ABSTRACT
This research evaluates the dynamics of project strategy in innovative enterprises. More particularly, this research deploys the concepts of project autonomy and multiplicity of stakeholders as determinants of successful project strategy. From the theoretical point of view, this research defines and explains the significance of the concepts of project strategy in a single project’s environment. The main objective of this research is to contribute to the existing project management studies by empirically expanding the established project success criteria.
The interconnections between the concepts of project strategy, project autonomy and multiplicity of stakeholders in a project environment are established through the review and analysis of the previous literature. In addition to this, the empirical part of this research evaluates the possible connection between a project autonomy and project success in innovative enterprises by using case study analysis. Likewise, the empirical process supplements the literature analysis by assessing the significance of project strategy from the case company point of views.
The concept of project strategy remains an equivocal subject which requires fine distinction from the provisions of previous project management studies. Consequent upon indistinct previous perspectives, this study adopts an explicit definition for project strategy. Additionally, this study empirically advances the discussions on the determinants of successful project strategy in order to extend the frontier of classical perspectives on critical success criteria.
Therefore, this research lends empirical support to the contemporary discussions on project strategy. Considerably, this research reveals the dynamic interplay between a project’s autonomy and successful corporate strategy in innovative enterprises despite the noticeable discordance among contemporary studies. Nevertheless, to further advance the empirical expositions of the concept of project strategy in other contexts, further research is expressly suggested.
1 INTRODUCTION
Arising from growing pursuit of competitive advantage by business organizations; ‘innovation’ and ‘strategy’ remain two important dominant discourses for maintaining a competitive advantage. The application of these two catalysts has influenced virtually all spheres of management fields including project management which is the general focus of this research. Fundamentally, the principle of project management (hereinafter PM) is considered to be more generic than the concept of project strategy as this study explains subsequently in chapter 3. It is mostly agreed upon in the project research community that a business model ought to be articulated by projects in alignment with the corporate aspirations (Stacey 2007, 165; Hawkins & Rajagopal 2005, 10). According to Turner and Muller (2003, 2), “A project is a temporary organization to which resources are assigned to undertake a unique, novel and transient endeavor”. Using this definition, it is needful for different business strategies to adopt different approaches to a project in order to achieve strategic success (Shenhar & Milosevic & Dvir & Thamhain 2007, 91).
The general aim of this research is to evaluate the dynamics of project strategy of single project in innovative enterprises context. More specifically, this research focuses on the significance of project strategy by examining its influence on the project success in innovative enterprises. Accordingly, this research assesses the effectiveness of a project strategy on single project jointly with its proposed determinants of success which are the project autonomy and multiple stakeholders. It is however noteworthy that project strategy and its two influencing factors are still novel concepts in project management. In order words, these three concepts can be described as recent developments in PM as chapter 3 explicitly elaborates. The classical literature on PM basically recognizes time, scope, budget and the ability of a project to meet stakeholders’ expectations. (Artto & Martinsuo & Dietrich & Kujalla 2008, 51.) Meanwhile, these three concepts are used in this study for the purpose of extending the dimensions of project success beyond the linear provision of classical literature on PM.
1.1 Motivation and background
This research derives its motivation from the need to expand the classical perspectives on project critical success factors (hereinafter CSF). In addition to this, I have received incentives to study this topic from diverse experience, trainings and interactions. I was first prompted to study the concept of project strategy as a former project supervisor with Argon Technology Nigeria Limited. Likewise in 2012 during practical training with TMI Professional Media Inc., Tornio, I was assigned an evaluative task on project management. Considerably, I perceive this research as a cutting edge for my career aspiration due to the appreciable experience have I received on project management.
Furthermore, across the majority of previous literature on project management, project strategy is a concept that is scarcely used explicitly. It has been recently that scholars have begun to introduce the concept in explicit context. (Shenhar et al. 2007, 91.) Besides, classical literature on project management recognizes scope, time, cost, quality and ways in which a project meets the stakeholders’ needs and expectations as the major critical success factors (hereinafter CSF) in PM (Project Management Institute 1996, 1-3). In other words, recent literature emphasizes that success of a project is dependent on how a parent organization defines it in terms of its established goals and the above mentioned CSF (Shenhar et al. 2007, 91).
This research is to expand the success criteria for project success by reviewing the existing literature. Equally, the concept of project strategy is evaluated jointly with the proposed determinants of successful project strategy. Project strategy is found to be a revelation and it is worth inquiring into because it may be critical to maintaining business competitive edge (Artto & Kujalla & Dietrich & Martinsuo 2007, 2; Srivannaboon 2009). In this study, the concept of project strategy is provided with an explicit definition away from existing literature which generally utilizes different context-based definitions for project strategy (Artto et al. 2007, 2).
