Extant project management literature suggests that project benefits management (PBM) can facilitate social sustainability (SS) through benefits formulation for a wider set of project stakeholders. However, empirical evidence regarding the actual extent of SS considerations in benefits formulation is lacking, especially from large developing economies like India. To fill this gap, a SS-centric analysis of PBM plans of 80 construction projects has been conducted using content analysis to identify the benefits targeted at the internal and external stakeholders, viz., workers and project-affected community. The analysis reveals much higher occurrences of benefits for the affected community compared to those relating to the workers. The project proponents have highlighted the social relevance of projects mostly through ‘trickle down benefits’ – that may possibly accrue to the affected communities due to project investment – as compared to ‘co-created benefits’ – that empower the affected communities but require a deeper understanding of their needs and aspirations. ‘Local employment’ and ‘local business and economic growth’ are the most common benefits across projects. Three areas of improvement have been suggested in the benefits formulation process from a SS perspective – mandating worker-specific benefits, more focus on co-created benefits and specifying numeric measures of benefits along with timelines, to facilitate assessment of actual benefits realization during project implementation and operation phases. This study contributes to research literature on sustainable project management. Its findings offer useful implications for researchers, policymakers and project proponent organizations.

中文翻译：

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建设项目中的利益制定：基于社会可持续性视角的探索性研究

现有的项目管理文献表明，项目收益管理（PBM）可以通过为更广泛的项目涉众提供收益制定来促进社会可持续性（SS）。但是，缺乏有关福利制定中SS考量的实际范围的经验证据，尤其是在印度等大型发展中经济体中。为了填补这一空白，已经对80个建设项目的PBM计划进行了以SS为中心的分析，其中使用了内容分析来确定针对内部和外部利益相关者（即工人和受项目影响的社区）的收益。分析表明，与涉及工人的利益相比，受影响社区享有的利益要高得多。项目支持者强调了项目的社会相关性，主要是通过“滴灌收益”（与项目共同收益相比），这可能是由于项目投资而使受影响的社区产生的。与“共同创造的收益”相比，赋权了受影响的社区，但需要更深入的了解了解他们的需求和愿望。“本地就业”和“本地业务与经济增长”是整个项目中最常见的收益。从SS的角度出发，在福利制定过程中提出了三个方面的改进建议–强制要求特定于工人的福利，更多地关注共同创造的福利，以及指定福利的数字度量以及时间表，以便于评估项目实施期间实际实现的福利和运营阶段。该研究有助于有关可持续项目管理的研究文献。其发现为研究人员，政策制定者和项目支持组织提供了有益的启示。