Organizational Project Research Articles

Can the Project Manager's Transformational Leadership Lead to Project Success?

Project-based organisations face the challenge of persistent project failures, leaving researchers and practitioners struggling to identify the best leadership style for project success. Data was collected from 289 project organisations and analysed to reveal that the project manager's transformational leadership behaviour and empowerment significantly improve project success. Additionally, empowerment mediates the impacts of transformational leadership and goal clarity on project success. Goal clarity was found to mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and empowerment, but not between transformational leadership and project success. Lastly, contingent reward leadership does not moderate the effect of empowerment on project success. The findings have theoretical and practical implications in the project management field.

When Companies Make Your Day

Pre-digital organizations were established before the digital and collaborative economy. Faced with this new economy, they are carrying out organizational transformation projects that involve significant changes in tasks, working conditions, and employee well-being. A positive emotional climate can support these digital transformations. Companies have therefore developed specific change management practices focusing on happiness at work to support these digital transformation programs of work practices. This research explores the role of happiness management as a change management practice for digital transformation. Using a multiple case study method, it illustrates how happiness management practices are enacted in three French pre-digital organizations from different industries. It identifies characteristics of happiness management mobilized differently by each organization. Some combinations of these characteristics and employees' control perceptions are shown to lead to a positive emotional climate which in turn affects the success of digital workplace transformations.

A decentralized trust management mechanism for crowdfunding

Crowdfunding is an act of raising funds from the public to support an individual or organizational project, and the success of crowdfunding projects lies in gaining backers' trust. In practice, however, crowdfunding platforms are rife with fraudulent crowdfunding projects. While some crowdfunding platforms use third-party auditors to verify projects before publishing, this also runs the risk of collusion between crowdfunders and auditors. The recent introduction of blockchain has increased the transparency of crowdfunding, but they, too, lack fraud prevention measures. Obviously, existing crowdfunding trust management schemes are not applicable under a zero-trust scenario. In this study, we propose a blockchain-based trust management mechanism for crowdfunding to address the fraudulent behavior in the existing crowdfunding systems. We introduce an auditor committee to audit crowdfunding projects credibly. A random selection algorithm on the blockchain enables the distributed generation of auditor committees with a trade-off between the randomness of selection and auditor expertise. The audit results are based on independent auditing by the audit committee members and are presented by the smart contract, avoiding the influence of third parties. In addition, we also provide an incentive mechanism to encourage auditors who perform accurate audits. Theoretical analyses and experiments show that our scheme can effectively deal with malicious behaviors and has an acceptable overhead.

Organizational and Digital Transformation Projects A Mathematical Model for Composite and Organizational Building Blocks

The organizational and digital transformation projects are very complex to finalize, because of many reasons, and they mainly depend on the initial project’s phases. The initial phases depend on the critical Building Blocks (BB) based Reorganizational Process’ (RP) success, knowing that the Unbundling Process (UP) success and the deliverance of pool(s) of extracted and refined BBs, is the most important phase. BBs are combined to offer reusable Composite BBs (CBB), which are used to (re)build and optimize Organization’s Units (OU) Platform (OUP). The optimization of OUs takes into account mainly intangible and non-financial objectives. The Enterprise’s (ENT) RP is a sequence (or a set) of RPs on the OUP (RPOUP), which goal is to disassemble ENT’s: Legacy OUs’ archaic structure(s), Organizational processes, Information system’s administration, Resources/Artefacts, Applications/Modules, Working models, and Components; into dynamic reusable CBBs which can be (re)used in standardized or In-House-Implemented (IHI) Organizational BBs (OBB); where a OU is a set of OBBs and different OUs can share OBBs, and hence CBBs. The conversion of the legacy OUs and their subsystems need an IHI Methodology, Domain, and Technology Common Artefacts Standard (MDTCAS) that maps to existing BBs, CBBs and OOBs. In generating Micro-Artifacts (MA) the RP can face major difficulties because of the ENT’s heterogenous human profiles/cultures, system parts, OU’s Resistances (OUR), managers/stakeholders exaggerated financial ambitions, and project’s limited time/budgets. In this chapter the author uses an adapted version of the Applied Holistic Mathematical Model (AHMM) for CBB (AHMM4CBB) (Trad, & Kalpić, 2020a) to support RPOUP’s feasibility that uses the initial phase’s pool of BBs that result from the Automated Refine Processes (ARP) based UP.

Psychological contract between contractors and owners in construction projects: the mediating role of inter-organisational teamwork

PurposeThe objectives of this paper are to examine the impact of psychological contract on project performance in private construction projects and to investigate if the positive effect of psychological contract on project performance can be mediated by inter-organisational teamwork.Design/methodology/approachMultiple regression analysis and mediation analysis were applied in this study to conduct the proposed hypotheses. Data were collected via questionnaire surveys from the construction professionals working for contractor firms on private construction projects.FindingsThe result of the multiple regression analysis indicated that psychological contract between contractors and owners is significantly related with project performance in construction projects. This study examined five psychological contract components, but the most important element was found as trust which can influence every aspect of project performance. Fairness is another key factor that can improve project performance in terms of budget and quality. Further, the findings of the mediation analysis revealed that inter-organisational teamwork has a mediating effect on the relationship between psychological contract and project performance.Originality/valueThis paper presents the important role of psychological contract between contractor and owner organizations in construction projects that can affect project performance. The study also highlights the significance of inter-organisational teamwork as a mediator to the relationship between psychological contract and project performance.

Advancing research on project management in hybrid organizations: insights from the social enterprise literature

PurposeThis paper aims to understand the challenges of managing projects in hybrid organizations. The authors explore how organizations with persistent competing institutional logics strive to balance competing priorities, and the authors craft a research agenda to examine the capabilities to manage projects in hybrid organizations.Design/methodology/approachThe authors focus on the social enterprise hybrid organizational form to study how such organizations manage persistent competing social and economic logics. The authors review the project management and social enterprise literature to generate new insights and suggest future research directions for theory development for project management.FindingsThe understanding of the influences of the institutional context on the management of projects is still quite limited. The authors propose that project managers need adaptive capabilities to address how the dual logics, and their corresponding different expectations, can be flexibly combined. The objective is not to reduce the complexity due to the different logics, which is the focus of much of the literature on institutional complexity. Instead, the focus is on how to incorporate dual logics into a successfully blended hybrid organization.Originality/valueThere is a dearth of literature about how projects are successfully managed in hybrid organizations with persistent competing institutional logics, like social enterprises, and important questions remain to be answered. This paper offers new insights on the capabilities required to flexibly combine dual logics that would generally compete and create conflict on projects in hybrid organizations.

РОЗВИТОК СТАНДАРТІВ З УПРАВЛІННЯ ПРОЄКТАМИ: МІЖНАРОДНИЙ ДОСВІД

The article examines the main international standards for quality management and configuration management in projects. The most widespread standards were analyzed, namely: PMBOK (A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge) – a body of knowledge on project management, developed by the Project Management Institute (PMI); ISO standards (ISO 10006:1997 Quality management – Guidelines to quality in project management – standard for quality in project management, ISO 21500:2012 Guidance on project management – standard for project management, ISO 21500:2021 Project, program and portfolio management – Context and concepts – the main profile standard, which is a comprehensive guide to the use of the ISO 21500 series of standards); Prince 2 and PRINCE 2 Agile – a standard method of effective project management developed by the CCTA (Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency); IPMA - standards of the International Project Management Association. International Project Management Association; OPM 3 (Organization Project Management Maturity Model) – a model of Organizational Project Management Maturity; P2M (from Project and Program Management for Enterprise Innovation) is a Japanese approach to managing complex projects of implementing innovative technologies at the enterprise level in an unstable environment. An analysis of the evolution of PMBOK international standards from the 1st edition of 1996 to the 7th edition of 2021 was carried out, which was characterized in detail and presented the relationship between project management principles and areas of project effectiveness according to PMBOK 7th edition. ISO standards are considered and the main ones related to project management are characterized. The standard method of effective management of Prince 2 and PRINCE 2 Agile projects is studied and the main principles on which they are based are given. The main evolutionary transformations of the IPMA standard from 1965 to 2015 are characterized. Appropriate conclusions have been drawn.

Perspectives on quality of life among disability-related organization leaders serving individuals with paralysis

Understanding how the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation Quality of Life grant recipients define quality of life has value in helping to further develop and refine the literature on this topic for individuals with spinal cord injury and/or organizations working to serve and/or support individuals with spinal cord injury. The purpose of this organizational evaluation project’s evaluation activities was to engage with Quality of Life (QOL) Grant recipients, namely leaders at disability-related organizations across the United States, to better understand their definitions and operationalization of the term, “quality of life”. To do so systematically, researchers compiled a list of all QOL grant recipients from two 2016 grant cycles and divided them into three categories based on the award amount. From these categories, we randomly selected organizations to invite to provide input. Phone interviews were completed with 19 grant recipients. A thematic content analysis was completed across the resulting transcripts using MAXQDA software. The sub-themes identified by researchers included: community connection, independence, self-determination, caregiver communication, and including caregivers in programs. Our analysis demonstrates the importance of both community and caregiver relationships to organizations that focus on QOL for people with SCI. Novel findings suggest the importance of community and connection as well as a reframing of both the constructs of independence and control within QOL. Lessons for evaluators are also provided.

Relationship clusters and performance of conflict management strategies in cross-organisational projects teams

PurposeThe link between relationship typologies and effectiveness of conflict resolution approaches remains to be tested despite its significance in conflict management in construction project delivery. By using the four relationships attributes based on the group attachment theory, the purpose of the study was to explore the cluster of relationships among project teams and organisations and the performance of conflict management strategies across these clusters in the Ghanaian construction industry.Design/methodology/approachUsing a deductive questionnaire survey in the Ghanaian construction industry, a total of 137 responses were gathered and analyzed using cluster analysis, mean scores and ANOVA to reveal the relationship clusters and performance of conflict management strategies across these clusters.FindingsThe results revealed eight relationship clusters that exist among project teams and organisations with distinct influence of roles & tasks function, cognition, emotions and behavior attributes across the relationship clusters. In the aspect of the effectiveness of conflict management strategies, it was noted that the performance of these strategies were significantly different across the groups. For instance, integrating as a conflict management strategy was deemed to be effective in resolving conflict in unitary, adversarial, pluralist, mutuality, collaborative and partnering relationship clusters. In the case of coopetitive and coercive relationships, the performance of integrating as a conflict management strategy was less effective. This study thus has empirically proved that, different relationship clusters of teams and organizations exist within the Ghanaian construction industry, and that they perform different roles & tasks functions, cognition, emotions and behavioural attributes in their formation. Additionally, the performance effectiveness of conflict management strategies differed across the relationship clusters.Originality/valueBy aligning the relationship attributes to the dynamics of relationship clusters experienced in project teams and organisations, relationship quality, suitability and effectiveness of conflict management strategies can be optimized. The findings can inform project teams and stakeholders to develop fit-for-purpose relationship attributes among teams and organisations to enhance team effectiveness, relationship quality and conflict management in the industry.

Auditors’ search for meaningfulness in sustainability assurance work

PurposeThis study aims to examine auditors’ search for meaningfulness in sustainability assurance (SA) work.Design/methodology/approachThe authors collected ethnographic data over a nine-month period from two small firms offering SA services in France between 2018 and 2019.FindingsAuditors’ experiences of meaningfulness are facilitated by shared sustainability values among colleagues, social acknowledgement of like-minded profiles and the feeling that working in a “small firm” provides a more fulfilling and committed-to-sustainability environment than conventional assurance work in large accounting firms. The search for meaningfulness collapses when auditors realize not only the limits of their agentic and transformative capacities but also their unintended complicity in certifying the reports of companies with poor sustainability performance. Because they struggle to reconcile the assessment of their professional practice with their value system, the participants are tempted to disengage from their work by giving up a sustainability career and/or by reframing SA work as an advisory rather than a control function.Originality/valueThe authors approach SA not as an organizational project of professional expansion, through which accounting firms attempt to expand their scope of practice, but as an individual and reflexive search of aligning assurance work to their value system. Auditors’ search for meaningfulness is a strong counterpoint to the financial auditing literature, which portrays auditors as professionals with a low sense of purpose at work, but also to the literature criticizing accounting firms’ discursive processes of “depoliticization” (Malsch, 2013) and “de-emotionalization” (Rodrigue et al., 2022) of socio-environmental issues.

Implementation of Precision Oncology in Clinical Practice: Results of a National Survey for Health Care Professionals.

Two main aspects lead the implementation of precision oncology into clinical practice: the adoption of extended genome sequencing technologies and the institution of the Molecular Tumor Boards (MTBs). CIPOMO (Italian Association of Heads of Oncology Department) promoted a national survey across top health care professionals to gain an understanding of the current state of precision oncology in Italy. Nineteen questions were sent via the SurveyMonkey platform to 169 heads of oncology departments. Their answers were collected in February 2022. Overall, 129 directors participated; 113 sets of answers were analyzed. Nineteen regions out of 21 participated as a representative sample of the Italian health care system. The use of next-generation sequencing (NGS) is unevenly distributed; informed consent and clinical reports are managed differently, as the integration of medical, biologic, and informatics domains in a patient-centered workflow is inconsistent. A heterogeneous MTB environment emerged. A total of 33.6% of the responding professionals did not have access to MTBs while 76% of those who have did not refer cases. NGS technologies and MTBs are not homogeneously implemented in Italy. This fact potentially jeopardizes equal access chances to innovative therapies for patients. This survey was carried out as part of an organizational research project, pursuing a bottom-up approach to identify the needs and possible solutions to optimize the process. These results could be a starting point for clinicians, scientific societies, and health care institutions to outline the best practices and offer shared recommendations for precision oncology implementation in current clinical practice.

Information Technology Project Benefit Realization in Military Enterprises of Sri Lanka Using Integrated Fuzzy Dempster - Shafer Algorithm

There are Information Technology (IT) projects in military organizations of Sri Lanka. However, these projects lack a scientific mechanism to measure and realize project benefits while quantifying qualitative project outcomes. This paper outlines a Fuzzy Inference System (FIS) for measuring the extent to which benefits could be realized. The objectives of the study are firstly, to formulate a fuzzy logic to measure the extent to which the project benefits are realized and secondly, to analyze its impact on benefit policy. The study mainly utilized the quantitative methodology of Dempster-Shafer algorithm to aggregate the selected experts’ opinions by filtering similarity of experts. Ninety-five IT project managers representing the Army, Navy and Air Force were selected based on their expertise. The study employed field-based tacit experts to find inputs for each level namely, project, program, portfolio, enterprise and hybrid. The findings of the study posited nine fuzzy rules and five benefit realization levels for organizational projects. Also, the approach pronounced an organizational project policy. The study recommended a strategic benefit approach with policy implications that can be used by managers to monitor the expected project outcomes both on short term and futuristically. The application of the study cannot be generalized to all projects of the technology-domains thereby posing a limitation. Also the study is curtailed in its application to non-IT projects which singularly yield financial benefits. The study can be employed by policy makers to streamline benefit process emphasizing government IT infrastructure projects and private sector IT projects with a futuristic value. Keywords: Benefit Realization, Benefit Measurement, Fuzzy Inference Systems, Dempster-Shafer Algorithm, Benefit Policy

Features of research project management in European higher education institutes

ABSTRACT Strong project management is increasingly recognised as essential to achieve impactful outcomes in externally-funded research projects hosted in Higher Education Institutes (HEIs). However, the characteristics of research project management, and how it differs from project management in other environments, have not been sufficiently explored. Key factors in research projects lead us to question the applicability of standard project management methodologies, and to explore optimum organisational approaches to project support. In this paper, from a practitioner perspective we consider the factors that influence forms of research project management and prior literature on the topic. We report on the results of a survey of project management modes and maturity undertaken among research project management professionals in EU, EEA and UK HEIs. Insights derived from the results provide a better understanding of how organisational research project management is currently implemented, and identify avenues for improvement, increasing fundamental understanding of this emerging professional domain.

Assesment of Rospatent open data quality within the context of integration with national current research information systems

Current Research Information Systems (CRIS) are to aggregate data on organizational research projects and their funding, on employers’ publications and intellectual property subject matters. The scientometric analysis is based on CRIS data to assess research output and innovative potential of organizations, and to make management solutions. The early loading of quality and reliable information is the most important task for CRIS. The Rospatent open data that allow for automated processing based on free (free of charge) licensing makes the potential source for data on intellectual property subject matters (patent and government registration certificates) for national CRIS. The studies evidence that despite publishing OD in machine-readable formats, their practical application is impeded by incorrect, incomplete and uncoordinated entries. Therefore, before loading. Rospatent OD have to be assessed for quality and to be improved, if possible. As for today, Rospatent OD quality is assessed by several criteria: accessibility, metadata completeness, feedback. However, at the content level, the open data have not been assessed. The purpose of the article is to evaluate the internal quality of Rospatent OD sets including information on inventions, utility models, industrial designs, computer programs, databases, circuit layouts, within the context of OD integration in CRIS systems. The quality is assessed in several characteristics: completeness, accuracy, consistency, expedience, and relevancy. The study has revealed incomplete, inaccurate and uncoordinated entries.

Doing inclusion as counter-conduct: Navigating the paradoxes of organizing for refugee and migrant inclusion

Are organizational projects for refugee and migrant inclusion always trapped with the logic of exclusion and inequality that they seek to dismantle? Existing literature on critical diversity and inclusion studies has demonstrated how the “doing” of inclusion in organizations tends to come with paradoxical effects: well-intended efforts to include migrants and refugees construct them as vulnerable, non-autonomous subjects who need help, within a hierarchical order that is taken for granted. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this article explores how three civil society organizations (CSOs) navigate these paradoxical effects and the unduly constraining power relations involved through practices that we theorize as counter-conduct against the pastoral government of a national refugee and migrant integration regime. The analysis identifies three practices of counter-conduct through which organizations “do inclusion differently”: contesting constraining categorizations, problematizing hierarchical power relations, and questioning the assimilationist goals and principles of the integration regime. We argue that through continuous critique and renegotiation of the ways in which boundaries of inclusion/exclusion are drawn within the integration regime, organizations work toward conditions in which power relations remain fluid and allow for strategies to alter them.

Using Rural Hospital-Wide Voices for Calls to Action

Objective: To utilize Trego County-Lemke Memorial Hospital (TCLMH) employee confidential survey perceptions obtained in April, July, and October yearly to decipher needed hospital environment, job satisfaction, and/or ethical standards for systematic, organizational quality improvement projects. Methodology: Following survey deployment and analysis, organizational change projects will be selected and implemented by transformational leaders. Results: Pending project implementation. Plan is to use a longitudinal, mixed methods, convergent parallel design to analyze employee aggregated Likert-type survey data using SPSS © ANOVA, and open survey comments will adhere to qualitative Thematic Analysis using Dedoose©. Conclusion: This project will implement transformational employee leadership to systematically address or improve employee reported hospital concerns.

La nuova socialità dell’impresa secondo Federico Butera

The Note focuses on F. Butera, Disegnare l’Italia. Progetti e politiche per organizzazioni e lavori di qualità (Marsilio, 2023), in which the author argues that the crisis of Fordism can led to the affirmation of a new type of company, capable of organizing the work done by non-executive persons, highly professionalized, responsible and creative, capable, that is, of making an autonomous contribution to the improvement of production processes. Technology will not determine this type of company but rather a organizational project which Butera summarizes in the concept of “integral company”. In the book, which focuses mainly on the Italian experience, numerous examples of this company are given and guidelines are formulated for its implementation. The “integral company”, by organizing the concrete, not abstract, work of persons who aspire to new degrees of freedom at work, determines an authentic mode of social production that the traditional hierarchical company did not allow and therefore opens up a new and more democratic cycle of capitalist production.

Team Effectiveness: A Key to Success in ‘IT Organizations’

This study is an attempt is to examine the relationship between different characteristics which makes project teams effective and lead to the success of projects in IT organizations. A survey was conducted on 110 IT professionals who are part of various project teams in IT organizations. A correlation test is used to see the interdependence, and a linear regression model is used to establish a relationship in team effectiveness variables. The result shows that team purpose and goals, team roles, team processes and team relationships contribute to the team's effectiveness and are interdependent. Team purpose & goals and team relationships are positively related. Team roles are also positively related to team processes. There is a need to build and maintain effective teams to maximize team productivity in the organization. This paper lays emphasis on the necessity of investing efforts in various team effectiveness dimensions, regarding team purpose and goals, team roles, team processes and team relationships for developing effective teams. Teamwork is an important lever to create a competitive edge in a globalized competitive environment, so this study contributes significantly to evaluating characteristics responsible for team effectiveness in IT organizations and would be useful for managers to create effective & resilient teams as workplace resilience has been considered an essential asset for enhancing performance and well-being in the face of challenging circumstances.

Evaluation of preferences for concrete admixtures using statistical perception techniques in the procurement management for the Colombian construction market

Construction is one of the largest production sectors in the world and its development impact on employment generation, dynamism of materials and development of essential infrastructure. This is consistent with the growing demands and diversifications in the supply chain, supported by knowledge economies, related to organizational learning and project management, together with the acquisition of new methodologies, within the framework of current technological development, deregulation and liberalization of markets. Therefore, it is necessary to include a marketing approach in purchasing management, supported by production, distribution and consumption processes in the growing competition for better service conditions in the supply chain of construction materials, especially cement, considered the most consumed manufactured material in the world and the increase of chemical additives, as support in new technological formulations in construction processes. Consequently, the present research provides an understanding of the markets related to procurement management and supply chain in the commercialization of chemical additives in the Colombian construction sector, through the use of statistical tools of perception like set analysis and multidimensional scaling to determine patterns of preferences in the valuation of brands, prices and applicability. This last one, considered the most required attribute by users in the supply chain of additives, which is related to the degree of preference and behavior of the construction processes. Hence, the use of statistical perception tools facilitates procurement and development management in the supply chain for additives or other market segments and the reduction of risk uncertainty in the formulation of construction projects.

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.