1. Review of the topic
6.4 Project governance construct
6.4.2 Governance control – behaviour versus outcome
The project governance control construct questions, adopted form Müller and Lecoeuvre (2014), were designed to assess from the respondents the degree to which they have perceived that the control structures employed by their organisations and on projects are either more heavily behaviour and process controlled versus control structures that are more outcomes based. The questions were adapted from their study by making them more ERP project specific for this research rather than for any general organisational project.
As was done for the project governance orientation construct questions, the answers received from the survey respondents for the project governance orientation construct questions were converted into numeric values along a 5-point Likert-scale, an answer closer to the value of 1 indicates an approach to governance whereby there exists tight set controls and strict formal procedures to be followed, whereas a value closer to 5 indicates an approach to governance
111 whereby only the achievement of successful project outcomes is the focus and project teams are left to draw on their project experience and own devices in order to get the work done.
A Pearson’s correlation coefficient test on the construct revealed that the correlations amongst each of the project governance control questions (appendix 5) can be considered strong and significant, giving credibility to the relevance of the questions and the construct as a whole.
The mean score of the governance control construct, measured at 3.08 with a standard deviation of 0.78, showed that the average respondent was on the fence in terms of inferring that the management philosophy of the organisation, and on ERP projects, was that of strict behaviour controls-based approach or more of an outcomes-based approach (Müller &
Lecoeuvre, 2014). By analysing the rankings of the sample means of the five project governance control questions, it must be noted that the two questions with the highest means (indicating the favouring of outcomes over behaviour control) was where the respondents indicated that there was a prioritisation of project team member’s own experiences in performing their project work compared with the strict adherence to project processes, with a mean of 3.5, and the question where they indicated that the project management philosophy was to let the requirements of the project situation and the project team member’s experience personality determine their actions and activities, rather than getting personnel to strictly obey formal job descriptions, with a mean of 3.4.
These findings support the research of Petit (2012) whom inferred that in modern times that bring with them the dynamic and ever-changing environments experienced by corporations and organisations, project managers and teams need to be are of internal and external pressures influencing their project tasks and deliverables, and have the capability of switching between different project management structures or abandon previously laid down procedures, based on the situation at hand in order to get the project tasks completed.
On the other end of the scale, the project governance control questions which ranked as having the two lowest mean scores (favouring behaviour control over outcomes) of the five questions was, firstly, the indication by respondents, with a mean of 2.55, that a structure of rigid and prescribed procedures for most operations by means of sophisticated controls and information systems was favoured by the project management philosophy over loose and informal controls with substantial reliance on informal relationships and cooperation for getting project activities completed (PMI, 2016).
Secondly, with a mean score of 2.9 for the question, respondents were slightly inclined to the notion that their project management philosophy emphasises that project team members must
112 follow the formal project procedures over the philosophy of just getting the work done even at the expense of bypassing formal policy and procedures (Serrador & Pinto, 2015).
The findings for these two questions that are swayed towards the behaviour and process- controlled side of the construct do concur with the work and research of the PMI (2013), and Serrador and Pinto (2015) whom all insist that project management has to be extremely process driven and tightly controlled with the help of sophisticated information system in order to increase the likelihood of project success, and that the increase in new forms of process and procedure focused forms of project management models and methodologies is evidence that the industry places a high importance in this approach to project governance and recognise its benefits.
The overall statistical results in this research for this construct are complimentary to the conclusions around project governance orientation found in the study by Joslin and Müller (2016) and Müller and Lecoeuvre (2014), whom also uncovered that the respondents to their surveys were also on the fence in terms of whether the project management philosophy experienced was one that favoured strict behaviour and process controls approach or the focused achievement of project outcomes approach. This was evidenced by a mean score in their study for this construct of 2.98.
Further statistical analysis was performed on the construct in terms of multiple one-way ANOVA tests to determine if responses differed for the questions within the project governance control construct depending on the demographics. Initial testing indicated that the chosen demographic variables of ERP project experience, project position, project duration, and client sector all had no significant influence on the project governance control construct answers given by the respondents to the survey.
In summary regarding all ANOVA tests conducted to determine if any demographic groups may have an undue influence on the perceptions of respondents, although a few significant differences were found for the ERP project success and governance orientation variables, these are not considered influential from an overall perspective, and therefore, as per Van de Ven (2007), the data has inferred that there is no existence of significant spurious variables that may affect the cause and effect relationship of governance and ERP project success.
This therefore fulfils the third of the casualty criteria so that the discussion in this dissertation can continue regarding governance methods being the cause of ERP project success.
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