Journal article 2024
IEEE Engineering Management Review Vol. 53, No. 4 · pp. 55–78 · final issue August 2025
Companies can create and claim social value from science-driven capital projects when they understand the project governance, identify the right interfaces for participation and deliberately connect project outcomes to their strategy and social-value claims.
Science-driven capital projects can produce technologies, knowledge and societal benefits that extend far beyond the organizations that originally sponsor them. This research examines how companies outside the traditional space sector can participate in such projects and use that participation to create and credibly claim social value. Using the International Space Station as the empirical setting, the study identifies the project types, governance interfaces and managerial steps that make participation possible.
How can organizations create and claim social value by joining the governance of science-driven capital projects?
The study uses a two-stage research design. First, public documents, reports, websites, agreements and company ESG materials are analysed to understand the governance of the International Space Station and the social value generated through projects developed on it. Second, 18 semi-structured interviews with senior managers from non-space companies are analysed using the Gioia methodology and triangulated with secondary evidence. The analysis produces a roadmap for joining science-driven capital-project governance to create and claim social value.
Companies can participate in science-driven capital projects both by developing activities that operate directly in the space environment and by exploiting knowledge and technologies generated through the infrastructure for applications on Earth. These pathways connect scientific experimentation to wider societal and business value.
The study shows that participation is enabled through multiple interfaces, including procurement and grants, direct agreements with space agencies, and intermediary organizations such as the ISS National Laboratory. Understanding ownership, sponsorship, resource access and risk-sharing arrangements is therefore central to joining the project governance.
The seven-stage roadmap moves from identifying relevant science-driven projects and assessing strategic fit, through selecting governance interfaces and developing the project, to measuring, communicating and claiming the social value created. Social-value claims are strongest when they are grounded in actual project outcomes rather than detached ESG communication.
The article extends research on capital-project value by explaining how science-driven infrastructures can create social value for organizations that were not originally central to their development. It also links project governance to social-value creation and distribution rather than treating governance only as a delivery-control mechanism.
For companies, the roadmap turns a difficult strategic question into an actionable sequence: identify relevant projects, understand how to enter their governance, align participation with organizational capabilities and strategy, and build credible evidence for the social value eventually claimed in ESG or CSR reporting.
Paravano, A., Locatelli, G., & Trucco, P. (2024). Creating and claiming social value by joining the governance of science-driven capital projects: an investigation in the New Space Economy. IEEE Engineering Management Review. https://doi.org/10.1109/EMR.2024.3428327
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