It All Depends, But on What? Testing Contingency in Public Strategic Implementation

Advancing capital project management

“…Importantly, this research emphasizes that several factors are decisive in realizing such benefits, relating to leadership and organizational culture, policy standards and project management guidelines, human capital, training and reporting tools (Christensen, 1998;Kim et al, 2003;Song, 2010;US Government Accountability Office, 1997, 2008, 2009a, b, 2012, 2019. For policymakers, the key takeaway is that they have tools at their disposal to structure the implementation process.…”

“…The framework begins with the creation of a statewide PMO to help improve project delivery by establishing policies, conducting oversight, developing human capital and facilitating organizational change. To reiterate, significant preconditions for effective implementation are the mastery of core project management competencies and EVM specific training (Kim et al, 2003;Kwak and Anbari, 2012;Song, 2010;US Government Accountability Office, 2008, 2009a, 2019. Therefore, it is essential for the statewide PMO to provide training, mentorship, consulting services and avenues to professionalization, consistent with Moynihan's (2008) conception of central offices focusing on knowledge generation and support of agency driven changes and not delimiting themselves to command-and-control units.…”

“…However, this literature strongly emphasizes that multiple factors are decisive in realizing benefits, relating to leadership and organizational culture, policy standards and guidelines, human capital, training and reporting tools (Christensen, 1998;Kim et al, 2003;Song, 2010;US Government Accountability Office, 1997, 2008, 2009a, b, 2012, 2019. Simply put, if an organization has not mastered core project management competencies, then EVM is unlikely to offer significant benefits.…”

“…Adopting industry standards is a critical initial step in developing guidelines; however, such standards are generic in nature and not necessarily intended to be applied uniformly in an organization. A central design principle in organizational project management is to tailor practices according to project risk (Mitchell, 2019;Project Management Institute, 2016, 2018. This involves developing criteria to classify projects into groups and explaining how practices should vary based on the classifications.…”

“…Research has identified project management as an essential stage of the capital budgeting process to ensure that projects are delivered efficiently (Ammar et al, 2001;Ebdon, 2004;Jimenez and Pagano, 2012;Mitchell, 2019;Srithongrung et al, 2019). However, the field is silent on modern project management strategies.…”