HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Human Resource Management

Abstract

The literature has found contradictory results regarding the impact of human resource management on project success. This paper focuses on one important human resource management process - team development - to investigate its importance in the project environment. Results show that most team development practices that work well in the operational business environment do not have a significant influence on project success. However, project duration was found to moderate the relationship between team development and project success: the effectiveness of team development increases in longer projects. The paper identifies and analyzes team development practices that have a positive impact on project success exclusively in long projects.

HRM in project groups: The effect of project duration on team development effectiveness

1. Introduction

Human resource management (HRM) practices are critical for organizational success ([Banker et al., 1996], [Dulebohn and Martocchio, 1998] and [Newell et al., 2004]). However, their importance in the unique project environment is still unclear. On the one hand, the literature has identified HRM as an important factor towards project success (e.g. [Tampoe and Thurloway, 1993], [Barczak and Wilemon, 1992] and [Thamhain, 2004a]) and a core element of project management bodies of knowledge (e.g. [Kerzner, 2009], [Meredith and Mantel, 2009] and [PMI, 2008]). On the other hand, several recent empirical studies found HRM to have a limited effect on project success (e.g. [Pinto and Prescott, 1988], [Belout and Gauvreau, 2004] and [Ebtehaj and Afshari, 2006]). In order to explain these contradictory results, the purpose of this study was to further investigate the effectiveness of HRM in the project environment in general, with particular reference to exclusive project scenarios (Zwikael, 2008). In other words, this paper aims to explore the circumstances under which HRM practices are more effective towards improving project success.

Because HRM is a vast area, which has both a management support role and an employee support role (Turner et al., 2008) this paper does not intend to cover all its related processes. For example, the PMBOK (PMI, 2008) identifies four project HRM processes: develop human resource plan, acquire project team, develop project team, and manage project team. This paper focuses on team development, as the existing literature recognizes it as critical for organizational and project success ([Kerzner, 2009] and [Weinkauf and Hoegl, 2002]). Team development is under the direct responsibility of the project manager, who is expected to engage in activities such as training, and rewarding.

In order to better understand the role of team development in various type of projects, the objectives of this paper are to: (1) explore the contribution of different team development practices to project success; (2) identify those team development practices that have the greatest influence on project success; and (3) investigate potential moderating variables that may influence the relationship between team development and project success. As a result, this paper aims at improving the knowledge on team development effectiveness in general and across different project scenarios in particular. The following sections review the relevant literature and present the research model, hypotheses, results, implications, and ...