Gunathilaka S, T M M D A R J (2013) Critical analysis of research on project success in construction management journals. In: Smith, S D and Ahiaga-Dagbui, D D (eds.) Proceedings of 29th Annual ARCOM Conference, 2-4 September 2013, Reading, UK.
Abstract
How to deliver project success has become a prominent discourse in both academic and practitioner debates on project management. However, despite years of research, how to improve the likelihood of successfully delivering a project and the criteria for assessing project success still remain unresolved. This study reviews conceptual and empirical research papers on project success relating to project success factors (PSFs) and project success criteria (PSC) published in construction management journals with a view to investigate the link between them and the relative importance of PSFs and PSC. The findings show that the link between many PSFs and PSC remains unexplored with the link only being articulated from a conceptual perspective with less empirical evidence in support of such link. Although relative importance of PSFs and PSC can be analysed from previous studies, there is no evidence that the most important PSFs by mean ranking make a difference to project success in practice or influence PSC across different projects and different stakeholders. These issues present fertile avenue for future research as many project stakeholders continue to grapple with which areas to concentrate limited resources to improve the chance of delivering a successful project.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | critical analysis; project success criteria; project success factor |
| Index terms: | project management, evidence, project stakeholder, practitioner, journal, relative importance, research paper, project success |
| Subjects: | sociology, project management theory and practice, practitioner, risk assessment, research dissemination and communication, evaluation and assessment methods |
| Topics: | Research Practice, Project Management, Information Management, Risk Management, Stakeholder Management, Roles and Professions |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here