Business school students’ motivations and intentions to pursue a project management career

ABSTRACT

Project management (PM) career choice is important as millions of new projects will need skilled and motivated project managers. Therefore, the younger generation must be motivated to acquire the necessary skills to deal with project complexities and dynamics. In previous research, the factors that impact students’ perceptions of their learning experiences and their readiness to PM work has been investigated without examining the factors that impact the choice of a PM career. In this study our aim is to describe the intentions and motivations of business school students to pursue a PM career. Our results demonstrate that motivations such as self-development, professional growth, status and power, and technical and human skills are significantly influential in PM career choices.

KEYWORDS:

• Motivation and skills
• project management career
• self-determination theory
• project management education
• Structural Equation Modelling
• business school students

Data availability statement

Data available on request due to privacy/ethical restrictions. The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author [AN]. The data are not publicly available due to restrictions (e.g. their containing information that could compromise the privacy of research participants). Shared upon request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andre Nemeh

André Nemeh is an Associate Professor in Strategy and Innovation at Rennes School of Business, France. His research focuses on competition strategy and its relationship with technological innovation. The European wireless telecommunication sector constitutes his main research field.

Rajibul Hasan

Rajibul Hasan is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Maynooth University, Ireland. Previously, he has worked as an Assistant Professor at Rennes School of Business, France, and as a principal investigator in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and consumer behaviour research area. He specialises in understanding consumer behaviour and innovation adoption.

Öncü Hazir

Öncü Hazır is an Associate Professor at the Rennes School of Business, France. He has worked as a postdoctoral researcher in Laboratoire d’Informatique de Paris 6 and in Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Saint-Etienne, and as an Associate Professor in TED University, Turkey. He has participated in research projects on project management, and his interests also include operations research and management.