Effective Project Team Research Articles

Building effective student project teams: what has problem-solving styles got to do with it?

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to examine if team composition based on adaption-innovation (A-I) problem-solving styles is related to the teamwork quality and team effectiveness (TE) of student project teams participating in a [state-gifted program (SGP)].Design/methodology/approachA correlational design was conducted with a sample of 72 (SGP) participants, consisting of 15 project teams (n = 15), which formed three groups: (1) the homogeneous adaptive group, which consists of five homogeneous adaptive teams (n = 5); (2) the homogeneous innovative group, which consists of five homogeneous innovative teams (n = 5), and (3) the heterogeneous group (i.e. a mix of innovative and adaptive individuals), which consists of five heterogeneous teams (n = 5).FindingsA one-way ANOVA and post-hoc test revealed that team composition based on problem-solving styles is related to teamwork quality and TE. Regarding TE, both homogeneous groups (i.e. all adaptive or all innovative individuals) were more effective than the heterogeneous group. However, regarding teamwork quality, only the adaptive group had significantly higher teamwork quality than the heterogeneous group.Practical implicationsWe recommend that leadership educators utilize Kirton’s adaption-innovation inventory (KAI) as a tool for building effective student project teams. KAI can be used by leadership educators in two major ways: to assign students to groups (as done in the current study) or for team building, where team members share their KAI scores to better understand their problem-solving preferences.Originality/valueThe findings add to the literature by specifying the type of homogeneous groups (i.e. homogeneous adaptive), which may offer an advantage over heterogeneous groups regarding teamwork quality.

Trust building strategies for virtual leaders in the post pandemic era

The coronavirus pandemic has sent an important message that future project teams need to be trained to work under virtual conditions, which has already become the new norm in organizations across the world. As organizations increasingly rely on virtual teams to achieve project objectives, it is essential to comprehend how leadership functions in virtual project teams. The purpose of this research is to analyze the leadership strategies used by project managers for building trust in virtual project teams. This convergent parallel mixed method research was conducted by surveying 185 virtual leaders and conducting a semi-structured interview with 13 senior virtual leaders involved in managing projects across the industry sectors. The research findings indicate that establishing trust was ranked as significant challenges in leading virtual project teams in the post-pandemic era. Additionally, the research findings recommend that virtual leaders need to strive to build a high-trust environment to improve the effectiveness of virtual project teams. As the project management profession struggles with low project success rates, mixed-method research aims to contribute to the knowledge in the growing research area of virtual project leadership. This research contributes to the knowledge by offering first-person accounts from senior virtual leaders on the innovative strategies they had implemented for building trust in the virtual project when there were limited opportunities for face-to-face interaction on account of the pandemic.

A Mediation Model of the Usability and Intergroup Relation for Online Project Management Community Effectiveness with Microsoft Teams

Effective international project team development and management is a crucial aspect of project management that directly influences the performance and satisfaction of team members. As reductions in travel and physical mobility are prioritized for sustainability efforts, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, it is of paramount importance to identify and share effective innovative remote, online project management practices. The purpose of this study is to address the scarcity of related research and investigate the impact of Microsoft (MS) Teams usability on team management effectiveness as mediated by intergroup relation. The population of this study includes university personnel that have participated in the Erasmus+ project Benefit, with a sample size of 52 respondents. The data was analyzed using SmartPLS 4.0. The findings revealed that the usability of MS Teams had a direct, positive, and substantial influence on intergroup interactions and team performance. Further intergroup relations have a direct and significant impact on team effectiveness. The findings of the mediation study indicated that the association between MS Teams usability and team effectiveness is partially mediated by intergroup interactions.

ATTRIBUTABLE TRAIT OF THE BEHAVIORAL COMPETENCE OF A PROJECT MANAGEMENT SPECIALIST

The subject of the article is the defined concept of self-confidence as one of the attributes of a project manager, which affects the ability to successfully complete the tasks provided by the project. The purpose of the article is to reveal the role and meaning of self-confidence as an attribute of the personality of a project management specialist, primarily a project manager, as well as to substantiate the possibilities and conditions for the purposeful development of this trait. The task of the research is to determine the conditions and tools for the development of self-confidence as an important behavioral competence of a project management specialist. To reveal the nature of the dynamic character of a person's self-confidence as a specific mental formation and to show that this opens up the possibilities of consistent and purposeful development of self-confidence. Research methods include, firstly, the analysis of the role of self-confidence as an attributive quality in the system of behavioral competencies in the process of forming an effective project team. Secondly, determination of confidence indicators of the project manager and the project team as a whole using the methods of cognitive theory and expert evaluations. Thirdly, the identification of traits and qualities that determine self-confidence using methods and mechanisms of project management, pedagogy and psychology. The results. The experience of self-confidence development of future project management specialists is analyzed. The need to include professionally significant personal traits and qualities in the general system of professional training of project management specialists is substantiated. The meaning and meaning of the phenomenon of self-confidence as one of the attributes of a project manager is revealed. It is substantiated that the development of confidence in team members and the leader's confidence in his project team affects the ability to successfully complete the tasks provided for by the project. Conclusions. First, self-confidence is a specific type of the more general concept of confidence as a psychological state of a person in which he considers certain propositions to be true and does not assume doubts about the possibility of rejecting them or refuting them. Secondly, self-confidence is a person's awareness and experience of his abilities and opportunities, adequate to the goals and tasks that appear before him or that he himself sets for himself, his life and activities. Thirdly, the formation and development of self-confidence of future project management specialists can be carried out quite effectively both through the purposeful use of trainings, business and role-playing games, analysis of problematic situations, etc., and through providing them with convincing advice and recommendations regarding the need to make appropriate changes in their character, behavior and relationships with other people. Fourthly, it is expedient for teachers to identify the level of self-esteem and demands of students, compare it with the real level of competence of each of them, and produce effective, sufficiently substantiated consultations and recommendations for personal development based on an individual approach. We consider enrichment of the material by analyzing the practical experience of graduates' professional activities in the field of project management as further research in the considered direction.

The Impacts of Project Communication Skills on the Effectiveness of Construction Project Teams in Sarawak, Malaysia

The Impacts of Project Communication Skills on the Effectiveness of Construction Project Teams in Sarawak, Malaysia

The Impacts of Project Communication Skills on the Effectiveness of Construction Project Teams in Sarawak, Malaysia

The Impacts of Project Communication Skills on the Effectiveness of Construction Project Teams in Sarawak, Malaysia

Transforming vertical leadership into shared leadership in infrastructure project teams: a dual-pathway perspective

PurposeInfrastructure projects are pivotal for regional economic development, but also face low project effectiveness. Leadership is always regarded as a key enabler for project team effectiveness, including vertical leadership and team-level leadership. The purpose of this paper is to examine how vertical leadership facilitates shared leadership in infrastructure project teams.Design/methodology/approachThis paper develops the conceptual model based on the literature review. Then the questionnaire survey was conducted. The empirical data obtained from 117 infrastructure project teams in China were analyzed by partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) for validating the proposed model. Finally, the results were comparatively discussed to explain the dual-pathway between vertical leadership and shared leadership. And the practical implications were presented for the project managers in infrastructure project teams.FindingsDrawing on social learning theory and social cognitive theory, the results show that both participative leadership and task-oriented leadership can facilitate shared leadership. Further, team atmosphere fully mediates the link between participative leadership and shared leadership. Team efficacy fully mediates the relation between task-oriented leadership and shared leadership. Also, role clarity has a negative moderating effect on the former path.Originality/valueThe study extends the knowledge of leadership theory in the construction field. Based on the proposed conceptual model and PLS-SEM results, this study unveils the black box between vertical leadership and shared leadership and contributes to the theory of leadership on how the impact of different vertical leadership on team process promotes shared leadership.

Project Management Practices and Implementation of Projects in Manufacturing Companies in Rwanda. A Case of Inyange Industry Ltd.

Achievement of a project means that a number of its perceived factors were attained. It is not guaranteed that project management practices will result to proper implementation of projects by manufacturing companies. However, the success of projects largely depends on the way it is managed and controlled. The challenges met during the implementation of project management practices has been during project planning, exceeding the set budget and going beyond its set schedule and poor quality. The general objective of the study is to investigate the influence of project management practices on the implementation of projects in manufacturing companies in Rwanda, Kigali city. The study’s specific objectives are to examine how stakeholder participation, leadership support, communication and resource allocation influenced project implementation. The study will anchored by stakeholder theory, resource based view theory and cybernetics theory. The adopted a descriptive research designs. The target population was 73 manufacturing companies from the Inyange industry ltd. The targeted respondents were 73 comprising of employees from different departments. The study used stratified sampling method to ensure that all cases are well represented and use simple random sampling method to select the respondents. Leadership support is considered one of the critical success factors in project implementation; effective executive involvement can significantly improve project success. Maintaining open, regular and accurate channels of communication with all levels of project staff and stakeholders is vital to ensuring the effective implementation of capital expenditure projects. Allocation of resources helps managers to bring together more productive and effective project teams and workgroups and enables them to appraise their schedules and easily estimate resource availability in real-time.
 
 Key word: Stakeholder Participation, Leadership Support, Communication, Resource Allocation

Mitigating the impact of cross-culture on project team effectiveness in the Nigerian oil and gas industry: The mediating role of organizational culture and project leadership

This paper investigates the interplay between cross-culture, organisational culture, path-goal leadership, and team effectiveness in Nigerian oil and gas projects. Employing a quantitative research approach with a philosophical assumption between positivism and relativism, the study examines path-goal leadership and organisational culture as mediating variables. A survey instrument was administered to 230 participants using judgmental recruitment, with a response of 91.3%. A partial least square structural equation modelling approach was implemented for data analysis. The findings reveal that high achievement and directive leadership styles in the Nigerian oil and gas industry lead workers to adopt a long-term orientation cross-culture to effectively adapt to the project working environments. Additionally, the dimensions of organizational culture exert a dominant influence on defining project environments in the industry. To enhance ownership and shared leadership, the study recommended the need to strike a balance between achievement-oriented and shared leadership throughout the project duration. Moreover, proactive occupational health measures can help manage the possible health effect of adaptive work behaviour. Furthermore, industry-wide project audits based on the study's variables can enhance leadership policies and promote a people-oriented leadership approach. The research presented in this study offers both theoretical and practical implications in the Nigerian oil and gas industry.

Гибридная и удаленная работа: как сохранить эффективность проектных команд

The scientific article presents the results of an analysis of the tools used to improve the efficiency of project teams when employees are involved through a hybrid and remote form of work. The relevance of the study on the selected issue is due to the fact that in the new reality, project work includes the management of teams whose members work in a hybrid and remote format. Flexibility in working hours and the absence of employees in the workplace can lead to lower results. Therefore, instructions for achieving results and maintaining the effectiveness of project teams are important. The principles of managing an effective project team in the new reality are considered. The influence of remote work on the effectiveness of project teams is analyzed. In conclusion, it was found that the key principles for the effective work of the project team in the new reality are freedom of thought and decision for each employee of the company, as well as the use of flexible project management technologies.

The Impact of Changing Project Organization Structure on Project Performance

Instigating changes to project organization structure during the project execution could disrupt many project processes and influence project performance. The purpose of this study is to investigate a particular problem occurred in completed construction projects in UAE market. The problem appeared due to unnecessary changes and slow or inadequate response to change by senior managers in contractor’s project organization structure. These changes had negative impact on the project management roles and responsibilities, additional cost and time impact. Furthermore, there were negative consequences on the performance of the project’s team and their effort to create new ideas as well as their innovation inside the construction project that they are involved. The qualitative methodology is used in this study through investigating five case studies for construction projects that completed in UAE market along with extensive literature review that focused on the different sides of the problem as well as an interview with ten members of contractor’s project management and senior managers to examine the impact of the problem on project performance and team effectiveness. The main findings indicate that having clear and defined roles and responsibilities have positive impact on project performance and team effectiveness. Moreover, the contractor’s senior managers have a vital role in establishing, managing the project organization structure and ensuring that any changes to the structure are dealt with effectively. This would enable the project to progress according to plan, reduce project activity reworks and address any weaking communication and cohesiveness between project team members.

Heritage at risk — benefits of collaborative working : A case study of Necarne Castle, Irvinestown, Co. Fermanagh

The heritage sector, and more specifically the growing list of buildings at risk across the UK, presents wide-ranging changes to owners, heritage bodies, potential funders, consultants and specialist advisers and contractors. When protected buildings and heritage assets reach an advanced state of decay the challenges escalate, and as solutions are sought the problems also escalate, with costs spiralling. Remedial works’ costs and budgets are often difficult to quantify, which in turn creates challenges for both funding and procurement, where cost certainty and low risk is desired. The solution requires clear thinking and objectives that are achievable. In many cases ‘grand aspirations’ fail to get off the ground, becoming too wide-ranging in their aims. With heritage at risk, the extent of unknown works is often extensive and difficult to fully quantify until works are in progress. This never sits comfortably with funders and can be the vicious circle of unknown work, unknown cost, that prevents projects starting. Effective experienced project teams are not engaged sufficiently early to contribute to the strategies. The need for realistic practical options that can be implemented efficiently and promptly requires collaboration from a wide range of sources. Bringing together clients, funders, consultants, contractors and statutory heritage bodies in a spirit of collaboration and common objectives is at the heart of a successful project; this enables works and cost control to be effectively managed, and most importantly allows works to start and the cycle of decay and decline to be halted. This case study shows how a committed local council secured funding and assembled a team of advisers, consultants and contractors to bring a significant heritage-at-risk asset back from the brink of collapse, demonstrating how trust in collaborative working exceeded all expectations and delivered additional stabilisation works within the available funding.

The Influence of Construction Project Team Effectiveness in Higher Institutions’ Building Projects: A Case from Nigeria

Projects are required to meet the stakeholders’ requirements on the stipulated time, quality and budget. The achievement of such requirements is related to team effectiveness. However, there is poor project time and cost performance in Nigeria such that the constructions initiated mostly escalate beyond the cost and time budgeted. The construction project teams in Nigeria are shrouded with dysfunctions leading to undesirable project outcomes. This study aims to examine the influence of project team effectiveness on project performance of higher educational institutions’ construction in Nigeria. A quantitative survey design was employed where 150 questionnaires were administered to construction projects team members in four higher educational institutions in Bauchi state, Nigeria. The result indicated that the team effectiveness factors of communication, role and responsibility as well as team relationships have a substantial influence on project performance. However, goal and objectives, leadership, as well as trust and values factors, do not have significant influence. Overall, the result shows that the variation in the project performance can be explained substantially by changes in the construction project team effectiveness (Adj. R2 =.585). The implication of this finding is that project performance in Nigerian higher educational institutions can be significantly improved by strengthening communications, roles and responsibilities as well as relationships among team members. Thus, this research contributed to the existing body of knowledge on the linkage between team effectiveness and project performance in the Nigeria higher educational institutions' construction projects. The study, therefore, recommended the improvement of team effectiveness factors of the industry by all projects’ stakeholders and participants.

Evaluation of Product Development Success: A Student Perspective

The time pressure on new product development under unpredictable conditions requires the renewal of the project management approach that suggests the prominent role of project managerial competencies in achieving project success. Project management education must be adjusted to understand students’ opinions in the field. The study uses a survey among Hungarian engineering, business, and IT higher education students. The analysis aims to explore opinions about the main barriers to successful product development projects, and the expected ways of regulating the project by ANOVA and principal component analysis. The responses of 126 students confirm the appreciation of management competencies. Gaps in team composition, inadequate communication, common changes in the plans, and the lack of experience in similar development tasks are considered to be the main contributors to product development project failures. Collaboration and competition with external partners were found to be less essential factors. Students believe that regulation of the work is necessary, but the project team should be trusted to establish it. Beyond developing the curricula, the experience of this study can promote the successful execution of collaborative projects between companies and higher education institutions. It can establish expected student competencies to quickly become effective project team members.

Moderation Role of government policies, laws and Acts between cultural factors and risk management among Saudi Arabian contractors

Projects are delayed due to lack of construction risk management practice. One of the important factor for project success is organisation culture. Organisation culture is the combination of system of shared norms and values that defines characteristics and behavior. This study is grounded on organisation control theory and based on Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) 303 largest contractor (> 250 number of employees). This study quantitatively focused on impact of cultural factors on management of risks in construction sector of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) moderated by government policies, laws and Acts using PLS-SEM approach. Parameter calculations in SmartPLS (PLS-SEM technique) is efficient having higher statistical power making it appropriate approach for analysing composite model for this study. Cultural factors and government policies, laws and Acts positively affect the management of risks in construction sector of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) with addition to moderating role of government policies, laws and Acts. Current research helps project team for project success to develop good culture withi client, consultant and contractor, which makes project team members, construction and project manager towards project commitment. It is essential for every organisation to practice strong culture for project accomplishment which greatly influence the project team behavior compared with weak culture affecting project team effectiveness.

Construction Project Manager's Emotional Intelligence and Team Effectiveness: The Mediating Role of Team Cohesion and the Moderating Effect of Time.

The emotional intelligence of a construction project manager plays an essential role in project management, and recent developments in teamwork have increased the need to explore better ways to utilize teams and achieve effectiveness in the construction sector. However, research that holds the team-level perspective in emotional intelligence studies is lacking, and the mechanism of the construction project manager’s emotional intelligence on team effectiveness remains unexplored. This knowledge gap is addressed by developing a model that illuminates how construction project manger’s emotional intelligence can affect team effectiveness via the mediation of team cohesion and the moderation of project team duration. A questionnaire survey was utilized to gather information from construction project teams across 156 leader-member dyads in the Chinese construction industry. The results reveal that construction project manager’s emotional intelligence is positively related to team effectiveness and the team cohesion mediates this cause and effect. Further, project team duration moderates the relationship between team cohesion and effectiveness. This study offers new insight into how project manager can better lead team members toward desired team outcomes from a team perspective and makes an explorative effort in investigating the “time” role in construction project management.

Challenges negating virtual construction project team performance in the Middle East

PurposeOver the last couple of decades, many organisations are increasingly adopting virtual team concepts, and construction companies in the Middle East are no exception. Members of a virtual team are geographically scattered and represent a diverse range of cultures. Thus, challenging issues emerge more frequently than in a traditional team. There are challenges associated with space and time as well as high client's demand. Therefore, this study aims to identify and probe the causes of the challenges in virtual project teams in the construction industry of the Middle East.Design/methodology/approachA list of challenges was derived through a comprehensive review of relevant literature. Questionnaire survey was conducted with professionals who are involved in construction virtual project teams. Further, the factor analysis technique was used to analyse the survey responses.FindingsThe results show that the challenges in virtual team arrangement in the Middle East construction industry can be grouped into seven categories, namely, organisational culture, conflict within the team, characteristics of the team members, trust within the team members diversity of the team, communication and training, and cohesion in the team. Understanding of these factors will drive the needed platform to support effective virtual project teams in the Middle East.Originality/valueThis study raises the prospect that organisations may establish an environment for team members to achieve higher levels of virtual cooperation by concentrating on these potentially crucial factors. This, in turn, will encourage further innovation and performance within construction organisations.

Rules, Power and Trust

The aim of this PhD project was to explore the multi-level interplay between the interorganizational structures and interpersonal relations in building project organizations. In the first two studies, quantitative approaches were used to validate assumptions about how interorganizational structures are shaped by actors and how interpersonal relationships affect the effectiveness of project teams in the construction industry. These two studies were integrated in a third qualitative case study that explored the interplay between inter-organizational structures and interpersonal relationships in long-term partnerships. The third study sampled three cases of strategic partnerships which are characterized as longterm, highly integrated and collaborative relationships. To gain theoretical sensitivity in this thirdstudy, a conceptual framework was developed using the concepts from the first two studies. The major finding across the three studies is that the way integration in the supply chain develops is highly dependent on the interaction between project actors. The way actors use the interorganizational rules of a project organization, influences the level of trust and no-blame culture that emerges through interaction. In turn, the level of trust can influence the rules of actors. More specifically, dominant actors seem to able to change the rules of the system. When a dominant actor uses his power position to change the rules of the social system, it can make other actors lose their commitment to the partnership. This research shows that successful long-term and close collaboration between firms continuously requires careful consideration of how the organizational structures are designed and used and their effect on relationships between actors. One should not assume that integrated contracts and integrative practices that have been shown to work in one project, will automatically lead to close and long-lasting relationships between actors in another project.

The Impact of Knowledge Sharing Behavior on Project Team Performance: Mediating Role of Project Team Effectiveness

The purpose of the study was to explore the influence of Knowledge Sharing Behavior (KSB) on the Protect Team Performance (PTP). The study also determines the mediating role of Project Team Effectiveness (PTE). The existing study shows that population includes the employees of different Project based organization in the twin cities of Peshawar and Mardan. The study was carried out with a cross-sectional survey in the target cities. The study contains of 193 and the data was gathered through an adopted questionnaire. In the present study the covariance sampling technique of the non-probability sampling was used. The gathered data was coded and run via various statistical techniques such as reliability analysis, CFA, descriptive statistics, correlation analysis,and the regression analysis was done by using the Preacher and Hayes (2004) process macro for mediating analysis. Consequently thereafter, the results revealed that Knowledge Sharing Behavior of the protect team and managers in these organizations is positively and significantly associated with Project Team Performance. The study further displays that Project Team Effectiveness is partially mediate the relation between Knowledge Sharing Behavior and Project Team Performance. The study significantly contributes in literature that the effects of Knowledge Sharing Behavior in project based organizations eventually increases the sense in the team members and it triggers proactive working behavior within ethical standards that eventually leads toward improved project team performance. The findings of the study established that Knowledge Sharing Behavior and Project Team Effectiveness have significant impact toward providing Project Team Performance. In further research the impact of Knowledge Sharing Behavior on Project Team Performance can also be identified by using other variables.

Actual and expected transactional and transformational leadership behaviors of project managers

In order to ensure that construction team works toward the desired objective, it is important for a project manager to behave as an effective project team leader. This paper aims to investigate actual and expected leadership of project managers by comparing the transactional and transformational leadership behavior model. To accomplish the objective, the paper first briefly reviews the ways in which leadership, especially the two models, are approached. Data were collected through a survey to 63 construction team members in several ongoing projects in Indonesia. The results indicate that the project managers frequently use both transactional and transformational behaviors in leading their team, except the laissez-faire style. Results from analytical hierarchy process analyses interestingly show that the project team members expect the project managers to exhibit transformational leadership more than transactional leadership.