Project Complexity, Project Managers’ Knowledge Creation Styles, and Project Performance

Abstract

The aim of this research is to find a generalized model of prediction and control of the project performance using the knowledge creation and considering the impact of project complexity on project performance. This research attempts to find knowledge creation constructs that measure the styles of knowledge creation within an Arab context. The research investigates four styles of knowledge creation in the field of project management, namely innovative style, experiential style, risk averse style, and specialized style. This is a mixed-method study of the knowledge creation styles of project managers and is applied to 402 projects from different Arab countries. The study systematically reviews the literature in the area of complexity, knowledge creation and project performance, and generates a conceptual model for a qualitative study followed by a quantitative hypothesized model for a quantitative study. This study quantifies the effect of each knowledge creation style at the level of the success of the project performance. This impact is measured in the light of these styles of knowledge creation as moderators of the impact of level of project complexity on the level of project success. The research conclusion is the significance of the mediation of risk averse knowledge creation and the significant moderation impact on the relationship between project complexity and the project performance. Also the research is providing new constructs for measuring the knowledge creation styles and in triangulating the results through quantitative study. Moreover, the research adopts an inductive approach to explain and predict the levels of success of project performance and concludes that there two levels of analysis; one is the level of the relationship between the main constructs of the study, and in this regard the RAKCS is the mediator and the IKCS is the moderator between the project complexity and the project performance. There is another level of analysis among the sub-constructs of the study. It concludes a sequence of relationships between KCSs and significant moderation impacts of these KCSs on the relationship between sub-constructs of complexity and sub-constructs of project performance.