A method for prescribing psychological ownership: a project handover case study

Abstract Among the topics of psychological ownership (PO) within current literature, a significant gap exists in understanding PO within a prescriptive lens. This study will examine how instigating the PO mapping method will help us understand how the PO mapping method can support an ownership journey. In addition, we want to see how we can create a prescriptive ownership structure that one follows rather than using the tool as a descriptive method. To do this we will follow a Research Through Design methodology and test the PO mapping method in an organisational case study. We believe that the PO mapping method can help frame and guide organisational project handovers. We want to examine the factors that influence the parties (project teams) emergence and relinquishment of ownership, and how that affects the feeling of ownership of a project over time. Based on this understanding we will derive prescriptive phases to integrate into our PO mapping method. Thus this study demonstrates how the PO mapping method can be used in different contexts to support and provide prescriptive guidance for ownership journeys.