The relationship between project management process characteristics and performance outcomes

Gita Mathur, Kam Jugdev and Tak Shing Fung

Management Research Review, 2014, vol. 37, issue 11, 990-1015

Abstract: Purpose - – The aim of this paper is to examine the links between project management process characteristics and project-level and firm-level performance outcomes to test the hypotheses that project management assets being valuable, rare, inimitable and having organizational support leads to competitive advantage. Design/methodology/approach - – This paper analyzes data from responses to an online survey by 198 North American Project Management Institute® members. Regression analysis is used to examine the relationship between six factors extracted from an exploratory factor analysis that comprise the three project management asset characteristics – valuable, rare and inimitable, three factors that comprise organizational support for the project management process, and two factors that comprise project management performance outcomes – project-level and firm-level performance. Findings - – Organizational support for the project management process, specifically project management integration, was found to significantly contribute to both project-level and firm-level performance. Of the asset factors examined, valuable project management knowledge was found to contribute to project-level and firm-level performance, though information technology (IT) tools did not. Inimitable proprietary tangible assets were found to contribute to both project-level and firm-level performance, and inimitable embedded intangible assets were also found to contribute to firm-level performance. Rare knowledge sharing tools and techniques were found to negatively contribute to project-level performance. Research limitations/implications - – Limitations of this study include sample size, response rate and self-report bias, calling for a larger sample in ongoing research. Practical implications - – This study draws managerial attention to project management assets as sources of competitive advantage, highlighting the need to have organizational support for the project management process through organizational integration, and emphasizing the importance of valuable project management knowledge-based assets and inimitable project management assets that are proprietary and tangible as well as those that are embedded and intangible. Originality/value - – Few papers have applied the resource-based view of the firm to examine project management capabilities as a source of competitive advantage. This paper contributes to the literature on the resource-based view of the firm and to an improved understanding of project management as a source of competitive advantage.

Keywords: Project management; Competitive advantage; Resource-based view; Performance outcomes; Strategic assets; Project management assets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:mrrpps:v:37:y:2014:i:11:p:990-1015

DOI: 10.1108/MRR-05-2013-0112

Access Statistics for this article

Management Research Review is currently edited by Dr Jay Janney and Prof Lerong He

More articles in Management Research Review from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().