Investigating project-based engagement within the project-oriented organisation : A study on the influence of a project structure on the drivers of employee engagement and human issues within project management.

Abstract Date: 2020-06-09 Level: Bachelor Thesis in Business Administration, 15 cr Institution: School of Business, Society and Engineering, Mälardalen University Authors: Jonathan Örström          Aram Said (98/09/13)                    (97/01/19) Title: Investigating project-based engagement within the project-oriented organisation; a study on the influence of a project structure on the drivers of engagement and human issues within project management. Tutor: David Freund Keywords: Project structure, employee engagement, manager relationship, job demands, job resources, group dynamics. Research question: How can a project structure have an impact on project team members’ engagement within a project-oriented organisation?           Purpose: This thesis aims to investigate within a project-oriented organization how the project management structure can influence the project teams’ engagement. Its further purpose is to add new knowledge in the subject of project-based engagement and human issues of project management. To study this area, possibilities will open for a greater understanding of workplace engagement, in the specific context of project-oriented organisations implementing the project structure. Method: This thesis adopts a quantitative research method with a deductive theory approach, whereby theory is elaborated which devices hypotheses for the research. Furthermore, the collection of primary data for this thesis is retrieved through a self-completion questionnaire in the form of an online survey provided by Google Forms. Data will be retrieved and analysed through the statistical software IBM SPSS Conclusion: The most significant finding is the positive relationship between manager relationship and engagement, strongly agreeing with previous literature of Khan (1990) and Matthews et al. (2018). The other two variables found to have a significant relationship to engagement were job-resource availability and work/ task context. This agreed with Bakker et al. (2007), Demerouti et al. (2001), Khan (1990) and Matthews et al. (2018) amongst others. Unexpectedly and as not hypothesised for is that group dynamics has no significant relationship towards engagement. This goes against some of the main literature by Kahn (1990) and Matthews et al. (2018). However, the result has shown all variables are influenced by the project structure and engagement indicated to increase in its whol