Publication:

Understanding top management's decision-making on implementing project management systems: an exploratory study

Top Management’s motivation to invest in improving their organisation’s Project Management processes and practices is arguably an important under-researched phenomenon. In this paper we present the results of an exploratory design research whose main purpose is to identify the decision process that Top Management follows and the criteria they use to make their decision when considering investing in improving their Project Management processes. A multiple case study was conducted in the Basque Country region, Spain, followed by a survey to explore the phenomenon in greater depth and compare results. Findings suggest that the decision making process is mostly fast, intuitive, and based on qualitative methods rather than rule-governed and based on quantitative methods. Findings also suggest that the most important criteria considered are related to internal efficiency rather than to external factors.