Major project managers' internal and external stakeholder relationships: The development and validation of measurement scales

•Major project managers' stakeholder relationships competence measures were developed.•An internal stakeholder relationships scale was developed.•An external stakeholder relationships scale was developed.•Both scales demonstrated validity and reliability.•Participants were 373 major project managers from the defense industry.

In this paper, we detail the development of two stakeholder relationships scales. The scales measure major project managers' perceived competence in developing (establishing and maintaining) high quality, effective relationships with stakeholders who are internal and external to their organization. Our sample consists of 373 major project managers from a sub-set of the Australian defense industry. Both the internal stakeholder relationships scale and the external stakeholder relationships scale demonstrated validity and reliability. This research has implications for the interpersonal work relationships literature and the stakeholder management literature. We recommend that researchers test these scales with multiple samples, across different project types and project industries in the future. The stakeholder relationship scales should be versatile enough to be applied to project management generally but are perhaps best suited to major project environments.