Institutional Theory and Public Project Management Reform in Nigeria: Explaining Change and Persistence Across Federal Agencies

Public project management reform in Nigerian federal agencies has been inconsistently pursued, with institutional pressures producing both adoption and resistance that existing reform literature fails to adequately explain. This study applies institutional theory to explain reform adoption, resistance, and persistence in public project management across Nigerian federal agencies. A comparative institutional case study design will examine project management reform trajectories in six federal agencies over a ten-year period using documentary evidence, policy analysis, and 60 key informant interviews with reform champions, resistors, and neutral stakeholders. Institutional pressures (coercive, mimetic, and normative) will be analyzed as drivers and inhibitors of reform. Longitudinal process tracing will examine how institutional logics shape reform outcomes over time. This study constitutes an original theoretical application of institutional theory to Nigerian public project management reform, generating explanations for why well-designed reforms fail to institutionalize and producing actionable insights for the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation regarding change management in PM reform programs. Keywords: institutional theory, public project management reform, federal agencies, Nigeria, institutional change