Project team effectiveness: the case for sufficient setup and top management involvement

Abstract

Launching and supporting successful maintenance projects is an overlooked aspect of maintenance management research. This paper examines the effects of four important factors on project success: resource allocation, team leader authority, significant project objectives, and top management involvement. Additionally, we investigate the moderating effects of top management involvement on the relationship between inputs and team performance. By examining the responses from 60 industrial teams we found that a project team's ability to function efficiently is positively related to resource allocation and significant project objectives and negatively related to team leader authority and top management involvement. A project team's ability to achieve its business goals was positively related to significant project objectives. Moreover, the relationship was stronger for significant project objectives and project efficiency when top management was involved. The moderator also enhanced the team leader authority–goal achievement relationship but negatively impacted the team leader authority–project efficiency relationship. Implications are discussed.

Keywords:

• project management
• maintenance project
• project setup

Acknowledgements

This paper is based on research supported by the Transformations to Quality Organisations program of the National Science Foundation, Grant no. SBR-9529904. An earlier version of this paper was presented at Maintenance Management 2006 in Sorrento, Italy. The authors gratefully acknowledge Carolyn Y. Woo for her helpful contributions to this research project.