Managing strategic resources in petroleum industry projects

Abstract This paper seeks to explore how strategic resources in petroleum industry projects are to be best managed and exploited in order to deliver enhanced project performance and sustained business competitiveness. Framed upon the Resource-Based View (‘RBV’) theory, these resources should be ‘Valuable’, ‘Inimitable’, ‘Rare’ and be able to draw on ‘Organisational support’ (‘VIRO’). Qualitative data were collected from petroleum industry organizations operating in the United Arab Emirates and the Sultanate of Oman between 2017 and 2019. The analysis shows that at the project level, ‘Value’ and ‘Organisational support’ attributes of resources were positively related to competitive advantage and both impacted by dynamic capabilities and innovative environment. However, the ‘Rareness’ and ‘Inimitability’ attributes showed less evolution. We also find that at the project level, the main characteristics of organizational resources were that they are ‘Valuable’, ‘Organizationally supported’, and that they could be ‘Uniquely exploited’ while being ‘Readily available’. The results suggest a desire by project-oriented organizations to replace the ‘Rareness’ and ‘Inimitability’ attributes within VIRO with two alternative attributes, namely ‘ Unique exploitation’ and ‘Timely availability’ of resources.


Study context
Our study is being driven by an appreciation that the petroleum industry is facing major economic difficulties driven by a number of external factors including fluctuations in oil prices. Currently, these challenges have been largely driven by oil price disputes between Russia and Saudi Arabia and the Coronavirus disease  pandemic. The implication is that petroleum companies are being challenged to reduce operating and capital budgets associated with their various projects (spanning drilling, exploration, and reservoir management) while at the same time, they are expected to maintain the same level of oil and gas production (at lower cost) in order to shore up profit margins. Thus, for example, over the last three years, Petroleum Development Oman (the major oil production company in the Sultanate of Oman and among the largest in the Arabian Gulf region), has initiated an aggressive US$1.5 billion cost-cutting policy. This initiative has entailed a complete revisit and re-evaluation of not only all its ongoing capital projects but also all projects currently at conceptualization and tender stage (Petroleum Development Oman 2017). Examples of such projects include a 45,000 barrel per day (b/d) gas-to-liquid project to be operated by Royal Dutch Shell PLC, which is currently at the design stage (McQue 2020). An unintended consequence of these cost-cutting initiatives is that the integrity of organizational resources will be interfered with. Yet, some of these resources are not only extremely indispensable to project performance, but also organizational competitiveness.

Resources and the Resource-Based View ('RBV') theory
The Resource-Based View ('RBV') theory is ' … one of the most prominent and powerful theories for understanding organizations' Wright 2011, 1299). It also represents one if not the single most important theory utilized to facilitate understanding of the origins of both superior performance and competitive advantage (Bingham and Eisenhardt 2008). The core thesis of this theory is that to achieve superior performance and ultimately, gain competitive advantage, an organization must maintain 'routines' that are specialized and also 'resources' that are superior and exhibit certain specific attributes. RBV theory is particularly focussed on resources deemed 'strategic' in nature. These are resources deemed to be characterized by specific attributes, namely; 'Valuable', 'Inimitable', 'Rare' and able to draw on 'Organisational support' ('VIRO'). Essentially, the theory posits that while organizations can achieve short-term superior performance and competitive advantage by for example simply focussing on routines which bring about functional differences with other organizations (Prahalad and Hamel 1990;Grant 1991;Mahoney and Pandian 1992;Petrick et al. 1999), long term and sustained performance and competitive advantage requires organizations to effectively and efficiently leverage and exploit relevant strategic resources (see Barney's worksee references below). In this context, 'routines' refers to carefully crafted multi-level actions utilized to achieve a specific objective (see Zimmermann, Raisch, and Birkinshaw 2015). 'Resources' refers to ' … organizational level factors that have the potential to contribute economic benefit' (Galbreath 2005, 980). Barney (1991) on the other hand defines 'resources' as ' … all assets, capabilities, organizational processes, firm attributes, information, knowledge, etc. controlled by a firm that enable the firm to conceive of and implement strategies that improve its efficiency and effectiveness' (101).

RBV theory and project level analysis
Our study is rooted in the premise that RBV theory will serve as an appropriate lens to explore how strategic resources in petroleum industry projects are to be best managed and exploited in order to deliver enhanced project performance and sustained business competitiveness. In particular, we focus on the lack of a clear articulation in the literature of how this macro-problem of performance and competition filters up the organization from the 'project level' to the 'strategic level' and/or 'institutional level'. We do so taking cognizance of the associated tensions flowing from resource heterogeneity. Drawing from Petro et al. (2019Petro et al. ( , 2020, we opine that while the main decisions on strategic resources are made at the strategic or institutional level, due to the susceptibility of core organizational rigidities at this level (as a result of process rigidities), it is at the 'project' level' and not the 'strategic level' and/or 'institutional level' that the accrued benefits from resources are realized. Projects incorporate strategic resources that can provide the umbrella organization a unique position and, accordingly, sustain a competitive advantage over its competitors. In effect, the project becomes a source of competitive advantage for the organization. We will further be arguing that there is a paucity of 'project level' RBV research.
Our focus on resources on the 'project level' is also part of long-standing developments in operations management research which has become more granular and increasingly shifted its focus to 'project level' (this is a long literature, including Buffa 1980;Rolstadas 1994Rolstadas , 1999Bryde 2003;Kavadias 2014;Maylor et al. 2018;Zwikael and Meredith 2018). More specifically, Kavadias (2014) states that ' … we should expect more studies to analyze decisions and phenomena at the project level' (1261). Insights generated from such studies are particularly important in that they are able to facilitate an understanding of the interrelationship between the decisions taken within sub-units of an organization and their associated supporting processes (Bashir et al. 2020).

The research question
A point worth noting is that the problem of ensuring that RBV theory provides the necessary guidance on how performance and competitive success can filter down from the strategic level and institutional level to the project level makes demands for connections to be established between the various levels in a manner which will facilitate resource alignment. Such an understanding is important as it is inevitable that tensions will exist between these different levels (Chandrasekaran, Linderman, and Schroeder 2012), and not managing these tensions is a major source of risk to enhanced project performance and sustained business competitiveness Al-Mazrouie et al. 2020). Organizations will generally consist of different stakeholders which research should not treat as cohesive or homogeneous decision-making units (Ojiako et al. , 2015Chipulu et al. 2019). However, these tensions require management despite the reality that practitioners across different levels of an organization are likely to continue to maintain informal and professional ties that last well beyond the completion of a specific project. With this in mind, we present our research question as: RQ: What are the strategic resources available in projects and how do these strategic resources provide for enhanced project performance and sustained business competitiveness?
To address this question, we structure the remainder of the paper in the following manner. In the next section (section 2), we articulate the key concepts to this study. In Section 3, we review and outline the literature on RBV theory while in Section 4, we discuss how the RBV is applied at the project-level; in the process, we articulate how the macroproblem of performance and competition filters down the organization hierarchy to the project level. Section 5 describes the research methods. Findings are presented in Section 6 while conclusions are drawn in Section 7.

Key concepts
There are a number of key concepts that underlie RBV theory that require our articulation. An example of such a concept is 'project-oriented organisation' which we use to denote companies and business entities where not only is a significant part of their operations organized around projects, but also ' … where project management and, more broadly speaking, project competence is at the heart of their competitive posturing' (S€ oderlund 2005, 453). We define 'Dynamic capabilities', drawing from Teece, Pisano, and Shuen (1997), as ' … the firm's ability to integrate, build, and reconfigure internal and external competences to address rapidly changing environments' (516). In this context, the term 'Dynamic' refers to the capacity of renewing competencies in order to achieve congruence with the changing business environment. The academic literature suggests that 'Dynamic capabilities' are a mediating factor between resources and performance (Wu 2007). Other terms include 'Competitive advantage', which Fahy (2000) defines as ' … an advantage one firm has over a competitor or group of competitors in a given market, strategic group or industry' (96) and 'Sustainability' which is used to reflect the concept of an organization's long-term survival in the market (Cabrer-Borr as and Rico Belda 2018).
The term 'Performance' is ambiguous (Otley 2003). It is a concept not defined by any form of action, but by a process of evaluation and judgement of the consequence of such action. Our reference to 'Project performance' implies both 'effectiveness' and 'efficiency'. Drawing from the literature (see Neely, Gregory, and Platts 1995), 'effectiveness' implies the ability of a project to successfully deliver an output or effect. On the other hand, 'efficiency' implies the ability of a project to deliver outputs without resource waste.
RBV theory posits the 'heterogeneity' of strategic resources, which means that organizations possess different resources and capabilities to compete against each other (Peteraf and Barney 2003). In effect, the way these resources are utilized are different from one organization to another, although they are all competing in the same market or industry. Accordingly, this implies that some organizations are more capable of creating unique strategies and implementing those strategies using unique combinations of resources and capabilities than other organizations (Barney 1995;Barney, Ketchen, and Wright 2011).

Historical development of RBV theory
The antecedents of RBV theory go back to over 70 years ago to Penrose (1959) who stressed the importance of a firm's resources as a factor for its growth. Lippman and Rumelt (1982) added two main concepts to Penrose's (1959) original concept, the 'Inimitability' of resources and 'Causal ambiguity'. Here, 'Inimitability' means that for an organization's resources to lead to competitive advantage, it must be very hard for other firms to copy or replicate. 'Causal ambiguity', on the other hand, means that the complex relationship between the resources exploited by the organization and the performance of the organization cannot be easily understood. RBV theory was shaped later, in the 1980s, although popularised by Barney (1991Barney ( , 1995. In Table 1, we show the historical development of the RBV literature while in Table 2, we show the evolution of RBV theory.

Tangible and intangible resources
Resources can be classed into types. For example, resources can be classed based on their effect on performance ('ordinary' or 'junk') or based on their tangibility ('tangible' or 'intangible'). Thus, for example, Warnier, Weppe, and Lecocq (2013) refers to other resources as 'ordinary', in other words, resources that are ' … perceived by firms as neutral in terms of performance' (see Warnier, Weppe, andLecocq 2013, 1360) and/or as 'junk resources', that is resources ' … perceived as negative in terms of performance' (see Warnier, Weppe, andLecocq 2013, 1360).  Barney (1995) Teece, Pisano, and Shuen (1997) Barney and Clark (2007) What is RBV focussed on The firm is a collection of resources which are needed for the firm growth and it is the heterogeneity of those resources that gives a firm its special character For any organization to have a sustained competitive advantage, the management has to look inside the organization for their unique and strategic resources and capabilities that are valuable, rare, hard and costly to imitate, and then provide the necessary support to exploit them The firm needs to establish a specific characterization of resources and exploit those strategic resources using organizational dynamic capabilities in order to gain sustained competitive advantage A firm can gain a competitive advantage when other competing firms are not able to imitate the benefits of its strategy  Teece, Pisano, and Shuen (1997) The development of RBV The first is a collection of resources added two main concepts to the resource-based theory, which are inimitability of the resources and causal ambiguity The organization should concentrate more on resources compared with products to gain the competitive advantage The firm gained competitive advantage by exploiting rare, valuable, hard to copy resources The firm gained competitive advantage by exploiting rare, valuable, hard to copy resources using unique dynamic capabilities In terms of the 'tangible' and 'intangible' resource categorization, a resource is 'tangible' when it is associated with a physical value (Garcia-Parra et al. 2009). Generally, what is deemed a tangible resource is quite settled and has not attracted much controversy in the literature (Andersen and Kheam 1998). In a project context, tangible assets may refer to, for example, project management bodies of knowledge. The other category of resources are termed 'intangible'. Kristandl and Bontis (2007, 1518-1519, defines intangible resources as ' … strategic firm resources that enable the creation of sustainable value which leads to future potential benefits which are neither appropriable, imitable, substitutable, transferable or tradeable'. Intangible resources come in two forms in that they can be 'assets' or 'competencies' (Hall 1993). Assets are properties with value to an organization while competencies are essentially skills that encompass explicit and implicit knowledge. Resources that are intangible can attract an element of controversy. For example, a review of the literature suggests that intangible assets seem to be associated with different forms of classification (see for example Hall 1992Hall , 1993Teece 1998;Fernandez, Montes, and Vazquez 2000;Kristandl and Bontis 2007). This is despite a view that claims that they cannot be readily observed, isolated or measured (Lev 2007). To other scholars such as Foss et al. (2008), what is distinct about intangibles is not their attributes, but the use they can be put to.
Intangible resources are characterized by three intriguing attributes that make them quite distinct from tangible resources. According to Molloy et al. (2011), these are (i) that they do not reduce, depreciate or degrade as they are being used; thus, for example, skills whatever the extent of use are never reduced, depreciated or degraded (ii) intangible resources can be used simultaneously (iii) their exchange is difficult in that they are not readily separated from their owner.

Key attributes of RBV theory
RBV theory addresses the characteristics needed for a resource to be considered 'strategic' in nature. At a very basic form, this requires resources to be 'Valuable', 'Inimitable', 'Rare', and 'Supported by the organisation' ('VIRO').

Valuable
A resource is 'Valuable' when it enables an organization to achieve lower costs compared with their competitors (De Massis et al. 2018) or when it provides an organization with many other products and services, and furthermore creates rent for the firm (Wang et al. 2016). Resources and capabilities can be designated as valuable if they have the potential to reduce costs, have the effect of acquiring market industry opportunities and neutralize the corresponding threats of other competitors. The amount of value gained depends on how effectively the organization deploys these valuable resources and capabilities to achieve a competitive advantage. The value of a resource can be ascertained in monetary terms. An example in the petroleum industry will be the sale value of an operational asset such as a drilling tool. Using monetary terms to assess value allows the organization in question to follow-up on the value of such resources as they are purchased, used and discarded or sold.

Rare
A 'rare' resource simply means that the organization owns resources that are not commonly available to other players and competitors (Barney 1991;Bowman and Ambrosini 2003). If the resource is common and obtainable by most or all competitors, then competitive advantage cannot be achieved as other competitors can implement similar strategies and accordingly, reducing the firm's unique position in the market (Ashrafi and Mueller 2015). Rareness can mean applying, for example, common resources with rare capability (Newbert 2008). In the petroleum industry, an example of this is the use of the same drilling tool for drilling oil wells, but with different sets of well profiles and tool arrangements. The same goals can be achieved by exploiting the rare resource capability combination, reducing cost and responding to market opportunities and threats. An example of such rare resources are high-quality human resources and skills in the form of cognitive ability. As Wright, McMahan, and McWilliams (1994) observes, as there is a normal distribution of cognitive ability within the population, high-quality human resources and skills in the form of cognitive ability is largely rare. For that reason, organizations with a large talent pool of employees with high cognitive ability levels as against their competitors, possess rare resources.

Inimitable
It is apparent that the firm with 'Valuable' and 'Rare' resources will be placed to gain a competitive advantage (Barney 1995(Barney , 2001a(Barney , 2001bKetchen 2001, Barney, Ketchen, andWright 2011). However, that competitive advantage can only be sustained in the long term if for example competing petroleum companies cannot acquire the same valuable and rare resource(s). In other words, it should be difficult for other firms to copy, replicate or duplicate (Barney 1991). Human resources (people) can serve as an example of inimitability. For example, although a petroleum company with a large talent pool of employees may possess rare resources, competitors may be able to create their own pool of equally able employees. However, such human resources in this instance become imitable under three conditions.
The first is 'Unique historical conditions'. An understanding of the idiosyncratic nature of the attributes of an organization is important to have an imperfectly imitable resource, and the ability of the firm to exploit and acquire resources will depend on their place in time. Academic literature suggests that such performance does not only depend on the economic industry structure at a particular point in time, but also on the path from past history, and how the organization reached this point in time. Therefore, when an organization obtains valuable and rare resources because of its unique path in history, it will be better able to exploit those resources, which cannot be duplicated by other competitors. History thus affects all types of resources and makes them more imperfectly imitable. The second element leading to imperfectly imitable resources is 'Causal ambiguity'. This implies that the relationship between the resources controlled by an organization and the source of competitive advantage is not always understood either by the controlling organization, or by other competing organizations (Kull, Mena, and Korschun 2016). If that relationship is fully understood by the controlling organization, then it is just a matter of time before others will understand it. The third element leading to imperfectly imitable resources is 'Social complexity'. A resource can be imperfectly imitable if it is a socially complex phenomenon, and if the organization cannot manage or influence it in a systematic way (Barney 1991). This makes it difficult for other firms to imitate. Examples of socially complex resources are the interpersonal relationships between managers. Bingham and Eisenhardt (2008) opine that inimitability represents the most significant resource attribute for competitive advantage.

Organizational support
When the resource cannot be replaced by another one that gives the same result then that resource can be deemed 'non-substitutable' (Bowman and Ambrosini 2003). As discussed above, the 'Substitutability' characteristic (the ability of competitors to substitute resources) was adjusted in Barney (1995) and replaced by 'Organisational support characteristics'. This fourth characteristic completed the VIRO framework ('Valuable', 'Imitable', 'Rare' and 'Organisational support') (Barney 1995(Barney , 1999(Barney , 2002. Organizational support means that the firm must be organized to exploit its capabilities and resources in order to gain a competitive advantage (Mathur, Jugdev, and Shing Fung 2014).

Critique of RBV theory
We acknowledge that there is a large body of literature that has criticized the RBV theory of which the recent ones include Nason and Wiklund (2018), Bromiley and Rau (2016) and . One of the main criticisms of RBV theory is that it appears tautological. Priem and Butler (2001a) opined that the theory advances statements with true and valid definitions, but also that those statements cannot be tested. This has led some scholars, such as Kraaijenbrink, Spender, and Groen (2010) to claim that RBV theory cannot meet the criteria for a real theory (Hitt, Xu, and Carnes 2016 disagrees with this). The reality however is that although the RBV is difficult to test, a number of studies have been undertaken, which measure resource heterogeneity and performance (see Ketchen and Bergh 2004;Molloy et al. 2011). Other criticisms of RBV theory is that its fundamental constructs are generally applied without any clear distinction between resources and capabilities (Leiblein 2011) and that its focus is almost exclusively internal (Priem and Butler 2001a), despite the reality that understanding operations requires examining not only its internal environment, but also its external environment and the customer context (Bitran and Lojo 1993;Ojiako, Maguire, and Chipulu 2013). Interestingly, a critique of RBV theory was an explicit topic of interest published as part of a specific exchange of ideas in 2016 (see Bromiley and Rau 2016;Ketokivi 2016), the main emphasis of this forum being to advance points and counterpoints as opposing views on whether the resource-based view was a useful theory within the operations management discipline. Among the main criticisms of RBV theory highlighted within this forum in addition to measurement validity and conceptual clarity concerns (see , as the views expressed by Bromiley and Rau (2016) who argued that RBV theory may not be fit to be used in operations management (and by extension, project management) for three reasons. First, they point out that emphasis on sustained competitive advantage ignores the reality of not only performance variations between various organizations but also the reality that only very few firms actually do sustain competitive advantage. Second, they point out that sustained competitive advantage can be enacted across all levels of an organization meaning that it does not need to be directly transformed into the 'operations level'. Third, the reality that RBV resources maintain VIRO attributes creates measurement challenges, which means that their true value cannot be independently established.

RBV theory and the organization
The literature suggests that organizations can be conceptualized from four different levels, which we refer to in increasing hierarchy as (i) the 'individual level' (ii) the 'project level' (iii) the 'operations level' (iv) the 'strategic level' and/or 'institutional level'. By 'levels', we refer to ' … the hierarchical relationship and attributes of the constituent elements of an organization' (Rousseau 1985, 3-4).
At the lowest level of this hierarchy is the 'individual level'. Drawing from the literature (Petro et al. 2019(Petro et al. , 2020, from a resource perspective, this level is particularly concerned with the decisions of specific practitioners/managers. More specifically, the 'individual level' is interested in how specific actors are able to acquire, mobilize, organize, integrate, develop, rearrange, manage and deploy the entire spectrum of an organizations assets, competencies and capabilities in a manner that is able to ensure project performance and cope with changes in the business and competitive environment in a manner that ensures competitive advantage. Aligned to this is the view that project performance is to an extent driven by the behaviour and decisions of individual stakeholders such as clients (Lim and Ling 2002;Ojiako et al. 2015;Chipulu et al. 2019) and project managers (Turner and M€ uller 2005;Dvir, Sadeh, and Malach-Pines 2006;M€ uller and Turner 2007;Malach-Pines, Dvir, and Sadeh 2009;Ojiako et al. 2015;Chipulu et al. 2019;Akkermans et al. 2020).
Next is the 'project level'. Reference to 'project level' implies the scope of activities undertaken during and within projects. It is at this level that strategy is orchestrated (Chipulu et al. 2016;Kopmann et al. 2017;Maylor et al. 2018;Midler, Maniak, and de Campigneulles 2019) and value created by organizations (Parvan, Rahmandad, and Haghani 2015). Projects are the ideal means of delivering strategies in that they are the primary conduit for acquiring, integrating, developing, re-arranging and deploying the entire spectrum of an organizations assets, competencies and capabilities (Narayanan andDeFillippi 2012, Turner andLee-Kelley 2013;Turner, Maylor, and Swart 2015;Petro et al. 2019Petro et al. , 2020. The relationship between the 'project level' and the 'strategic level' is best articulated by Longman and Mullins (2004) who state that ' … any strategy session that is worth its salt ultimately distils vision [statements] into critical business issues, and if the organization is really serious, these issues get distilled into projects' (54). Most if not all projects will involve cross-functional, multi-disciplinary and heterogeneous teams, which are temporary and ephemeral in nature Samson 2008, 2009). Projects are however under considerable pressures due to resource constraints and the reality that project managers have minimum if not no control over most members of the project delivery team. This comes about because decisions on the utilization of resources are primarily taken and enacted at a higher level than the project despite the reality that any accrued benefit from resources can only be realized by its very use at the level of individual projects (Morris and Geraldi 2011) and supported by specific project management methodologies and processes (Mathur, Jugdev, and Shing Fung 2013). Projects have become the prevalent means of organizing firm operations (see Jensen, Thuesen, and Geraldi 2016;Schoper et al. 2018). Davies and Brady (2000) focus on how projects have shifted from the delivery of one-off requirements to become operational ' … economies of repetition' (931).
The 'operations level' is the level at which ' … the necessary platform for resources common to the strategic and project level to be shared' (Petro et al. 2019, 9). Interestingly, Morris and Geraldi (2011) combines the project and operations level into one categorynamed the 'technical level', which they espouse as being primarily focussed on output and outcome delivery. Cooper and Budd (2007) however refer to this category as 'project operations'. They state that ' … project operations are responsible for fulfilling customer expectations with respect to project success criteria, setting up the company for repeat business, and enhanced performance reputation' (175). The idea of 'project operations' was taken forward by Al-Mazrouie et al. (2020) in the form of an extended project life-cycle. However, they highlight the potential for 'disastrous openings' of such projects due to the discontinuities that exist between the 'project' and 'operations' stage of such endeavours.
It is at the 'strategic level' that an organization seeks to develop the novelty and leverage opportunities required for creating competitive advantage (however, such novelty and opportunities can only be utilized at the project level using appropriate project management processes). Majority if not all decisions on the utilization of resources are primarily enacted at the strategic level (through portfoliossee Meskendahl 2010; Martinsuo 2013; Kopmann et al. 2017), although its realization occurs at the project level (Petro et al. 2019). Morris and Geraldi (2011) observe that it is at this level that the conditions for supporting projects (both those with internal focus and those with an external focus are established. Resource leveraging at the strategic level is however susceptible to considerable risks. This risk factor exists because strategic level processes can easily become extremely rigid, thus serving as a major risk factor to strategic innovation (see Gagnon 1999).

RBV theory in project management literature
Projects incorporate strategic resources that can provide the umbrella organization a unique position and, accordingly, sustain a competitive advantage over its competitors. In effect, the project becomes a source of competitive advantage for the organization. A review of the literature points to a number of studies that have sought to situate RBV theory within project management scholarship (Jugdev 2004;Fung 2007, 2019;Jugdev and Mathur 2006;Shing Fung 2007, 2013;Killen et al. 2012;Mathur, Jugdev, and Shing Fung 2013;Govan and Damnjanovic 2016;Perkins, Mathur, and Jugdev 2019). For example, in a series of studies focussed on exploring the relationship between project management resources and project performance, Mathur, Jugdev, and Shing Fung (2007, 2013 found evidence to suggests the existence of relationships between strategic assets (resources) and positive project and firm-level performance. Over the years, other studies have followed. These include Killen et al. (2012) who argued that project management, by itself, can be viewed as a strategic organizational capability which can lead an organization to sustain competitive advantage, Ghapanchi, Wohlin, and Aurum (2014) who sought to identify the necessary resources required for competitive advantage for projects. In sum, the application of RBV theory in project management scholarship is developing, however, it is arguable still not mature, especially in empirical type of research.

Methods
We show in Figure 1, a roadmap of the research method employed in the study. The roadmap is adapted from Ojiako, Maguire, and Chipulu (2013). The purpose of the research has been established as to explore to explore how strategic resources are to be best managed and exploited in order deliver enhanced project performance and sustained business competitiveness; and the Research Question as 'What are the strategic resources available in projects and how do these strategic resources provide for enhanced project performance and sustained business competitiveness?'.

Philosophical stance
The focus of our study has been on the management and exploitation of resources to enhance project performance and sustenance of businesses operations (a social activity). Boyer and Swink (2008) had earlier observed that,' … the study of operations management is a social science' (339), a view widely shared in project management circles (see Cicmil et al. 2006;Blomquist et al. 2010). For these reasons, our study adopts a philosophical stance, which is consistent with 'social constructivism' (Burr 1995;Adams 2006). At its very basic, 'social constructionism' opines that truths are created as against discovered (Burr 1995), that there are thus many truths that all differ based on the individual viewpoint of different actors and that these truths are highly influenced by their social context. The implication of this is that a researcher must be disposed to provide explanations for phenomena within a specific context. In our study, this localized context is the petroleum industry.

Research approach
Traditionally, there had been a strong presence and dominance of quantitative approaches in operations management research that has traditionally focussed on ' … developing a deeper mathematical foundation and understanding' (Fisher 2007, 368), through ' … mathematical modeling aimed at sharply defined problems' (Narasimhan 2014, 201). However, as operations management research has begun to broaden its scope beyond its traditional areas of production efficiency and performance to areas of research including strategic competitiveness, operations management research has increasingly become interested in empirical research of a qualitative nature (see McCutcheon and Meredith 1993;Meredith 1998;Barratt, Choi, and Li 2011;DeHoratius and Rabinovich 2011;Ketokivi and Choi 2014;Narasimhan 2014;Soltani et al. 2014). The reason being that with its associated emphasis on context, operations management research is increasingly being able to address questions that varyingly focus on 'What is there?', 'What are the key issues', and 'What is happening'all questions which Handfield and Melnyk (1998, 324) opined are best addressed utilizing non-statistical modelling approaches such as interviews. There are three other why the use of qualitative approaches in operations management research is on the increase. First, qualitative approaches represent the best means of understanding the dynamics of various inter and intra organizational interfaces. This means that the use of qualitative research approaches is likely to best contribute to the development of operations management theory and practice. Second, the increasing use of qualitative research approaches in operations management research represents a critical means of reinforcing the empirical foundations of the discipline (Soltani et al. 2014). This opinion is also reinforced by Barratt, Choi, and Li (2011) and Ketokivi and Choi (2014). Third, qualitative approaches appear more suitable for operations management studies that are focussed on not only current phenomena (Roth and Rosenzweig 2020), but also the intersection of its various functions (Flynn, Sakakibara, and Schroeder 1995;Joshi, Kathuria, and Porth 2003;Pagell 2004;Mahapatra, Narasimhan, and Barbieri 2010;Parry, Mills, and Turner 2010).

The study
The study consisted of (i) a number of focus groups to ensure the questions were appropriate and were giving useful information and (ii) multiple exploratory semi-structured interviews (Appendix A). For this part of the study, the unit of analysis emphasized the daily decisions of the interviewees as articulated by their daily routines as project management practitioners. The qualitative study allowed us to first, focus us on not only exploring the availability and identification of the strategic project resources, second, to establish how project strategic resources and capabilities provide a competitive advantage and sustained competitive advantage, and thirdly, to explore how RBV theory and dynamic capabilities may be best understood at the project level. In Table 3 (below), we show the summary of data collection.

The sample
All data were collected from practitioners associated with project-oriented petroleum organizations in the United Arab Emirates and the Sultanate of Oman. As in Chipulu et al. (2014), the participants (interviewees and questionnaire respondents), were identified and recruited to participate in the study through extensive professional networks within both countries by the authors.
To ensure that we did not inadvertently end up with themes, which were unrepresentative, the interviewees were drawn from a mixture of management hierarchies within their organizations (aligned to our earlier delineated organization hierarchy of project, operations and strategic level). Drawing our data from a wide selection of interviewees also  allowed for the gathering of valuable insights into RBV theory consequences stemming from the complex project delivery expectations of various stakeholder groups. Based on Marshall et al. (2013), for a single case study, the recommended number of interviews should be between 15 and 30. We did not glean any further significant in our study after 20 interviews and report only on these.

Countries of focus
Our choice of the United Arab Emirates and the Sultanate of Oman (as to focus on the imperatives of managing strategic resources in petroleum industry projects) comes from the strategic role of the petroleum industry in both countries. For example, the Sultanate of Oman has petroleum reserves of about 5.5 billion barrels of oil. In effect, the country currently holds the 25th largest oil reserve in the world. On the other hand, the United Arab Emirates has almost 98 billion barrels of oil reserves (Arabianindustry 2019). Both countries are known to commission large projects in the oil and gas area (Al Riyami 2019; Sen 2019). Mindful that our study was not interested in gleaning national cultural cues as had been the case in Chipulu et al. (2014), the entire study was undertaken in English, despite the study being undertaken in the United Arab Emirates and the Sultanate of Oman, two countries where Arabic is the official language. This approach was deemed feasible for despite Arabic being their official language, English is the unofficial business language in both countries.

Piloting
The first stage of the qualitative study involved piloting. We conducted two single interviews and a focus group. A focus group in the form of a group interview was undertaken (Kitzinger 1994;Powell and Single 1996). One advantage of this approach to data gathering is that it has the ability to facilitate increased communication between the participants of a study and in the process, leading to enhanced generation of data, which is relevant (Merton, Fisk, and Kendall 1956). Kitzinger (1995) opines that focus groups are a very useful means of undertaking research where the focus of such study is to examine ' … not only what people think but how they think and why they think that way' (299). Based on the literature, each focus group consisted of six participants. We note that Oates (2000) had recommended between six and ten participants while Halcomb et al. (2007) had recommended that the number of focus groups to be undertaken within comparative studies was between three and four.  Tables 3 and 4, the total number of focus groups are three: one pilot and two more; and there are a total of twenty interviews.

The interviews
We commenced with the qualitative interviews (shown in Table 5).
The interview protocol employed involved eight questions (Table 6), which were drawn from the RBV literature. More specifically, we designed the questions in a way that could meaningfully surface the individual professional experiences of the interviewees. This stage of the study adopted Kvale's (1994) model of interviewing of which there are seven stages, namely: (i) structuring the questions into themes, (ii) designing, (iii) interviewing, (iv) transcribing, (v) analyzing, (vi) verifying and (vii) reporting. In reporting the interviews, we were particularly mindful that in the words of van den Hoonaard (2003), ' … the onus is on the researcher to acknowledge that the likelihood of tearing the veil of anonymity is a real possibility. To that end, the researcher must incorporate all known devices to maintain anonymity in the research and publication' (149). Bearing this in mind, the authors were particularly mindful of the significant ethical obligation with regard to our ethical obligations not to strip away the veil of anonymity of interviewees (and questionnaire respondents). This is especially as clearly as indicated above; the academic literature does acknowledge that quotes may lead to loss of anonymity. This is because every person can ultimately be identifiable in published research by a ' … unique set of expressions and experiences that set him or her off from other human beings' (van den Hoonaard 2003, 145). It is based on this reason and consideration of the potential failure of our ethical obligations and loss of reputation that we had minimized the use of direct verbatim quotations from the interviewees.
For the Sultanate of Oman interviews, almost half of the interviewees were drawn from one petroleum organization. There were two reasons. The first is that the organization in question is the largest (and oldest) oil and gas provider in the country. The second reason is that project management practice within the organization is in a very mature state.

Analysis
Data analysis was undertaken by utilizing NVivo. This provided for a much more robust understanding of various interrelationships and data strings within the study (see Leech and Onwuegbuzie 2011). The NVivo analysis commenced with our development (articulation) of parent nodes, which were founded upon individual interview questions. We next created sub-categories against each of these nodes in order to symbolize the primary areas deliberated using terminology employed by the various interviewees. As an example, we first created a node, which was termed 'Currently available strategic resources and capabilities that provide competitive advantage'. Against this, we created subtopics, which were in effect, sub-questions to the main research questions. For example, against the first node, we created a sub-topic that included 'Definition of strategic valuable resources' and 'Strategic resource that have necessary organisational support'. From the transcribed interview records, the individual responses of each interviewee were then axially coded (see Gorra and Kornilaki 2010) by the first and second. Coding at this stage was undertaken separately. At the point, a theme was identified and then developed via returned forms sent to the third author. A range of standard codes was then agreed upon and applied against all remaining forms. When disagreements are ensured, the code to be adopted was made by the third author. Iteratively, we then identified themes that were emerging by establishing links with each topic based on our interpretation of how it related to other topics. In a number of cases, we undertook to reverse specific topics, especially on the occasion that on the second reading of a transcript, it was felt that our initial topic was incorrect.
6. The findings 6.1. Strategic resource availability in projects 6.1.1. Strategic resources availability in projects: the valuable attribute Interviewee definitions of 'valuable' ranged from claims that everything was valuable to more specifics, reiterating that project manager, talented employee or visionary leader were valuable resources. In between those two answers, almost all agreed that human resources were their number one valuable resource. However, they appeared to have different views on what capabilities that valuable resource should have. A number of the interviewees suggested that resources were always related to the project. A number of the views expressed by the interviewees' suggested that: Valuable resources are the ones that brings positive outcome and results when used correctly. And their impact is noticeable However, few gave a clear definition of what a valuable resource actually was. Three themes could be seen evolving from the interviews with most of the interviewees pointing to not only human resources as valuable in projects, but also physical and financial resources. Our observation was that however, most interviewees opined that human resources were the most strategic and valuable relied on the idea that, for example, other resources were easier to obtain than human: … so, projects can have the needed budget and physical resource but what differentiate one successful project from a failed one is the people.
Well, if we look around there are not much of strategic resources like human, people are the only force you may call strategic from my point of view, so that comes first, all other resources are actually managed by human to achieve his/her goals We however acknowledge that in addition to human resources, there were other resources interviewees reported as valuable. For example, one interviewee pointed out that: 'talented humans and the process to develop them', access to financial cash flow from the shareholders, an office, 'people, facility, experience, ability of mobilizing resources', and 'Culture, the positive environment in the organization and the good relation between the team … Government support, the company and employees feels safe about future'.
In Table 7, we show the strategic valuable resources that formed the main themes of the interviewees' responses against support for these themes in the literature.

Strategic resources availability in projects: the rare attribute
We then investigated whether 'rare' resources exist, and what could be a good example of such resources in projects.
Interviewees' answers had a wide range. Responses can be separated into three main streams. First, some interviewees agreed that rare resources existed and gave real examples; talented project managers, employee development programmes and good cost estimators. Second (the majority), interviewees who agreed with the idea that rare resources existed, but only under certain conditions, such as highly  technical staff with particular experience was a very specific area. Third, some interviewees were of the opinion that all necessary resources were available to them and their competitors, and there were actually no rare resources. Table 8 summarises the rare resources in projects that were cited, in order of the frequency of response.

Strategic resources availability in projects: the inimitable attribute
According to RBV theory, one of the characteristics of strategic resources is inimitability, the difficulty of competitors in copying a resource. Responses from the interviewees were in two groups: one in which interviewees did not think that there were resources that could be copied, the second either accepted that resources could be copied, albeit only a few, and others were not really sure or did not give a clear answer in this regard. Some suggested human strategic resources could not be copied, because a good project practitioner (for example) had different skills and experience that made him unique. Three interviewees suggested that it was not possible that that experience could be copied. One interviewee wondered whether the process their organization followed to execute projects was inimitable, and three others shared the exact same view, stating that the method of doing projects in their organization was unique and could not be copied. For one interviewee, the only resource that could be copied was the physical resource, and even that could be executed differently by different parties, so saying ' … completely copied' was not accurate. Four interviewees stressed their organization's uniqueness in developing people, meaning that human resources could not be copied (reiterating the notion of inimitability in experience). To The access to financial cash flow Laursen and Svejvig 2016) 4 The process to select and develop talented human resources Kunc and Morecroft (2010)  5 The ability to exploit resources Wilden et al. (2018) 6 Positive culture that motivates, supports and keeps human resources Barney, Ketchen, and Wright (2011) 7 Project manager/Director/Leader Jugdev, 2004;Zwikael and Meredith (2018)  No. Strategic rare resources in projects 1 Skilled, talented and capable cost estimator that fits the project 2 Well defined project control system, including IT/logistics 3 The way of executing communication 4 The process to select and develop talented human resources 5 Skilled, talented and capable project leader who fits the project Table 9. Inimitable resources in projects.
No. Strategic inimitable resources in projects 1 Skilled, talented and capable human that fits the project 2 The process of tendering and executing projects 3 The process of selecting and developing talented human resources summarise, Table 9 shows the strategic inimitable resources that emerged from the interviews.

Strategic resources availability in projects: the organizational support attribute
One question raised during the interviews was about the level of support that project resources received from top management. Organizational support is one of the characteristics that strategic resources should have to be a source of competitive advantage. Perhaps not surprisingly, all interviewees suggested that top management support was mandatory for resources. Differences among the interviewees only seemed to appear in terms of the method or type of support.

Strategic resources and competitive advantage in projects
In terms of how strategic resources provided for competitive advantage, responses from the interviewees showed an emphasis on human resources providing for strategic use and competitive advantage. For example, an interviewee suggested the very high financial consequences from the absence of strategic resources, namely the right people. However, another, while agreeing, stressed the high impact that a physical resource might have positively or negatively, and gave an example in that regard, in which the scope needed for completion with the necessary quality was due to the presence of the strategic resource. We expect that strategic resources will potentially drive sustained competitive advantage for organizations although dependent to an extent on the nature of the business and/or more specifically, operational environment. The interviewees appeared to accept that strategic resources were likely to lead to competitive advantage in projects in that their availability was likely to enhance the project sense-making ability. More specifically, the presence of strategic resources was likely to enhance project control and monitoring capabilities through the de-centralization (which allowed for more flexible and quicker action).

Discussion
The findings do bring to the surface a number of factors that enables us to understand how framed upon the RBV, project-oriented organizations in the petroleum sector are able to manage and exploit their strategic resources for improved project performance and sustenance of businesses operations.
In terms of establishing the strategic resources available in projects, the first resource characteristic we explored was 'Valuable'. The interviewee's responses suggest strongly that the valuable resource was the main characteristic of resources considered as strategic. Of these, human resources were the most valuable resources to have in any project. This position is widely acknowledged in academic literature. For example, various studies have identified human and related factors (including project team management) as critical factors for project success (see, for example, Chan, Scott, and Chan 2004;Belout and Gauvreau 2004;Scott-Young and Samson 2008;Ojiako, Johansen, and Greenwood 2008;Chipulu et al. 2016Chipulu et al. , 2019. Interestingly, by the interviewees focussing their discussion on the time, cost, and quality factor, it will appear that this notion of project success, while arguably project management scholarship has moved beyond (Shenhar et al. 2001;Chipulu et al. 2019), still holds reverence among project management practitioners. Despite this being the case, it is important that we acknowledge that the literature does emphasize that the valuable resource by itself does not necessarily give a competitive advantage (Baia, Ferreira, and Rodrigues 2020). Instead, it is the capabilities of the individual and the organization when used in a unique way can exploit the valuable resource, leading to competitive advantage and better project results in this case. Any valuable resource should be combined with capabilities (Ying, Hassan, and Ahmad 2019) and exploited at the right time and phase of a project to bring the expected results, and, in many cases, outstanding performance and innovative ideas.
The second resource characteristic we had explored was 'Rare'. Our findings suggested minimal or no support for the notion of a rareness characteristic being mandatory for strategic resource characteristics. In effect, our findings pointed to a view that there was no such thing as a rare project resource (or even the existence of one did not support a view that it will be so for long duration). Resource by itself was not necessarily rare in projects, however, some resources when exploited could make an impact on project outcomes. The implication of this finding is that in projects, rareness was not necessarily related to the resource itself. If a resource were to make a significant impact on project outcomes, rareness would relate to the manner within which the resource was being exploited. For these reasons, rareness was mainly related to the process, system and method of project execution as against the specific resources or 'items' utilized in project execution. In effect, what may be important for a project in terms of its strategic resources is the way and manner within which resources are exploited. Rare resources by themselves may not contribute much to project performance. Instead, it is the unique means by which resources are exploited that result in rareness, bringing about enhanced project performance, and accordingly competitive advantage (Baia, Ferreira, and Rodrigues 2020).
The third resource characteristic we had explored was 'Inimitable'. We had earlier pointed to this resource characteristic being of three elements, namely (i) 'Unique historical conditions' (ii) 'Causal ambiguity' and (iii) 'Social complexity'. In effect, the ability of an organization to use and exploit resources will depend (i) on its place in time and space, (ii) on causal ambiguity, meaning that the relationship between the uncopied resource and competitive advantage is not known, and (ii) on the resource creating a socially complex phenomenon, which competing organizations have difficulty in imitating. Interviewees agreed inimitability was another valid characteristic. The majority of the interviewees had construed their resources (especially, human resources), as largely being inimitable, focussing as had been alluded in prior literature (see Ying, Hassan, and Ahmad 2019), on preferred skills, capabilities, and tacit knowledge as the determinants of this resource characteristic. In line with prior literature, we had also found that inimitability was not necessarily only a characteristic of the resource in question, but was more or less, a consequence of the 'capabilities' of that specific and/or individual resource (Schoemaker, Heaton, and Teece 2018). In effect, a reference to a resource being inimitable suggested the need for such an assessment to be undertaken with capabilities in mind (Katkalo, Pitelis, and Teece 2010). Earlier, we had asserted that dynamic capabilities resources alone cannot bring competitive advantage; likewise, drawing from Ambrosini and Bowman (2009), inimitable capabilities alone are unlikely to automatically provide for 'Effectiveness' and 'Efficiency' in project performance. Such performance we opine will require 'unique exploitation which we construe as meaning that the project resource will have the necessary capabilities and organizational support to be exploited at the right time and for the right purpose.
The fourth resource characteristic we addressed was 'Organizationally supported'. Drawing from the literature, it will be expected that the organization will provide support in a number of areas including in providing the conducive culture, processes (procedures) and structures (control mechanisms) for its resources to be appropriately exploited (Wiengarten et al. 2013;Bromiley and Rau 2016). Our findings on specific elements of this specific resource characteristic, such as the facilitation of upward communication with top management at critical phases of a project, resonates with project management literature (see for example Mathur, Jugdev, and Shing Fung 2014;Jugdev, Mathur, and Fung 2019). Other findings, including the availability of knowledge-sharing support mechanisms also resonates to available and emerging literature (see Oyemomi et al. 2019). Our findings had suggested that this resource characteristic appeared (among the interviewees) to be the most/particularly significant and important when compared to other strategic resource characteristics.
As relates to how strategic resources providing enhanced project performance and sustained business competitiveness to project-oriented organizations, the interviewees suggested that considerable leveraging of strategic resources could lead to and/or enhance project performance. This is a position shared in the literature (see Jugdev and Mathur 2012). In the project environment, organizational support of strategic resources (both financial and non-financial support) was mandatory for a project to succeed (Mathur, Jugdev, and Shing Fung 2014), and the ability of an organization to build an innovative environment as part of its support was also needed. However, as noted by the interviewees, strategic resources were only able to provide for enhanced performance and sustained business competitiveness where they are leveraged. Interestingly, the reality that the existence of VIRO attributes within resources is not sufficient to create enhanced performance and sustained business competitiveness resonates with existing works of literature (see Bingham and Eisenhardt 2008;Combs et al. 2011;Zollo, Minoja, and Coda 2018;Prestes Joly et al. 2019). Instead, such performance and competitiveness stem from a combination of factors which includes (i) an appreciation of VIRO resources, (ii) an appreciation of non-VIRO resources (iii) an understanding of how the underlying characteristics of both VIRO and non-VIRO resources impact upon their relationships and (iv) the ability of the organization to identify, develop, and exploit resource complementarity in a manner that ensures the effective and efficient transfer of resources across various levels of the organization. Often than not, this will also require the organization to focus on the complementarity between strategic resources and non-core resources (Bingham and Eisenhardt 2008). Through complementarity, organizations can obtain a competitive advantage by maintaining routines, which are able to support projects much more effectively and efficiently than competitors.

Application
The study which is reported here emerges from a four-yearlong study (2015-2019) which was undertaken to explore how project-oriented organizations manage and exploit their strategic resources for improved project performance and sustenance of business operations (data collection was over a period of approximately 3 months in 2018). The study had drawn upon RBV theory for theoretical situatedness. Cognisant of our research question, we utilized the VIRO framework ('Valuable', 'Imitable', 'Rare' and 'Organisational support') as our platform for examining strategic resources at the project level.
In sum, the basic premise of our findings as relates to what strategic resources were available in projects is that it will appear that not all elements of the VIRO framework are manifested in petroleum industry projects. Thus, while two characteristics of this framework, namely 'Valuable' and 'Organisational support' were manifest, the other two, that is 'Imitable' and 'Rare' did not appear to bear any particular significance to projects. Instead, the findings suggest the emergence of two different characteristics that may be more applicable to projects. That is 'Unique exploitation' and 'Timely availability'. We posit that detailed appreciation of the manifestation of these two new emergent characteristics of strategic resources enhances what should be a much desired for project-oriented organizations to be best placed to manage and exploit their strategic resources for at the very least, improved efficiency and effectiveness in terms of project performance. Conversely, as relates to how strategic resources provided for enhanced project performance and sustained business competitiveness, our findings suggest that leveraging not only relevant VIRO resources but also the complementarity with non-VIRO resources was essential.

Theoretical and practical contributions
The research made not only theoretical but also practical contributions to the field of operations and project management. Starting with its contributions to theory, our study extends how RBV theory is understood within operations project management scholarship. As there are limited empirical studies in this area, RBV research especially in project management is still developing. Developing such an understanding is particularly important because as we do know, most projects end up competing for resources, which are controlled at the strategic or institutional level. More specifically, the findings lead us to propose an extension to RBV theory that is specifically related to the project environment. This proposed extension emphasizes the need for project strategic resources to be 'Valuable' and to be 'Organizationally supported'. 'Rareness' and 'Inimitability' are valid for the organisation level but as per our findings, they are not explicitly embedded to essential for consideration at the project level. Two other characteristics arose from the project environment. Instead as discussed earlier, two other resource characteristics, which we had termed as 'Unique exploitation' and 'Timely availability', have emerged from our study as resource characteristics. Figure 2 (below) is a visual representation of this proposed framework.
Our contribution to practice gives high-level recommendations for organizations and project practitioners and leaders on the actions needed for better resource utilization. More specifically, the findings provide the basis for developing a practical typology that allows for the management and exploitation of strategic resources for enhanced project performance and sustained business competitiveness that is based on two possible organizing strategies for resource sharing in a manner that ensures that the macro-problem of performance and competition filters down the organization. The first will entail alternate sequencing of resources across all levels of the organization in a consecutive and temporal manner. We refer to this approach as 'Resource vacillation' form of organizing (Gulati and Puranam 2009;Boumgarden, Nickerson, and Zenger 2012;Kang, Kang, and Kim 2017). The alternative approach is to seek for parallel and simultaneous switching and sharing of resources across the different organizational levels for a limited and temporal period. This will equate to the idea of 'Resource ambidexterity' (Tushman and O'Reilly 1996;Tushman 2011, 2013). Exploring both as 'Resource vacillation' and 'Resource ambidexterity' forms of project organizing within the emerging project and operational typologies that are boundaryless, virtual, cellular or modular self-managing will be of particular interest to future studies.

Limitations
As perhaps expected, our study does have limitations. For example, as earlier alluded to, we did not take into consideration any cultural cues within RBV theory. Earlier project management scholarship points to national culture serving as a significant driver for heterogeneous perspectives among project stakeholders . We will accordingly expect that national culture may have an impact upon how individual project managers construe project resources against the VIRO framework ('Valuable', 'Imitable', 'Rare' and 'Organisational support'). For example, we do know that national culture does impact upon 'value' perceptions (Overby, Woodruff, and Gardial 2005). In fact, we do know that national culture does have an impact on how individuals interpret and respond to strategic issues (Schneider and De Meyer 1991). The same limitation also extends to not taking into consideration project lifecycle variations (Pinto and   Prescott 1988), which we do know exists and to which again impacts upon project stakeholder perceptions (Chipulu et al. , 2016Ojiako et al. 2014Ojiako et al. , 2015. Other limitations include a limited domain of the research (for example, a focus on project-based organizations within the Arabian Gulf region). However, despite these limitations, given the reality that the application of RBV theory to project management research is not yet mature, our study makes timely contributions that serve a purpose.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s). Terry Williams is Director of the Risk Institute, University of Hull. He previously served as Dean of Hull University Business School and before that, Director of the School of Management, University of Southampton. Terry has worked in both the public and private sectors, beginning as a Lecturer in Operational Research at the University of Strathclyde, while completing his Ph.D. research. He later became Professor and Department Head, where he worked in research and consultancy, modelling project behaviour and supporting $1.5bn þ post-project claims. Terry is a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, a Chartered Mathematician, a Fellow of the OR Society and a certified Project Manager (PMP).