The effect of organizational environment on engineering project cost management : A field study on CREC 2nd Bureau Co. Ltd

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to examine the effect of organizational environment on engineering project cost management. Design/methodology/approach – Taking China Railway Engineering Corporation 2nd Bureau (CREC 2nd Bureau for short) as an example, the authors conduct lots of semi‐structured interviews in its group corporation, company limited, two subsidiaries and two project departments, and finally collect textual data which include 30 paragraphs and more than 120,000 words. The authors then encode those interview data step by step for further analysis under the research paradigm of grounded theory. Findings – Based on these encoded data, the paper builds concept, basic categories, main categories, which could be the factors affecting the engineering project cost management, the evidence chain and the complete story clue among these categories. Then finally constructs a theoretical framework called “3S” for short, which is comprised of the organizational structure supporting system, the control procedure supporting system and the social relation supporting system. Research limitations/implications – Because of the insufficient importance placed on engineering project cost management by academics and few theoretical papers, this paper provides a new method for exploring the engineering project cost management and a theoretical reference for further research. Practical implications – In this paper, the authors discuss the action mechanism of organizational environment in the engineering project cost management and provide for Chinese construction enterprises more explicit guidance on their cost management practice. Originality/value – There is little research on determinants of engineering project cost by Chinese scholars, which is mainly shown as normative research. There is no perfect theoretical framework on the determinants of engineering project cost management, which is not beneficial to the knowledge of engineering project cost management and is not comprehensive and in depth enough for academics and practitioners. This paper conducts a field study in CREC 2nd Bureau based on grounded theory. At last, “3S” theoretical framework is established. This paper is embodied in using reality as the accordance, scientifically carding and spreading the theory and translating the practical experience into theory, so that it is beneficial for the engineering project cost management.