. Cremers, Martijn, et. al. (2016). ―Indexing and Active Fund Management: International Evidence.‖ Journal of Financial Economics, vol. 120, no. 3, pp. 539-560. articles/does-active-management-pay-new-internationalevidence. Accessed 5 Feb. 2017. Fama, Eugene F., and Kenneth R. French (2010). ―Luck versus Skill in the Cross-Section of Mutual Fund Returns.‖ The Journal of Finance, Vol. 65, No. 5, 2010, pp. 1915-1947.

Professor & HOD, Department of Management Studies, Chaitanya Institute of Science & Technology, Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh