The Influence of Justice Perceptions and Affective States on Project Managers’ Responses to Client Opportunism

Abstract

<jats:p> The contribution of psychological factors in project relationships has received limited attention. Taking the standpoint of vendor project managers, we examine their justice perceptions, affect, and consequent behavior in response to client opportunism. Data collected from 182 respondents from the information technology industry reveal that vendor project managers perceive reduced distributive and interpersonal justice, and experience lower positive and higher negative affective states, resulting in more venting and disengagement and less constructive discussion and passive acceptance. Findings suggest that psychological factors can bring about detrimental behavior in client–vendor relationships. This has long-term implications for project relationships where client opportunism occurs. </jats:p>

The dark side of projectification: a systematic literature review and research agenda on the negative aspects of project work and their consequences for individual project workers

“…El Baroudi et al, 2019). For example, justice perceptions affect the emotional states and behavioral responses of project workers, such as venting and engagement (Chaudhry et al, 2020), and project citizenship behaviors (Lim and Loosemore, 2017). Empirical evidence shows that age and level of education influence the way people cope with stress (Haynes and Love, 2004), and lack of competence or mismatch of competence may contribute to project overload (Gustavsson, 2016) and psychological distress (Turner and Lingard, 2016a, b).…”

Passionate projects: practitioner reflections on emotion management

“…(2017) offer a more nuanced view of emotion in organisations, noting the importance of the context of the feeling for the effect it has on workplace performance. Chaudhry et al. (2020) identify the risks posed by poor PM – client interactions, especially in the context of one party trying to take advantage of the other.…”

“…Conroy et al (2017) offer a more nuanced view of emotion in organisations, noting the importance of the context of the feeling for the effect it has on workplace performance. Chaudhry et al (2020) identify the risks posed by poor PMclient interactions, especially in the context of one party trying to take advantage of the other. Maqbool et al (2017) also found that emotional intelligence helped project managers achieve success, but as a quantitative study, it does not explore the how/why of feelings guiding success.…”

Quantifying heterogeneous individual perceptions in project management research

“…Teigen et al, 2019), interval (e.g. Chaudhry et al, 2019;Keil et al, 2000;Shmueli et al, 2015;Teigen et al, 2019) or ratio scales (e.g. Ayub et al, 2019;Keil et al, 2000;Teigen et al, 2019).…”