Organizational Factors Influencing Project Success

Change Management (CM)

Change management relates to how organizations communicate goals and values, negotiate for agreement and cooperation, reward behaviors that support change, redirect resources to support change, and encourage increased participation and decision making. In order to stimulate organizational change, Jacobs et al. developed a framework to analyze context‐dependent barriers and enablers of organizational change. This framework proposed the adoption of tools such as environmental scanning, SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats), and stakeholder analysis.

Studies suggest that change management is a relevant element for the effective performance of project management. Martinsuo & Hoverfält observed that in dynamic environments, it is important for companies to have change program management integrated into project management. Poor change management may be a cause of project failure, while clear control of project change is critical to its success. Hornstein suggested the adoption of project management certification (e.g. Project Management Institute - PMI) in order to include education on organizational change management in the certification process for new project managers. Thus, the following hypothesis can be established:

Hypothesis 3: Effective change management is positively related to project success.