The Importance of Project Status for Career Success: A Network Perspective

Abstract

In client-oriented project-based organizations, there is a mystique around “hotshot” projects and how they affect one’s career. In this study, we investigate how the status of the projects that employees are assigned to affects their career success. While prior work tends to treat the status of a project primarily as a function of the status of its individual members, we argue that projects develop standing in an organization based on the challenge and complexity of the problem being solved for the client. Further, we theorize that the nature of complex projects leads to a network configuration that reveals which projects, in general, are of higher status. We deduce hypotheses regarding the predictors of project status and its impacts on individuals’ career success. We test these hypotheses on a population of over 1000 IT specialists in a large international consulting firm tracked over a five-year period. We find that employees who are assigned to higher-status projects are rewarded, on average, with higher promotion opportunities within a six-month window. We further theorize that this career advantage is moderated by an employee’s formal level: Since senior managers are attributed with more engagement and responsibility in dealing with the challenges presented by projects, they are rewarded more when working on high-status projects. This research has significant implications for individuals planning careers and for organizations attempting to improve their project assignment system.