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The role of structural factors in determining project management success
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1985
Year
Total Quality ManagementProject-based OrganizationEngineeringOrganizational CharacteristicProject ManagementOrganizational BehaviorOrganisational Structure EvaluationNetwork ManipulationManagement EffectivenessManagementSystems EngineeringSoftware Project ManagementStrategyStrategic ManagementProject GovernanceProject Management SuccessNetworked OrganizationOrganizational StructureSoftware ManagementBusinessConstruction ManagementProject Network
Project management research has largely focused on network manipulation, overlooking strategic issues that may be inappropriate for certain projects. The study investigates how structural factors in project management relate to success and the role of control systems. The authors surveyed 103 development projects across 30 firms to examine organizational structure, managerial authority, and project scale. Results show that key structural factors are significantly linked to project success and influence the effectiveness of control systems.
Despite all of the attention that has been paid to the strategic concerns of more repetitive operational contexts over the past few years, almost all of the research on project management has remained focused on various aspects of network manipulation. For any project where the simple application of network techniques could be inappropriate or dysfunctional, the continued oversight of strategic issues is unfortunate. This paper addresses several strategic issues involved with the structural aspects of project management and finds several of them significantly interrelated with project success and the implication of particular project management control systems. The structural variables that are studied include: organizational structure, managerial authority, and scale of the project. The study draws on data collected by a mail survey of 103 development projects in 30 different firms.