Among the goals of recent supported work employment programs is improvement of competitive employment opportunities for individuals who suffer from chronic mental illness, and for whom competitive employment outcomes are poor. This study examined the effects of a vocational rehabilitation program, Project Success (Skills Upgrade: Client Centered Empowerment Supportive Services), on self esteem and quality of life for chronically mentally ill participants.

High project failure rates result in billions of wasted dollars each year. Project failure does not discriminate by type of project or the industry from which they originate. The purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore strategies that leaders at a health care organization located in Pennsylvania use to manage projects successfully. This population was selected due to the health care organization's reputation for successful project completion. The conceptual framework for this study was Fiedler's contingency theory. Data were collected by conducting semistructured interviews with 9 project leaders and reviewing project documents provided by study participants. Interviews were transcribed, thick descriptions were obtained, and participants were engaged in member checking. The thematic data analysis process consisted of compiling and coding data, identifying patterns, and organizing themes into relevant categories, iteratively. Findings were organized into 4 thematic categories, which were, essential strategies, relationship management, best practices, and self-attunement. Findings from this study may contribute to positive social change if health care leaders can use the information to enhance their project leadership capabilities. When project managers are successful, the benefits cascade to health care organizations. Leaders of those health care organizations can ensure that important health and wellness services are provided and available to those who need them, fund performance improvement initiatives, resource quality programs, and offer innovative services to improve health outcomes for individuals and communities.

Project managers can be change agents providing direction and motivation for subordinates to meet and exceed goals; however, there is a lack of information about the soft skills needed to achieve project success. Understanding the relationship between cognitive style and transformational leadership to software project outcomes is important. This study describes the lived experiences of software project managers by focusing on their attitudes towards, perceptions of, and behaviors related to using transformational leadership and cognitive styles in agile software development environments. Husserlian phenomenological design was used to identify the structure of participants' experiences. The naturalistic decision-making model and the theory of constraints were a framework for the study. Software project managers identified as transformational leaders were selected from government agencies and commercial companies. Prior to being interviewed, individuals completed the Cognitive Style Indicator. In-depth, semistructured interviews and member checking were used for data collection. Qualitative, phenomenological analysis was used to code the interview data and identify thematic response categories. Results indicated that transformational leaders possessing a planning or creating cognitive style stimulate an environment with an uplifting work atmosphere in which team members are fulfilled and product development outcomes are successful. The implications for positive social change include broadening project managers' leadership and decision making regarding overall project success and leading executives to reexamine the leadership and decision-making styles of their managers resulting in their organizations' prosperity, employee effectiveness, and cost containment.

The Open Source Software Development (OSSD) model has launched products in rapid succession and with high quality, without following traditional quality practices of accepted software development models (Raymond 1999). Some OSSD projects challenge established quality assurance approaches, claiming to be successful through partial contrary techniques of standard software development. However, empirical studies of quality assurance practices for Open Source Software (OSS) are rare (Glass 2001). Therefore, further research is required to evaluate the quality assurance processes and methods within the OSSD model. The aim of this research is to improve the understanding of quality assurance practices under the OSSD model. The OSSD model is characterised by a collaborative, distributed development approach with public communication, free participation, free entry to the project for newcomers and unlimited access to the source code. The research examines applied quality assurance practices from a process view rather than from a product view. The research follows ideographic and nomothetic methodologies and adopts an antipositivist epistemological approach. An empirical research of applied quality assurance practices in OSS projects is conducted through the literature research. The survey research method is used to gain empirical evidence about applied practices. The findings are used to validate the theoretical knowledge and to obtain further expertise about practical approaches. The findings contribute to the development of a quality assurance framework for standard OSSD approaches. The result is an appropriate quality model with metrics that the requirements of the OSSD support. An ideographic approach with case studies is used to extend the body of knowledge and to assess the feasibility and applicability of the quality assurance framework. In conclusion, the study provides further understanding of the applied quality assurance processes under the OSSD model and shows how a quality assurance framework can support the development processes with guidelines and measurements.

Este trabalho trata dos temas sustentabilidade, gestão de projetos e sucesso em projetos. Por abordá-los de forma conjunta, preenche uma lacuna de pesquisa que trata da conexão entre os três temas. O objetivo da tese, desenvolvida por artigos, é propor um modelo teórico e empírico de sustentabilidade aplicável no contexto de gestão de projetos e orientado para o sucesso em projetos. Como metodologia fez-se uso da abordagem combinada, envolvendo pesquisa qualitativa e quantitativa com aplicação de multi métodos. A pesquisa qualitativa foi utilizada para a sistematização da literatura dos temas chaves e para o desenvolvimento de estudos de casos múltiplos com aplicação de entrevistas com gestores de projetos e de sustentabilidade, bem como aplicação de questionário aos membros de equipes de projetos. A pesquisa quantitativa foi utilizada para a realização de levantamento survey, com 143 gestores de projetos em empresas brasileiras, e análise estatística por meio da modelagem de equações estruturais, bem como foi aplicado o método de análise fatorial exploratória. Os constructos e variáveis do modelo teórico proposto, bem como os protocolos de pesquisa survey, foram validados por meio de um fórum com 11 especialistas oriundos de 10 universidades, localizadas em seis países diferentes. Como contribuições deste estudo pode-se destacar a estruturação do referencial teórico de sustentabilidade em gestão de projetos e de sucesso em projetos; a apresentação e validação da estrutura de um modelo teórico e empírico de constructos e variáveis de sustentabilidade com enfoque Triple-Bottom Line - TBL (econômica, ambiental e social) em gestão de projetos orientado ao sucesso em projetos; e, a validação estatística do relacionamento entre sustentabilidade em gestão de projetos e sucesso em projetos. Esta última relação foi confirmada pela alta significância da relação causal entre os constructos, pois sustentabilidade em gestão de projetos contribui positivamente para o sucesso em projetos, explicando 43% dos efeitos sobre sucesso em projetos. Em decorrência, foram desenvolvidos seis artigos científicos, alguns publicados e outros submetidos para periódicos internacionais. / This research looks to study sustainability, Project management and project success. Merging these themes, this thesis works on a gap of research related to approaching both topics. For that matter, this study, developed by articles model, aims to propose a theoretical and empirical framework of sustainability, applicable into project management context and oriented to project success. The combined approach was used as methodology, engaging qualitative and quantitative research by applying multi methods. Qualitative research was used to systematize the literature of key themes and to develop multiple case studies by applying semi-structured interviews with people responsible for projects and sustainability areas and questionnaire application to projects team members. Quantitative research was used to develop a survey involving 143 project managers in Brazilian companies. Statistics analysis was carried out in order to treat the data through structural equation modeling. Exploratory factor analysis was also used. Constructs and variables of the conceptual framework proposed, as well as the survey research protocols, were validated by experts through and expert panel of eleven experts from ten universities and six different countries. Contributions of this study may highlight the development of the bibliographic review of sustainability in project management and project success topics; the presentation and validation of the conceptual and empirical model of constructs and variables of sustainability (with triple-bottom line perspective) in project management oriented to project success; and the statistical validation of the relationship between sustainability in project management and project success. This relationship was confirmed by the high significance of the casual relation between both constructs, explaining that the constructs of sustainability in project management contributes positively to obtain project success. It was found that 43% of these constructs affect project success. At the end, six scientific articles were developed, and some of them were already published and others submitted to international journals.

Projetos ambientais corporativos bem-sucedidos implementam mudanças organizacionais e estratégias ambientais corporativas com êxito. Desta forma, o propósito desta pesquisa é compreender como o desempenho de gerenciamento de projetos se relaciona com o sucesso de projetos ambientais corporativos. Com esse intuito, foi desenvolvida uma fundamentação teórica sobre as questões ambientais enfrentadas pelas organizações e suas estratégias ambientais corporativas para endereçá-las por meio de projetos ambientais, bem como sobre gerenciamento de projetos e sucesso de projetos ambientais. Com base nesta fundamentação teórica, foi elaborada uma pesquisa do tipo survey com 142 organizações que desenvolveram projetos ambientais corporativos no Brasil. Coletou-se dados de desempenho de gerenciamento de projetos, sucesso dos projetos ambientais corporativos e caracterização da amostra que posteriormente foram analisados por meio de correlações bivariadas, análise fatorial, modelagem de regressão logística binária e testes de Kruskal-Wallis e Mann-Whitney. Primeiramente, os resultados permitiram a proposição de modelos para mensurar o desempenho de gerenciamento de projetos ambientais e avaliar o sucesso de projetos ambientais, que constituem uma ferramenta integrada para análise de projetos ambientais. Em segundo lugar, o trabalho revelou que a probabilidade de sucesso do projeto ambiental pode ser aumentada por meio de: (1) estabelecimento de parcerias; e (2) desenvolvimento de capacidade de superar dificuldades e gerar mudanças, benefícios e cultura de projeto compartilhada. Em terceiro lugar, os resultados evidenciaram: (1) menor orientação para o futuro dentre os projetos ambientais de indústrias de transformação; (2) percepção de maior importância dos projetos ambientais dentre organizações de menor porte; (3) percepção de que projetos ambientais com escopo mais amplo são maiores promotores de mudanças organizacionais; e (4) influência positiva de profissionais com maior tempo de experiência em projetos ambientais sobre o sucesso dos projetos ambientais. Conclui-se que o desenvolvimento de parcerias e capacidades organizacionais e a disponibilidade de conhecimentos tácitos e pragmáticos influenciam positivamente o sucesso de projetos ambientais corporativos no Brasil. / Successful corporate environmental projects successfully implement organizational change and corporate environmental strategies. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to understand how project management performance is related to the success of corporate environmental projects.Considering this, a theoretical framework was developed on environmental issues faced by organizations and their corporate environmental strategies to address them through environmental projects, as well as project management and environmental project success. Based on this theoretical framework, a survey was conducted with 142 organizations that developed corporate environmental projects in Brazil. Project management performance, success of corporate environmental projects and sample characterization data were collected, which were later analyzed using bivariate correlations, factorial analysis, binary logistic regression modeling, and Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests. First, the results allowed the proposal of models to measure the performance of environmental project management and to evaluate the success of environmental projects, which constitute an integrated tool for the analysis of environmental projects. Second, the work revealed that the probability of success of the environmental project can be increased by: (1) establishing partnerships; and (2) development of capability to overcome difficulties and generate changes, benefits and shared project culture. Third, the results showed: (1) less orientation for the future among the environmental projects of transformation industries; (2) perception of greater importance of environmental projects among smaller organizations; (3) perception that broader scope environmental projects are major promoters of organizational change; and (4) positive influence of professionals with more experience in environmental projects on the success of environmental projects. It is concluded that the development of partnerships and organizational capabilities and the availability of tacit and pragmatic knowledge positively influence the success of corporate environmental projects in Brazil.

In Africa, most oil and gas megaprojects exceed their original budget and time deadlines despite advancement in project management processes and systems. This study explored strategies project managers used for megaprojects' success in the oil and gas industry in Nigeria, from the perspectives of the owner and contractor organizations. Multiple case study design was utilized to collect data by asking open-ended questions in separate interviews with 4 project managers. Archival project data was also reviewed to eliminate information incongruences. The conceptual framework for the study is the contingency theory that there is no universal management structure for every project. The data analysis approach was thematic coding. Study findings from the data analysis were aggregated into 5 themes. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd themes include the project managers' view of measures of megaproject successes, project managers' strategies for managing the business environment, and the strategies for achieving megaproject execution excellence. The 4th and 5th themes are the strategies for facilitating employee performance and the typical social change development and social change performance initiatives to benefit neighboring communities because of a megaproject. The conclusion from the evidences gathered is that megaproject success is contingent on the ability of the project manager to unravel and address complexity leveraging strategic leadership and systems thinking. From these findings, project managers from the client and contractor organizations may use, adapt, learn, refresh, and improve their project management skills. The significance of the study to positive social change from improving the success rates of megaprojects includes improvement in human capacity development and infrastructural additions that can facilitate economic growth in the region.

Project leadership requires a diverse blend of technical and behavioral skills. Researchers have focused on the technical aspects of project management, leaving a void in understanding the behavioral skills of project leadership. The purpose of this correlational study was to gain insights into the behavioral aspects of projects by understanding the social capital and knowledge integration abilities of project leaders. Nahapiet and Ghoshal's social capital definition and its structural, relational, and cognitive attributes form the basis for the social capital theory constructs used in this study. The focus of the research questions was on the relationship of social capital to knowledge integration and project success. A self-designed survey (α = .925) was used to measure the latent variables of a project leader's social capital and knowledge integration abilities on the observed variable of project success. Survey research, conducted using a sample of project management professionals (N = 108), elicited project members' perceptions on the behavioral aspects of project leaders. Structural equation modeling validated that knowledge integration assists in achieving project success and that 2 types of social capital, structural and relational, have a significant influence on knowledge integration. Structural social capital has a positive effect, and relational social capital has a negative effect. The findings indicated that project management professionals need not only technical skills, but also behavioral skills. Having project leaders with the right blend of competencies will improve project success rates, affecting social change by enabling organizations to achieve greater economic benefits from better understanding the behavioral aspects of project teams.

<p>Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the corporate world are achieving increasing importance and attention especially in the advent of intense globalization. This is evident from the magnitude and growth of deal values and resultant ‘mega-mergers’ transacted in recent times. As expert advisory are sought in M&A activities to facilitate the undertaking and maximise the value of the transaction, advisory firms begin to play a more significant and at the same time lucrative role in M&A activities, to the extent of determining the outcome of such projects. Being an area of limited research, it is thus valuable to investigate what M&A advisory firms view as critical success factors to the projects they undertake. Consequently, the research question of “What are the critical success factors for merger & acquisition projects in the view of merger & acquisition advisory firms” has been raised. A list of ten critical success factors for M&A projects is firstly identified from an extensive literature review. These factors are (1) Complete and Clear objectives, goals and scope of the project, (2) Client consultation and acceptance, (3) Project manager’s competence and commitment, (4) Project team member’s competence and commitment, (5) Communication and information sharing and exchange, (6) Project plan development, (7) M&A advisory firm’s resource planning, (8) Time management and tight secrecy, (9) Price evaluation and financing scheme, and (10) Risk management.</p><p>In an attempt to explore the importance of each factor in the practical context, data have been collected through three research methods. Primarily, the authors conduct a semi-structured interview with six interviewees currently working in three organizations which provide professional services related to M&A projects. Meanwhile, a self-completion questionnaire method is employed, following which a sample of 325 M&A advisory firms based in the U.S. is selected to participate in an online survey. In addition, the authors follow a case study approach based on the three organizations of the six interviewees in order to establish comprehensive knowledge about issues relating to M&A projects.</p><p>In response to the research question, the findings strongly indicate that seven out of ten factors in the original list have a positive impact, being the factors listed above as (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (8), and (9). On the other hand, it revealed the lesser importance of the other three. In addition, three new factors have been discovered from analyzing the data collected, being (i) Having a number of key potential buyers with suitable profile (ii) Right, correct and complete information and data in the data room, and (iii) The quality of the selling company. While as another outcome of this research, further practical insights have been provided regarding the role of M&A advisory firms, the M&A process, common issues faced by M&A projects and the success criteria for M&A projects.</p><p>The findings from this research contribute valuable new knowledge to both researchers and practitioners in both project management and M&A fields, while facilitating the achievement of successful M&A projects.</p>

Mergers and acquisitions (M&amp;A) in the corporate world are achieving increasing importance and attention especially in the advent of intense globalization. This is evident from the magnitude and growth of deal values and resultant ‘mega-mergers’ transacted in recent times. As expert advisory are sought in M&amp;A activities to facilitate the undertaking and maximise the value of the transaction, advisory firms begin to play a more significant and at the same time lucrative role in M&amp;A activities, to the extent of determining the outcome of such projects. Being an area of limited research, it is thus valuable to investigate what M&amp;A advisory firms view as critical success factors to the projects they undertake. Consequently, the research question of “What are the critical success factors for merger &amp; acquisition projects in the view of merger &amp; acquisition advisory firms” has been raised. A list of ten critical success factors for M&amp;A projects is firstly identified from an extensive literature review. These factors are (1) Complete and Clear objectives, goals and scope of the project, (2) Client consultation and acceptance, (3) Project manager’s competence and commitment, (4) Project team member’s competence and commitment, (5) Communication and information sharing and exchange, (6) Project plan development, (7) M&amp;A advisory firm’s resource planning, (8) Time management and tight secrecy, (9) Price evaluation and financing scheme, and (10) Risk management. In an attempt to explore the importance of each factor in the practical context, data have been collected through three research methods. Primarily, the authors conduct a semi-structured interview with six interviewees currently working in three organizations which provide professional services related to M&amp;A projects. Meanwhile, a self-completion questionnaire method is employed, following which a sample of 325 M&amp;A advisory firms based in the U.S. is selected to participate in an online survey. In addition, the authors follow a case study approach based on the three organizations of the six interviewees in order to establish comprehensive knowledge about issues relating to M&amp;A projects. In response to the research question, the findings strongly indicate that seven out of ten factors in the original list have a positive impact, being the factors listed above as (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (8), and (9). On the other hand, it revealed the lesser importance of the other three. In addition, three new factors have been discovered from analyzing the data collected, being (i) Having a number of key potential buyers with suitable profile (ii) Right, correct and complete information and data in the data room, and (iii) The quality of the selling company. While as another outcome of this research, further practical insights have been provided regarding the role of M&amp;A advisory firms, the M&amp;A process, common issues faced by M&amp;A projects and the success criteria for M&amp;A projects. The findings from this research contribute valuable new knowledge to both researchers and practitioners in both project management and M&amp;A fields, while facilitating the achievement of successful M&amp;A projects.