Intra-organizational conflicting interests in infrastructure projects: A study at ProRail and other network operators

Many internal actors are involved in the execution of infrastructure projects at network operators. These actors share an organizational goal but also have individual interests that can be conflicting with each other. Intra-organizational conflicting interests are difficult to manage because among others the complexity of the network and projects, organizational segmentation and complex procedures. There are three station projects at the Dutch rail operator ProRail, one project at Schiphol and one project at Rijkswaterstaat analysed to research how they deal with intra-organizational conflict and what makes its management difficult. Improvements for managing intra- organizational conflict at ProRail can among others be made by changing the project team structure, transferring the project teams to asset management and by making process agreements in the beginning of the conflict. The recommendations made in this research need to be worked out in detail because they will have other effects on the organizational performance as well.POLGTechnology, Policy and Managemen