Project success as a topic in project management journals

This article highlights the characteristics of articles on project success published between 1986 and 2004 in the Project Management Journal (PMJ) and the International Journal of Project Management (IJPM). The analysis covers references, concepts like project management success, project success, success criteria, and success factors; features of the samples, data collection, and analysis techniques used; and professional disciplines. The results show that research on project success is characterized by diversity except in epistemological and methodological perspectives. The article suggests a shift to project, portfolio, and program success and concludes with a discussion on the traditional state of the research, criticizes its assumptions, and offers alternative metaphors and recommendations for future research.     

The “management‐per‐result” approach to international development project design

Results‐based management (RBM) has proved to be a valuable tool for international development project management; however, there are some inconsistencies that limit the use of RBM at the design phase to manage for results. This article presents a “management‐per‐result” approach to reinforcing the project design function of RBM and illustrates its application to a real‐life project. Shying away from a technocratic approach, it emphasizes a “quick‐and‐dirty” approach and proposes an updated version of the logical framework to include success criteria and factors and very rough estimates for both project costs and benefits for targeted project results for different types of projects (infrastructure development, “process” type of project, and so forth).     

Assessing the impact of improved agricultural technologies on household income in rural Mozambique

In many areas of Africa, rural livelihoods depend heavily on subsistence farming. Using improved agricultural technologies can increase productivity in smallholder agriculture and thus raise household income and reduce poverty. Data from a nationally representative rural household survey from 2005 is used to assess the impact of four technologies – improved maize seeds, improved granaries, tractor mechanization, and animal traction – on household income in Mozambique. To ensure the robustness of the results, three econometric approaches were used: the doubly-robust estimator, sub-classification and regression, and matching and regression. The results show that, overall, using an improved technology did not have a statistically significant impact on household income. This may be associated with a widespread drought that occurred in 2005. Despite drought, distinguishing between households based on propensity score quintiles revealed that using improved technologies, especially improved maize seeds and tractors, significantly increased the income of those households who had better market access. Thus, to allow households to benefit from the use of improved technologies, policy makers need to reduce structural impediments to market participation by ensuring adequate road infrastructure and enabling access to markets.     

The role of nonfarm income in coping with the effects of drought in southern Mozambique

To reduce their dependence on subsistence agriculture, farm households in rural Africa may diversify their income sources by participating in the nonfarm sector. In years of drought, nonfarm income can also be part of the coping strategies. A multivariate sample selection model was used to analyze three years of data from a nationally representative household survey in Mozambique. The analysis was guided by the following three questions. During a drought year: (1) Do households increase their participation in nonfarm activities? (2) Are poorer households as likely as others to participate in and benefit from nonfarm activities? and (3) Which factors are associated with higher nonfarm incomes? The results suggest that households are more likely to engage in at least one nonfarm income‐generating activity during a drought year. Although poorer households are more likely to engage in nonfarm activities, they are less likely to participate in nonfarm activities of high return. The results suggest that policies reducing entry barriers (e.g., improved road infrastructure, micro‐credit schemes, and livestock promotion programs) and increasing education levels can facilitate income diversification, thus allowing rural households to better cope with the effects of drought. When designing polices, care must be taken to avoid exacerbating income inequality by targeting measures toward poorer and female‐headed households.     

Foundations of Project Management Research: An Explicit and Six‐Facet Ontological Framework

This article proposes a new, explicit, and integrated ontological framework to stimulate project management research. It suggests that the ontological question should be viewed as a six‐facet diamond that represents a set of root assumptions about projects. The article conveys the idea that whenever a project management researcher emphasizes a specific facet, he or she knowingly or unknowingly leaves the other five facets in the dark in his or her research. This article calls for attention on the ground ontological assumptions of project management research in order to transcend the abstract epistemological and methodological debates and concentrate on what really divides the different theoretical positions.