Discussion

From a confirmatory factorial analysis, this work tested the influence of five organizational factors on the success of projects. Given that all hypotheses can be considered valid, the conceptual construct used reveals itself to be coherent when applied to a sample within the automotive context in Brazil. Although the literature indicates that good individual management of the five investigated factors - top management support, communication, change management, organizational culture, and training - favor the success of projects, this study may contribute to the literature by offering a model that considers, in an integrated way, the analysis of the impact of these factors on the success of projects, this being a relevant contribution to this work.

Although the results indicate the importance of these five factors, the factors that had greater influence on the success of the project were: innovative organizational culture, change management, and top management support. The results also suggested that a culture of flexibility and a climate that supports innovation tend to positively influence project performance. Therefore, these findings suggest that firms should focus on human resource development, empowerment, and teamwork in the context of project management. This article also adds to previous research, verifying that the presence of an innovative organizational culture favors the performance of the companies, for instance in the domain of new product development, as discussed in Büschgens et al., Situmeang et al., Uzkurt et al., and Brem & Wolfram. For example, Brem & Wolfram emphasize that team structure and innovative culture are aspects to be examined in the context of new product projects. Similarly, Marzagão & Carvalho identified that innovation and adaptation is a relevant factor for the success of six sigma projects.

Regarding the relationship between effective change management and project performance, the findings indicate that for effective project performance it is important to have an organizational culture aligned with the principles of change management, corroborating previous work. Therefore, organizations should evaluate whether the adopted change management strategies are effective and identify functional areas that are not being discussed, for example, a firm's ability to change to overcome organizational resistance to change.

This work also highlights the importance of top management support. In line with others, it was found that top management support of a project has a positive influence on its success. Thus, it is important to ensure top management members are involved with the projects and provide the resources to support the project plan and implementation. In the same line as the work of Law & Ngai, the results suggest that top management support can create a culture conducive to changes in project management activities.

The most relevant constructs in the model were TR1 and TM2. These findings reveal the importance of adequate training for the skill development of the employees involved in the projects, and the effective support of top management throughout the project's life cycle.

Among the results, there were no significant statistical relation between the size of the companies and the successes of projects. Concerning this finding, it is worth observing that most of the sample obtained was from medium and large companies, which probably bias this result.

From a theoretical point of view, this study provided a set of organizational factors that influence project success. Although the five factors studied were positively related with project success, innovative organizational culture demonstrated a stronger influence. More innovative organizational cultures tend to boost the other dependent factors researched here, which is relevant to project success. Another contribution is the business context of this research, carried out in an emerging economy. There are few quantitative studies on critical success factors in projects in developing countries, especially in significant industries such as the automotive industry. This study also offers the opportunity to contribute to this gap.

Concerning practical implications, the results suggest that practitioners should initially pay attention to the effective management of the five organizational factors analyzed in this study, since all demonstrated significant statistical relationships with project success. It may be necessary to prioritize the elements that favor an innovative organizational culture, which should also facilitate the company to be more open to change management. Therefore, it is key that companies direct their efforts toward creating a culture that places more emphasis on their employees by giving them adequate support, so they can perform their tasks in a better way, therefore positively impacting the project.

It is common for many firms to be concerned about the technical aspects involved in project management, and this is essential to their effective performance: risk analysis, time planning, and scope definition are examples of some relevant technical issues. On the other hand, the results of this research suggest that in the context of project management, practitioners should also be concerned with the soft side of organizational aspects, related to organizational culture and people management.