Impact of digital communications on project efficiency through ease of use and top management support

Abstract

The pandemic has made the world witness an overnight transition from traditional to digital space owning to a lockdown, affecting everyday life. During the lockdown, the business community and people switched to online communication tools for survival. The behaviour towards adopting online communication tools during the pandemic has opened a new direction for researchers to study. This study aims to understand how during the covid-19 lockdown, digital communication tools affect project efficiency. It also explored to what extent project performance (PP) has been affected by digital communication during the lockdown. The study has used a cross-sectional quantitative-based approach. Moreover, a convenience sampling technique was adopted to collect. The target respondents are the project staff and employees of humanitarian organisations comprising international non-profit organisations (INGOs), UN agencies, and local non-profit organisations (NGOs) based in Pakistan. The survey was shared with 400 employees, and only 302 respondents responded. The results show that the user behaviour towards adopting digital communication tools is high; digital communication tools have an impact on project performance, while ease of use significantly moderates the relationship between digital communications tools and project performance compared to top management support. The research helps study employees’ struggles in adopting change and advising organisations to devise practical digital communication strategies and business continuity plans to cope with crises.