CHALLENGES FOR PROJECT MANAGEMENT IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Challenges could be observed as opportunities for success. The growth of project management body of knowledge and the advancement of project managers’ capabilities in dealing with resources are crucial to the successful delivery of projects. As the main objective of this paper is to overview the key challenges for project managers in the current century to help the Future Built Environment, a systematic literature review analysis on PM features was conducted by evaluating over 256 published research papers under the Project Management topic during the past 15 years (2003–2018). As result of this exploration, the research highlighted 18 main challenges and over 125 parameters related to challenges in projects from the extant literature. The management of uncertainty and dealing with different challenges are necessary conditions for effective project management. Sources of challenges are wide ranging and have fundamental effects on projects and the project management body of knowledge. These challenges are not limited to specific industries, and include scope management, information technology, team dynamics, customers’ satisfaction, lean management, communication, innovation and quality. Common project management body of knowledge does not address many of the listed sources of challenges, particularly in ‘soft’ project management skills where flexibility and tolerance of PMs are necessary. The findings of this review paper help scholars to put their attempts on key challenges in managing projects effectively. Such attempts need to entail project managers’ capabilities as well as the organization maturities including some aspects of organisation culture and learning

Leaders, conflict, and team coordination: a relational leadership approach in temporary organisations

Sustainable Development Goals: SDG 8: Decent work and economic growthSupplemental material is available online at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09537287.2024.2313518#supplemental-material-section .This study explores how the level of relational leadership of team leaders influences team members’ conflict-handling style and team coordination in temporary organisations (TOs). Leaning upon Socio-Psychological and relational leadership theories, the research also evaluates how the cultural background of leaders moderates the nature of the association between relational leadership and project team performance. This contribution is unique by engaging with three moderating cultural groups while drawing on data from 126 teams in TOs using PLS path modelling. The results explain that relational leadership influences team members’ cooperative and conflict-avoiding styles, which are, in turn, positively associated with team coordination and team performance. The judicious and considered use of conflict-avoiding should be recognised as a thoughtful style in multicultural team contexts and as a consequence of relational leadership. Team coordination and performance, however, are related more to relational leadership with the sample of leaders from a specific within-nationality cultural background.Universiti Sains Malaysia for providing the RUI Grant [No. 1001/PPBGN/816283]

Linking Team Condition and Team Performance: A Transformational Leadership Approach

Because project teams in the construction industry shape the primary focus of the industry's project life cycle, a high-performance construction workplace facilitates employees’ technical and innovation skills through team development. Drawing on the current research in general teamwork and leadership, this study, from a theoretical perspective, extends the team condition as a hierarchical construct, incorporating six associated components. This article argues that team building and team development can be studied as ongoing processes that are crucial to project success. In order to reduce the risk of common method variance, the research analysis was completed using 94 construction teams from three different sources, within which team members rated their leader's transformational leadership behavior. The team leaders evaluated the team's conditions, and, lastly, the supervisor of each team rated the team's performance. The model shows that the team condition, which is defined as the factors that contribute to making a great team, has significant direct and indirect impacts on team performance. Furthermore, the transformational leadership behavior of team leaders showed a mediating role between the team condition and the performance

Leadership, Innovation, and Sustainability

In this chapter, Verburg explores the leadership challenges associated with sustainability by highlighting the current research evidence on the links between leadership, innovation, and sustainability. There seems to be a lot of conceptual confusion in relation to sustainability leadership. Different authors offer different definitions, focusing on either specific traits, styles or behaviors that they associate with sustainability leadership. Others do not even focus on leadership roles or behaviors as such but highlight the importance of any individual’s personal proactivity in order to drive sustainability agendas. This conceptual confusion may be a significant obstacle to further the field of sustainability leadership. The purpose of this chapter is, therefore, to provide a better understanding of sustainability leadership to enable future studies.Economics of Technology and Innovatio