Customer focus competencies and the dynamics of project teams

Abstract

We investigate the role of the customer focus (CF) competencies of project teams in achieving the strategic intent of marketing in a company. In an exceptional reach study of more than 1500 teams in a construction company over the period 2006–2012, we found that the construction project teams with better CF competency assessments perform better. In addition, due to the rich longitudinal database, the research provides new results on the mechanisms and interactions among team members. We show that the entire team contributes evenly to the achievement of quality goals (conjunctive tasks), while team members with better customer competency assessments contribute significantly more to the achievement of the budget and deadline goals (disjunctive tasks). We also provide support to the view that the achievement of the budget and quality goals does not diverge during the crisis period compared to the pre-crisis period. However, the reduction of funds for investment projects during the crisis profoundly affected the deadline goal and the completion of projects. Finally, our research shows that when one or several team members perform more team roles, team performance is likely to improve, while the effects of team size on team performance are not conclusive.

Keywords:

• project teams
• marketing competencies
• team performance

JEL Classification:

• O22
• M31
• L74

Acknowledgements

The authors are indebted to the referee for useful comments, and to Trimo, d.d. for providing them with the data used in this paper. The usual caveat applies.

Notes

1. As a result, various projects and programs based on teamwork were introduced to support innovation and a learning-oriented culture and, consequently, the company's strategy. The most important approaches and tools applied in Trimo are: (1) continuous improvement process; (2) TQM and cost-value-driver-analysis; (3) total property care; and (4) competencies maps (Tekavčič et al., 2007).

2. See, for example, Little and Rubin (2002) and Rubin (1999).

3. The detailed description of the missing data mechanism and the procedure for fulfilling missing data is available from the authors upon request.

4. Projects are considered to be low quality if they possess the quality costs. The quality costs include all costs that could be avoided during the project duration or after the end of the project such as costs that occurred due to some rework, mistake, failure, or any kind of additional costs that could be avoided. Quality variable is a binary variable; it is equal to 1 in the case that there were no additional costs caused by the drop in quality of the project implementation and 0 in the opposite case.

5. Using values from Table 2, hypothesis of no increase in CF competence could be tested by t = (2.92 − 2.84)/0.02(1/601 + 1/516)^1/2 = 5.84. Test is significant at less than 0.0001.

6. Other estimates are available from the authors upon request.

7. As is the standard assumption in the “survival” type models.