Recovering Troubled IT Projects: The Roles of Transformational Leadership and Project Complexity

Abstract

Recovery of troubled IT projects is a vital issue for many organizations. Understanding how leadership and project complexity affect a recovery process could enable organizations to do a better job in recovering troubled projects. A few studies have examined the relationship between leadership and project management. However, the recovery process and project complexity have not been integrated into the relationship between leadership and project recovery. Change leadership, leadership effectiveness, and project complexity are empirically determined to be positively associated with the recovery process based on quantitative data collected from 166 IT project team members. Leadership effectiveness is the variable that impacts the recovery process the most. And, the recovery process significantly affects product success and process success of troubled projects. The findings imply that organizations should focus more on leadership effectiveness to improve recovery processes. To facilitate the process and product success of a project recovery, organizations should rely on a recovery process that includes multiple optional remedies.