Reach for the sky: analysis of behavioral competencies linked to project success

Abstract

PurposeThe issue of project managers’ competencies has gained much traction in practice and more recently in academic debate. However, they have become analogous to extensive wish lists where a project manager is expected to have an exhaustive list of aptitudes and capabilities. Therefore, identifying and defining the most critical competencies for project success is urgently needed. Moreover, although the vast number of studies emphasize the significance of behavioral competencies, there is a dearth of empirical research and studies within the context of information systems (IS) are scarce. Consequently, the present study aims to investigate the influence of project manager's behavioral competencies for the successful delivery of IS projects.Design/methodology/approachThis research conducted a systematic literature review (2009–2019) of 27 relevant studies incorporating 179 competencies. The authors also collected data from 121 professional IS project managers and used regression analysis and dominance analysis to test the hypotheses proposed.FindingsThe results confirm that behavioral competencies (including leadership, communication, result orientation, emotional intelligence, ethics, creativity and motivation) are significantly and positively related to IS project success. Furthermore, the findings show that emotional intelligence (resilience, stress management and self-control), creativity (resourcefulness, creativity thinking and imagination) and ethics (transparency, honesty and integrity) are the most influential behavioral competencies for IS project success.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is among the first to use a quantitative analysis to empirically investigate project manager's behavioral competencies for project success in the IS discipline. It brings much-needed empirical evidence for the most important competencies for IS project managers.

The influence of the eye of competence on project success: exploring the indirect effect of people on both perspective and practice

“…This is consistent with previous works (e.g. Sang et al, 2018;Alvarenga et al, 2019;Bashir et al, 2021;Sampaio et al, 2021) which found the importance of behavioral competencies to project success. However, few studies verified it using empirical quantitative analysis (Gruden and Stare, 2018).…”

“…, 2019; Bashir et al. , 2021; Sampaio et al. , 2021) which found the importance of behavioral competencies to project success.…”

“…These competencies are leadership, results-orientation, assertiveness, reliability and efficiency. Similarly, Sampaio et al. (2021) identified leadership, communication, result orientation, emotional intelligence, ethics, creativity and motivation as critical to project success.…”

“…Some studies pointed out the importance of soft skills over hard skills (Carvalho and Rabechini, 2015), but this relationship was not explored from the project manager’s competence perspective. Sampaio et al. (2021) also argue that there is a shortage of quantitative analysis on this topic.…”

Lack of Awareness of IT Adoption and Use Theories by IT/IS Project Managers: Poor Relevance, Unfocused Research or Deficient Education?

“…Information Technology (IT)/Information Systems (IS) projects are difficult to manage [1] due to the complexity involved [2], and many of them result in failure [3,4]. Putting IT applications in place in companies is a challenging and complex task [5,6] that demands unique competencies from the IT/IS professionals involved [7,8]. Many of those competencies are related to fostering appropriate behavior in the persons that are expected to make use of IT applications.…”