Multi-level project governance: Trends and opportunities

•Presentation of novel text mining review of project governance literature•Results indicate limited application of governance theories in project governance.•Results indicate confusion regarding multi-level nature of project governance.•Development of multi-level project governance framework

Project governance is important in ensuring successful project delivery. In this article we conduct a systematic investigation of previous research to provide a content-driven review of the literature, and to provide future research direction. We use the textual data mining software Leximancer to identify dominant concepts and themes underlying project governance research. Our findings indicate that agency and stakeholder theories have been adapted to the project governance context to a greater extent than other theories. Furthermore, we find differences in project governance research, published in project management journals compared to general management, IT and engineering journals. We conclude the paper by presenting a framework that links governance theories to the multiple organizational levels relevant to project governance.