Project Management Literature Review

It is widely recognized that organizational culture has an impact on project performance (Brown, 2008; Andersen et al., 2009). Many studies have been carried out and several dimensions of organizational culture have been investigated, e.g. the organizational strategy, structure, culture, systems, behavioral patterns and processes of an organization, thereby determining the internal environment required for project management to be successful. A study of the literature reveals there are three types of organizational culture impacts:

i. Corporate culture with an indirect influence – several authors have looked at different aspects of corporate culture having an indirect influence on project success, such as: how decision-makers respond to

Project organizational culture (a direct influence) – various authors have researched the direct influence of project organizational culture on project success such as; organizational policies, procedures, rules, formal and informal roles (Cleland, 1999); top and line management supporting/attitude, monitoring, prioritization and project staffing (Kerzner, 2009, Andersen et al., 2009, Young & Jordan, 2008; Kearns, 2007; Tinnirello 2001; Doll, 1985); support of departments in the pursuit of project goals, employee commitment to the project goals in the context of balancing them with other, potentially competing goals, project planning – how managers evaluate it and how they view the outcomes of projects -the way work is estimated or how resources are assigned to projects, performance of project teams (Pinto,

That is, the attributes of software project success through the development of culture. When culture has not been developed (that is, when an organization has not developed the simultaneous capacities for an aligned corporate culture), the different organizational structure dimensions, in and of themselves, may or may not influence software project success. The reason for hypothesizing a mediating effect is that contextual organizational culture is seen as a meta-capability that is developed gradually over time through the interaction of the various dimensions of an organization context. As both Ghoshal and Bartlett (1994) and Adler and coauthors (1999) showed, the development of this sort of capability takes many years. Stated slightly differently, it would be wrong to suggest that a company could simply institute the three dimensions of organization structure and expect them to deliver successful software projects. Rather, the three dimensions of organizational structure shape individual and collective culture that in turn shape success of software project, and it is the development of the organizational culture that leads to software project