An exploratory study of gender in project management: Interrelationships with role,location, technology,and project cost

This study explores whether gender differences in project managers are related to gender differences in their team members. Gender differences are explored in the context of project managers' and team members' location to one another, the project team's use of technology, and the cost and size of the project teams. Using log‐linear analysis of 563 project team members' responses, several significant findings are reported—including the likelihood of same‐gender project manager and team member dyads as well as gender differences in project contextual factors. Implications for organizational and project management researchers and decision makers conclude the article.     

The role of technology in the project manager performance model

Technology assumes importance in the context of project management due to greater challenges in today's technology‐enabled work environment, where technology tools are routinely used for collaboration, communication, and deployment of project management practices. It is becoming common practice for even co‐located project teams to use the electronic medium for these purposes. Notwithstanding the importance of technology, research has shown that it is difficult to associate the use of technology with business performance and the absence of such relation can be extrapolated to project performance as well. However, technology can play a major role in supporting project managers in managing projects effectively and efficiently. Several studies have addressed the importance and leadership style of project managers. However, specific roles and responsibilities of a project manager toward the project team is an area that needs further study. In this research effort, using the literature review, important people‐related factors of project performance are identified. Then structured personal interviews were used to gather data for understanding relations among these factors in order to develop a project manager performance model. The model was developed employing the interpretive structural modeling (ISM) methodology. The model was used to determine the role of the project manager in managing the project team and improving the project performance. Results show that both leadership and management roles are important. This study helped to analyze underlying interactions among these factors and, consequently, understand the supportive function of technology to the project manager in improving project performance.     

Project success and project team management: Evidence from capital projects in the process industries

Efficient project execution is a key business objective in many domains and particularly so for capital projects in the process industries, but existing project management research gives little direction about how project team factors influence three important capital project outcomes: cost, schedule, and operability. After an extensive cross-disciplinary review of the general team and project management literatures, we constructed and tested a theoretically based, five-dimensional model of organizational context, project team design, project team leadership, project team processes, and project outcome factors. We examined the model by means of an empirical study of 56 newly completed capital projects executed by 15 Fortune 500 companies in the process industries. The results indicate the value of disaggregating project outcomes for research purposes. Different bundles of project team factors were found to drive project cost, schedule, and operability. Project team efficacy, cross-functional project teams, autonomous project team structure, and virtual office usage were the strongest predictors of project cost effectiveness. Continuity of project leadership, cross-functional project teams, and project manager incentives were the strongest predictors of project construction schedule. In contrast, clear project goals and an office design to facilitate effective communication were the main predictors of plant operability. Implications of these findings for researchers and project practitioners are discussed. One major practical implication of our findings is that project managers need to clearly focus and prioritize their goals for each project so they can adopt the appropriate bundles of project team practices that will facilitate their goal achievement.     

Motivation: How to increase project team performance

Stimulating team member performance requires a project manager to harness many different interpersonal skills. The level of enthusiasm applied toward project efforts has a direct impact on the project results. Because motivation can inspire, encourage, and stimulate individuals to achieve common goals through teamwork, it is in the project manager's best interest to drive toward project success through the creation and maintenance of a motivating environment for all members of the team.     

Team trust over time: Modeling reciprocal and contextual influences in action teams

Team trust is increasingly being recognized as important for team performance, but little is currently understood about how it develops and evolves over the course of a team's lifespan. Because trust and related team constructs are inherently dynamic, this represents a critical gap in the literature that needs to be addressed before team trust can be fully understood and effectively facilitated in practice. Of particular relevance to these gaps are action teams – those that come together to perform under time-constrained, yet often high-stakes conditions. While scholars have begun to explore how trust develops in these contexts, little is understood about how it evolves over time. As such, we propose a theoretical model of team trust in action teams that incorporates its dynamic nature, models the reciprocal relationship between team trust and team performance, delineates unique mediating pathways based on the team's progression in the multiphasic performance cycle, and considers the role of moderating influences that may strengthen or attenuate the impact of performance feedback on subsequent team trust. Specific research implications are discussed, providing a rich foundation for future empirical studies, and ultimately, the generation of evidence-based interventions for facilitating trust as teams cycle through multiple performance episodes over time.     

An empirical analysis of managers' adjustment to working in multi-national project teams in the pipeline and plant construction sector

This article empirically investigates the adjustment of managers to working in multi-national project teams in the pipeline and plant construction industry. The members of such teams come from diverse national backgrounds and there is no single culture dominating the team. While there has been a lot of research on multi-cultural teams, organizational socialization and expatriate issues, so far these areas have been investigated separately. This article contributes to research in these fields by developing and empirically testing a model containing a number of antecedents and consequences of the adjustment of individuals when working in multi-cultural project teams. The findings highlight the importance of cross-cultural sensitivity for individuals' adjustment in such teams, as well as the positive role of adjustment for individuals' satisfaction, commitment and intention to stay with the team.     

What Are the Characteristics That Software Development Project Team Members Associate With a Good Project Manager?

In this study we investigate what software development project team members consider to be a good project manager. Previous research has been carried out using project manager self‐assessments, other project stakeholder views, or recruiters’ views. This qualitative study used the repertory grid technique to identify the characteristics that project team members associate with a good project manager. This technique has been adopted because of its strength in eliciting personal constructs. Among the 18 characteristics identified, the seven most relevant were classified and compared with previous findings, which reveals differences between the team members’ and project managers’ and other stakeholders’ perceptions. Those findings complement the existing skill set and could be considered when recruiting and training project managers and staffing projects.     

The impact of project managers' communication competencies: Validation and extension of a research model for virtuality,satisfaction, and productivity on project teams

Current research continues to establish the importance of communication in the management of projects. However, little is known about the behavioral aspects of project managers' communication competency especially as they relate to crucial outcomes in virtual environments. This article reports on a survey‐based research study of 564 respondents from the Chief Project Officer Web site that validates and extends a research model of project managers' competencies in decoding and encoding communication, the satisfaction and productivity of their team members, and the degree of virtuality present in the project. The findings indicate that project managers' competencies in decoding and encoding communication significantly contribute to team member satisfaction and productivity. In addition, geographic dispersion plays an unexpected and significant role in how project managers' competency in decoding and encoding communication impacts team member satisfaction and productivity.     

Developing an effective project: Planning and team building combined

In this article, the process of developing the project plan and the project planning and control (PP&C) is analyzed and compared to the process of developing the project team to identify opportunities for integrating these actions to produce more successful projects. Results of structured research across some 137 different organizations and representing a wide range of approaches to establishing projects are reported. The results of this cross‐organizational research strongly support the proposed integration of project planning, PP&C development, and project team building. A recommended process for accomplishing this integration is proposed.     

What project strategy really is: The fundamental building block in strategic project management

Strategic project management is gradually becoming a popular and growing trend within the discipline of project management. The general idea is that project management teams must learn how to deal with the business aspects of their projects, as well as better support their company's business strategy and sustainability, rather than just focus on meeting traditional time, budget, and performance goals. Although this approach has been gaining popularity, strategic project management has not yet become an explicit and widely used approach in the practice of project implementation. One of the concepts mentioned as an important element is project strategy; however, no universal framework or even a clear definition of what project strategy is has so far emerged. The goal of this article is to fill in this gap and provide a useful definition and a framework for the further study and implementation of the project strategy concept. Specifically, to achieve this goal, we first look at the origins of strategy in military and business research to discuss the question of what, exactly, project strategy is; we follow this discussion with an explicit definition of a project strategy. We then outline a framework for building a dedicated project strategy document for an individual project, and show how this framework can guide the project planning and execution processes. Using a case study approach, which included an action research phase, we demonstrate how project teams can adopt the strategy concept in a natural way that would lead their project to better business results.     

Comparing traditional and virtual group forms: identity,communication and trust in naturally occurring project teams

This study compares three types of project teams in a global high-tech organization: traditional (co-located), virtual (completely distributed), and ‘semi-virtual’ or hybrid (containing both local and remote members). We use in-group/out-group theories of subgroups to help explain the findings. Specifically, local members of semi-virtual teams report much more positive perceptions of their local than their remote members, while traditional and virtual team members appear similar. We conclude by drawing implications for practice, such as the avoidance of semi-virtual teams whenever possible and the development of strong team identities.     

The role of experience in six sigma project success: An empirical analysis of improvement projects

Recent learning-by-doing research highlights the importance of examining multiple measures of experience and their relationship to the performance of work teams. Our paper studies the role of individual experience, organizational experience, team leader experience, and experience working together on a team (team familiarity) in the context of improvement teams. To do so, we analyze successful and failed six sigma improvement team projects at a Fortune 500 consumer products manufacturer with multiple business groups. Such improvement project teams focus on deliberate learning, which differs from the primary focus of work teams.Our analysis uses archival data generated by these improvement project teams over a six year time span. Of the four experience variables we study, we find that team leader experience exhibits the strongest relationship with project success, followed by organizational experience. Further, in contrast to prior-related research on work teams, we find no relationship between individual experience or team familiarity and project success beyond that explained by team leader and organizational experience. These results suggest that a well-developed and deployed structured problem-solving process—characteristic of effective six sigma deployments—may reduce the importance of team familiarity in the context of improvement teams.     

CONFLICT APPROACHES OF EFFECTIVE AND INEFFECTIVE PROJECT MANAGERS: A FIELD STUDY IN A MATRIX ORGANIZATION[1]

The conflict approaches used by project managers in a matrix organization were described by 135 project team engineers. In project teams where the managers used a combination of co-operative and confirming approaches to conflict, conflicts were judged to have a constructive impact and management was judged to be effective. Conflicts were seen as counterproductive and management was seen as ineffective when the project manager relied upon a combination of competitive and avoiding approaches to conflict. These results provided field data support for a theory of conflict management which has been tested and refined through extensive laboratory research.     

The role of task-related antecedents for the development of turnover intentions in temporary project teams

Abstract

High turnover can cause serious problems in organizations. Yet, previous research confirmed that HRM practices are useful to influence the development of turnover intentions. Existing studies have revealed a variety of factors that drive individuals to leave permanent organizations (POs) but almost no research has considered turnover in temporary organizations (TOs). Yet, TOs, such as project teams, have become increasingly prevalent and exhibit several characteristics that are distinct from POs. Hence, the antecedents of turnover intentions in TOs may also differ from those in POs. However, empirical evidence for this proposition is still lacking. In order to address this research gap, this study examines task-related antecedents of turnover intentions in temporary organizations (TITO) using a sample of 253 employees working in project teams. The results show that inter-role conflict is the most influential antecedent of TITO. Unlike suggested by extant literature, members of TOs seem to be willing to accept down-cuts in job autonomy and meaningfulness of their work, without developing turnover intentions while working for TOs. Furthermore, the results confirmed a direct relationship between TITO and turnover intentions from the permanent organization (TIPO). Members of TOs that want to, but cannot leave their project team seem to develop TIPO.     

Shared human capital in project management: A systematic review of the literature

From the viewpoint of project success, the importance of human capital in projects cannot be overemphasized. Despite this, previous studies have only explored some segments of human capital in projects (e.g., commitment or trust). The aim of this study is to gather studies on the concept of human capital in project management and create an aggregating concept of recent studies. We report and discuss the findings from a systematic review of the research literature. This article focuses particularly on shared human capital (common meanings on the interfaces of the individual and team), and we conclude that the constructive elements of shared human capital are values, tacit knowledge, and social support.     

Multi‐Level Efficacy Evidence of a Combined Interprofessional Collaboration and Project Management Training Program for Healthcare Project Teams

Project work is essential for the improvement of healthcare organizations; yet, project management and collaboration in the project context are not taught to healthcare professionals. Three half‐day training workshops integrating project management and collaboration were designed and delivered to 14 interprofessional healthcare project teams. Multivariate measures were taken over the course of 36 weeks. Individual, team, and project‐level results showed high satisfaction and perceptions of utility; improved self‐efficacy for project‐specific task work and teamwork; increased goal clarity and coordination; and a significant impact on the functional performance of projects. This study provides initial benchmark measures regarding the pertinence of project management and interprofessional collaboration training for healthcare project teams.     

Trust,individualism and job characteristics as predictors of employee preference for teamwork

Employee resistance has long been recognized as a key constraint on the success of organizational change initiatives. However, it is only recently that employee attitudes towards working in teams has been specifically investigated as a factor influencing team effectiveness. Using data from 218 employees in 40 self-managing work teams, we examined the relationship between trust, individualism, job characteristics and team members' attitudes towards teamwork. Providing a partial test of Mayer et al.'s (1995) relational model of trust, the results indicate that the two situational forms of trust (trust in co-workers and trust in management) were stronger predictors of an employee's preference for teamwork than propensity to trust. Trust in co-workers was found to partially mediate the relationship between a person's propensity to trust strangers and their preference for working in a team. The importance of considering the dispositional variables of propensity to trust and individualism as factors that influence an employee's preference for teamwork, as well as their trust in management, trust in co-workers and their opportunity for skill utilization are discussed.     

Structural decisions about configuration,assignments, and geographical distribution in teams: Influences on team communications and trust

Managers structure teams in a variety of ways, which are likely to influence the ability of team members to interact and collaborate. We explore the effects of managerial decisions about the structure of teams by configuration, assignment, and geography. In our conceptualization, we consider a team member's psychological distance as a mediator and the richness of social cues and psychological safety as moderators of the effects of the type of team structure on individual perceptions of the team process of communication and the emergent state of trust in other team members. We contribute to the literature by exploring the different underlying mechanisms through which the type of team structure affects a team member's psychological responses and interactions among team members. Noting that physical distance is difficult to change, we focus instead on perceived psychological distance, which offers a framework that facilitates both better understanding and a means to address collaborative challenges.     

Development of a project management model for a government research and development organization

This article presents the results of an undergraduate project to develop a project management model for integration into a government research and development (GR&D) organization. The project was divided into three main phases: literature review, creation and execution of an organizational culture survey, and the development of a project management model compatible with GR&D organizations. It was found that, although there are cultural gaps between the GR&D and project management cultures, it is possible to bridge these gaps by a combination of training, organizational structure, and the application of project management techniques blended to match the type of research project and fundamental cultural assumptions.     

Cultural patterns influencing project team behavior in Sub‐Saharan Africa: A case study in Ethiopia

Despite the increasing attention paid to the human element of project success found in the project management literature, empirical studies exploring cultural patterns influencing this particular human element continue to be far from satisfactory. To help further understand the influence of cultural patterns within Sub‐Saharan Africa project environments, we draw on a case study conducted in Ethiopia's service sector. Apart from the well‐perceived cultural values commonly referred to in the existing literature, we specifically investigated the deep‐rooted underlying causes, which include Ethiopian cultural habits, as a principal factor in influencing project team behavior. The article concludes with implications and recommendations for future research.