Perceived Project Success Research Articles

Effects of Trust, Public Engagement, Conflict, and Social Networks on Satisfaction with Ecological Restoration

River restoration is one of the most common, expensive, and environmentally influential forms of restoration, but has little post-restoration assessment of social success. In this study, we use social network theory and analysis (SNA), an emerging approach for understanding social dynamics in restoration projects, to examine the social connections, perceptions of project success, and attitudes of stakeholders involved in a river restoration project. We find that positive and negative social network ties have asymmetrical effects on stakeholders’ attitudes and satisfaction with project outcomes. Trust ties positively influence perceptions of public engagement, while avoidance ties negatively influence satisfaction. Trust in leaders positively influences satisfaction and both public engagement and perceived conflict influence the development of that trust. We contribute to the growing body of research using SNA in natural resource contexts through quantitative tests of social networks’ effects on stakeholder satisfaction with project outcomes.

What drives project success in online labour markets? A bilateral perspective on freelancers and clients

ABSTRACT Despite some advantages over traditional (offline) labour markets – such as lower search costs, better matching and improved monitoring – online labour markets (OLMs) have not taken off as initially expected. In this paper, we study the challenges of managing projects in OLMs and discuss factors that limit perceived success both from the perspective of the employer and the freelancer. Using psychological contract theory, we theorise how common OLM features including contracts with virtual monitoring, multi-freelancer projects, and simultaneous projects by a client trigger the perception of psychological contract breach among OLM participants and reduce perceived project success for both participants. We test these hypotheses using an extensive dataset with more than 143,000 transactions on the world’s largest freelancing platform, Upwork, and find that – contrary to predictions from agency theory – projects equipped with strict freelancer monitoring (hourly-pay contracts) and projects enabling peer comparison (multi-freelancer projects or multiple simultaneous projects), lead to lower perceived project success both from the freelancer’s and the client’s perspective. Our work implies that transactions on online labour markets should not be viewed solely as agency relations, and that some features that supposedly reduce agency costs and improve efficiency on OLMs come at the cost of triggering the perception of psychological contract breach.

Two to Tango? Psychological Contract Breach on Online Labor Markets

Despite some advantages over traditional (offline) labor markets – such as lower search costs, better matching and improved monitoring – online labor markets (OLMs) have not taken off as initially expected. In this paper, we study the factors that limit perceived project success on OLMs. Using psychological contract theory, we theorize how common OLM features including contracts with virtual monitoring, multi-freelancer projects, and simultaneous projects by a client trigger the perception of psychological contract breach among OLM participants and reduce perceived project success for both participants. We test these hypotheses using an extensive dataset with more than 143,000 transactions on the world’s largest freelancing platform, Upwork, and find that – contrary to predictions from agency theory – projects equipped with strict freelancer monitoring (hourly-pay contracts) and projects enabling peer comparison (multi-freelancer projects or multiple simultaneous projects), lead to lower perceived project success both from the freelancer’s and the client’s perspective. Our work implies that transactions on online labor markets should not be viewed solely as agency relations, and that some features that supposedly reduce agency costs and improve efficiency on OLMs come at the cost of triggering the perception of psychological contract breach.

Two to Tango? Psychological Contract Breach in Online Labor Markets

Despite some advantages over traditional (offline) labor markets – such as lower search costs, better matching and improved monitoring – online labor markets (OLMs) have not taken off as initially expected. In this paper, we study the factors that limit perceived project success on OLMs. Using psychological contract theory, we theorize how common OLM features including contracts with virtual monitoring, multi-freelancer projects, and simultaneous projects by a client trigger the perception of psychological contract breach among OLM participants and reduce perceived project success for both participants. We test these hypotheses using an extensive dataset with more than 143,000 transactions on the world’s largest freelancing platform, Upwork, and find that – contrary to predictions from agency theory – projects equipped with strict freelancer monitoring (hourly-pay contracts) and projects enabling peer comparison (multi-freelancer projects or multiple simultaneous projects), lead to lower perceived project success both from the freelancer’s and the client’s perspective. Our work implies that transactions on online labor markets should not be viewed solely as agency relations, and that some features that supposedly reduce agency costs and improve efficiency on OLMs come at the cost of triggering the perception of psychological contract breach.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY FOR THE ASSESSMENT OF THE INFLUENCE OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE ASPECTS ON PROJECT SUCCESS

Recently the global trend to organize the activities of companies in different spheres and sectors of the economy on the project principle has become more relevant and acute. Heads of companies currently pay particular attention to the assessment of the result of the project and find the factors that affect its success. At the first stage of development of this problem, the researchers focused on the study of the indicators of the “iron triangle”, on the achievement the strategic goals of the company or on the meeting the interests of the project customers. Contemporary scholars focus on a wider range of project success factors, their ambiguity and multi-dimensionality. Organizational culture of a project is one of the most important factors as, on the one hand, its impact is well recognised, but on the other hand it is difficult to identify its impact as the culture interacts with other factors. Therefore, it is difficult to determine the boundaries of the impact. However, extending the success factors of a project to include aspects of organizational culture provides managers with an additional tool to achieve project results. The purpose of the article is to test the OCPS (Organizational Culture – Projects Successful) method that has been modified by the author according to the features of the Russian economy. The method allows determining the impact of organizational culture on the project success in different branches of activity. The research is based on a systematic and synergistic approach that considers the project success as a complex system in which the effect of the control action is not directly proportional to the efforts made. This is due to a wide range of possible factors that affect the success of the project, a high degree of uncertainty of the environment, as well as a variety of internal impulses of an organization. The method has been applied and tested in the case study of companies operating in a construction industry as a project is the main type of business for them. In this sector of economy, projects can attract large cash flows. However, unsuccessful projects lead to financial instability of a company. Qualitative and quantitative methods have been used in the study. The main results that have been obtained are 1) the determined aspects of organizational culture that affect the project success in the organisations operating in construction industry of economy: teambuilding, external communication and leadership; 2) the generation of criteria for their assessment and recommendations on the use of the identified aspects of organizational culture in order to increase the probability of success of construction projects. For this purpose a matrix of levels of success of construction projects has been proposed. The application of the matrix allows quickly responding to the problems existing in the project team. The obtained scientific results will allow project managers to get an additional tool to study the aspects that affect the success of an organization’s projects, as well as to identify the elements, influencing on which increases the opportunity to achieve project results. Further studies will be devoted to the testing of the suggested method in the case study of projects made by companies operating in other branches of economy. Subsequently, it will verify the method in the context of applicability to organizations regardless of their sphere of activity. Keywords project management, project success, organizational culture, organizational culture aspects, project efficiency, OCPS methods, construction industry of economy, institutional peculiarities.

Does perceived top management involvement and knowledge sharing affect perceived project performance? Evidence from the banking sector

This study explores the impact of perceived top management involvement and knowledge sharing on perceived project performance. Relationships are examined from a sample of CEOs, directors and project managers from one large international bank in Serbia. Our results confirm that the “human factor” is critical to project success because perceived top management commitment exerts the most relevant direct relation, in addition to having an indirect relation through perceived knowledge management. Moreover, a nontrivial proportion of perceived project success (35%) is explained through perceived top management involvement and knowledge sharing.

Assessing Lifecycle Success of Petrochemical Projects–based on Client’s Viewpoint

For the last couple of decades, researchers/managers have realized that the traditional success criteria known as golden triangle (time, cost, quality) are not adequate measures to align a project with the long term success trend of a company. The perception of project success may differ from one industry to another or from one stakeholder (client, contractor, etc.) to other. Petrochemical projects are of high complexity and a vast variety of parameters needs to be monitored in order to produce on spec products according to the customer requirements and market dynamic changes. To be successful in such complex projects, it is required to be successful in every phase of the project lifecycle. In this study, project success has been linked to four dimensions (efficiency, business success, impact and future preparation) and is investigated from client’s point of view. Based on a list of success criteria, previously recognized important by other researchers, a set of novel categorizations of the success criteria has been developed, called Success Breakdown Structure (SBS). The relative importance of each success criterion is measured by means of a survey questionnaire. It was found that almost all success criteria are important for clients and the efficiency dimension of success plays the most important role in the long term success achievement in client’s organization.

Beyond Buildability: Operability and Commissioning of Industrial Facilities

Industrial projects are growing bigger and more complex, producing new challenges for their completion. As such, project management, and the perception of project success, must be aligned with a new paradigm: the plant's completion is not enough. It is necessary to deliver the benefits envisaged during the project formulation, including successful commercial operation. This new paradigm requires new processes and behaviors related not only to engineering best practices but also to new managerial approaches. Closure is pivotal throughout the life cycle when the facility transitions from plant completion to start-up, followed by the ramping up of operations. To deliver what was previously planned, three main drivers must be in place: quality of the scope definition; alignment of the business strategy; and operability of the asset delivered. Traditionally, commissioning has been considered an activity that is executed just before the operations take over from the start-up systems. Increasingly, it has become a comprehensive and systematic process to verify and document the systems of a new or remodeled plant functioning as designed to meet the owner's requirements. Thoroughly planned and executed commissioning has become critical to allow the facility to operate as intended. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that a focus on operability and the commissioning of new or refurbished facilities represent opportunities for owners and operators to eliminate and mitigate exposure to numerous risks and increase the chance of success for the facility life cycle and the likelihood of satisfying the operational needs and requirements.

Exploratory study regarding how cultural perspectives can influence the perceptions of project success in Brazilian companies

Due to globalization and dynamic business environment, teams in companies are multicultural; as a result, culture may become an important aspect to be considered. The majority of articles regarding projects include factors of success and failure, but only a few embrace cultural perspectives. To provide more insight into the effects of cultural perspectives, this paper presents findings from an exploratory study that investigated how Brazilian information technology companies perceive project success and failure, and then makes inferences regarding the cultural factors. Interviews and questionnaires were applied, and the results provide insights for understanding how cultural factors may influence the project success perceptions. As the primary results, contributions regarding cultural perceptions are offered and related to different dimensions with a view to exploring the cultural aspects as determinant factors of success in a project management environment.

Public Perspectives on Project Success – Influenced by National Culture?

Project success, both the determination and the achievement, is a widely discussed subject. Literature seems to agree on one thing: whether a project is considered a success depends on the perspective taken to judge it. But how the public project manager determines the success of his project is not clearly discussed in literature. In 2013 we conducted a research using Q-methodology to reveal which success criteria are important to Dutch public project managers who are in charge of construction projects. In the follow up research, described in this paper, we will extend the research to several European countries. Within the European Union national governments are the largest initiators and clients of large infrastructure projects, which are put up for tender in an international market. In this international context it is essential for private companies, consultancies or contractors, to better understand their public client, in order to come up with internationally competitive bids, successfully collaborate and complete complex projects. The objective of this follow up research is to expose managerial viewpoints on project success in different European countries. The respondents in the research performed early 2014 are governmental project managers, who are responsible for the execution of an internal assignment and who are the representative of the client to the contractor. The position of the respondents in the government organization is similar to the research already carried out in the Netherlands. Based on the research (Hofstede, 2001) into differences in the national culture of countries variations between these countries can be expected. This paper describes the set-up of the study and hypotheses, based on literature, influences of culture on the perception of project success.

CHARACTERISTICS OF MATRIX STRUCTURES, AND THEIR EFFECTS ON PROJECT SUCCESS

This paper investigates the characteristics of matrix structures and their relationships with drivers of project success, such as communication, collaboration, and trust between project team members. Matrix characteristics that were expected to correlate positively with project success mostly did correlate with the success drivers. However, characteristics expected to impact negatively on project success did not show such significant correlations; some even correlated positively with success drivers. The success drivers investigated, in turn, correlated positively with perceived project success. A proposed model illustrates the effects of matrix characteristics on the drivers of success and their ultimate effect on project performance.

The Relationship between Information Systems Strategy and the Perception of Project Success

This article reports an explorative study on the relationship between Information Systems Strategy and the Perception of Project Success. The authors built upon the theoretical foundations of prior research and constructed their conceptual research model from literature. The authors' study defines IS strategy as the degree to which the organization has a shared perspective to seek innovation through IS. The authors operationalize project success by grouping six project success criteria into process-orientation and outcome-orientation. The authors use a quantitative and conclusive descriptive design to study associations between these variables. The type of design they follow is cross-sectional where IS strategy and perceived project success are assayed in a sample of subjects once and the relationships between them are determined. The authors' data is collected using an online questionnaire by a combination of business and IT managers and executives, working at organizations with a certain level of IS maturity. The authors' research finds good support to posit that organizations with an innovative IS strategy are more focused on the outcome of a project than on the project process itself and that organizations with a conservative IS strategy do show some characteristics of a process-oriented view. Furthermore, their research indicates that a more innovative organization relates to a lower perceived importance of Cost and a higher perceived importance of Value and Learning. On the other hand, they find support that a more conservative organization relates to a higher perceived importance of Cost and a lower perceived importance of Use. Next to these findings the authors' study concludes with implications for practitioners and suggestions for further explorative research.

Sponsors

This paper reports the results of a survey of project sponsor activities and perceived levels of project success amongst 238 UK-based practitioners. Exploratory factor analysis was used to develop a multi-dimensional classification framework of project sponsorship incorporating activities linked to the sponsor being the interface between client and project and activities linked to the sponsor providing general support and being a champion. Stepwise regression was used to explore which classes of sponsor activity are predictors of perceived project success. The findings contribute to theory by conceptualising project sponsorship as a multi-dimensional construct and by confirming sponsorship as a project Critical Success Factor. Implications for practice include the need for organisations to recognise the broad role of the sponsor and to ensure that training and development of project sponsors is aligned with the multi-dimensional perspective.

The communicative effect of risk identification on project success

Risk management is an instrument used by project managers to execute and control their projects to assure that outcomes are aligned with project plans. Existing evidence for the contribution of this instrument to project success is not convincing, because this evidence is often based on assumptions that prove inaccurate for most projects. These assumptions were addressed in an experiment involving 53 project groups. The results from this experiment demonstrate that the use of risk identification, a single risk management activity, positively influences objective and perceived project success. Communication between project members during risk identification plays a crucial role in this relation.

Different stakeholder groups and their perceptions of project success

This is a theoretical paper using the Web of Science search engine and Bibexcel analysis functions to determine key literature related to ‘project success’. The paper firstly provides background to the development of project success since the 1970s. Then, an inductive thematic analysis investigates which factors stakeholders, involved in projects, perceived as key to project success.It provides a better understanding of project success and identifies perceptions by senior management, project core team and project recipient stakeholder groups. The main issue highlighted by the research was that, for some groups, there were no common success factors. This suggests a lack of agreement in perceptions of project success factors between these three groups, highlighting discontinuity between them and provides a case for empirical research into multiple stakeholder groups' perceptions of project success. The approach selected employed a combination of a systematic integrative literature review, coding framework and thematic analysis.

The role of multi-firm satisfaction in construction project success

Construction project success depends on the multi-firm project organizations involved working together satisfactorily. Yet, satisfaction within multi-firm relationships has rarely been examined as a determinant of construction project success. A pioneering study is carried out to evaluate the extent to which construction project participants’ perception of each other’s performance reflects on the owner’s perception of project success. The data represent 580 performance evaluations carried out among the project owners, project consultants, main contractors and designers. The owner-evaluated performance factors related to the project goals form a dependent variable called Project Success. Dependencies between Project Success and the various performance factors are identified based on Pearson’s correlation coefficients. Dependencies were discovered between Project Success and all owner-related relationships and all but one of the non-owner-related relationships. Preliminary sets of discipline-specific and evaluator-specific success factors are identified. The results support the proposition that satisfaction within both owner-related and non-owner-related relationships is reflected on success. Therefore, researchers and practitioners are encouraged to consider project success in terms of multi-firm satisfaction and to engage with multi-firm performance measurement to better understand the heterogeneous performance factors contributing to multi-firm project success.

Managers' Perceptions of Information System Project Success

The adequate measurement of information system project success is a yet unsolved problem. Although researchers agree on the concept's multi-dimensionality, a generally accepted definition does still not exist. This article presents findings from a confirmatory study with 86 projects to test three alternative approaches to measure information system project success using the project managers' subjective perceptions of project success and its potential dimensions. Our results suggest that the traditional way of assessing project success is inadequate to assess the overall success of an information system project. Project management should focus on process efficiency and on best satisfying customers' needs instead of solely on keeping plans.

A pilot study of client complexity, emergent requirements and stakeholder perceptions of project success

Construction industry reliance on performance metrics fixed at the project outset is being superseded by increasing use of emergent client judgments to characterize success. Clients may still consider a project that fails to meet formalized time, cost and performance goals successful if it satisfies emergent requirements not understood during initial briefing. Construction practitioners do not routinely recognize that client awareness of requirements improves as projects progress. Internal conflict among the client stakeholders and their reflections on the emerging project solution help client stakeholders to better understand their needs. Dissatisfaction results when these emergent requirements are not acknowledged. The need for practitioners to recognize and respond to these issues is explored by a paradigmatic case study of an office relocation and refurbishment project. The role of the ‘project sponsor’ as a synthesizer of client requirements and reflections on the emerging solution was observed to be subverted by stakeholders in a client body who found their emergent requirements were not acknowledged by construction practitioners. By characterizing the harmful effect of pluralistic client complexity and emergent requirements on perceptions of project success, the rationale for a revised project sponsor role to better address these influences on perceptions of project success is contributed.

Evaluation Methods for Hospital Projects

The authors report the findings of a survey of hospital managers on the utilization of various project selection and evaluation methodologies. The focus of the analysis was the empirical relationship between a portfolio of project evaluation1 methods actually utilized for a given project and several measures of perceived project success. The analysis revealed that cost–benefit analysis and top management support were the two project evaluation methods used most often by the hospital managers. The authors’ empirical assessment provides evidence that top management support is associated with overall project success.

Examining partner experience in cross-sector collaborative projects focused on the commercialization of R&D

The paper reports key findings from a four year study of cross-sector collaborative Rol) projects in Australia testing a theoretical model formulated to explain partner collaboration experience and perceived project success. The study contributes to the understanding of knowledge-intensive collaborations, and indicates how their benefits can be sustained under conditions of high uncertainty. The study was of cross-sector collaborative projects within the Australian Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) Program which involved multiple partners and which were focused on the commercialization ofR&D. The model was empirically tested through a survey of project leaders and the results provided support for the three main effects hypothesized. The theoreticab methodological and practical implications of the study’s findings for the field of interorganizational relations (10R) are discusseeZ and a new construct of project management competence is proposed as a determinant of positive partner experiences at the project level. This study adds to the growing body of work on interorganizational collaborative arrangements by providing systematic empirical support for a theoretical model of cross-sector Ref) collaboration at the project level and at the completion or near completion phase of project development.