Role Of Leadership In Project Management:An Empirical Study Of Information System Development Projects In Pakistan

Leadership is an essential management role that enables an organization’s resources to be directed in the most efficient and effective manner possible.Influential leaders articulate the organization’s mission,motivate people,and aid them in accomplishing it.Understanding the role of leaders may assist organizations in contributing more significantly to the achievement of their objectives.The project manager’s function is critical in all phases of the project,from the beginning to the end,and in ensuring that the product or service is delivered in accordance with the expectations of project stakeholders and requirements.Researchers and managers are concerned about appropriate leadership conduct,and the argument over the influence of leadership on organizational performance or project success is currently an ongoing debate.In order to motivate team members and increase their morale,influential leaders must always strive to have a positive impact on both individual and organizational performance.The most significant asset of any firm is undoubtedly its human resource base.The project leaders play an essential role in effective team-building activities and teamwork to accomplish the project or organizational objectives.This study is based on the transformational and shared leadership role in team-building and teamwork quality on the project’s success.It is estimated that the Information Technology and Telecommunication(IIT)industry in Pakistan is developing rapidly.The success of an Information System Development(ISD)project is critical to the development of the information technology sector.By its nature,an Information System Development(ISD)project involves delivering intangible products.As a result of the intangible character of the product,it is difficult to manage the project to reach the desired result and to satisfy the expectations of the customer entirely.The following are the study’s primary points of innovation:A new research perspective: In the project management literature,substantial research has been conducted to examine various aspects of transformational and shared leadership behaviors in a project management context;however,a gap in the research exists;there is a lack of understanding in the information systems development(ISD)sector.Project leadership styles(transactional and transformational)have been studied in construction,NGOs,and other industries.The climate and the methodology of the information system development projects differ entirely from other industries.In their opinion,Pollack and Matous(2019)say that no research has looked into how unique,repeatable team-building activities affect teamwork and how they work.Zhu(2018)distinguished shared leadership from traditional leadership styles by characteristics.Shared leadership has already been studied at the meso-level(project level)in the form of task performance and innovation outcome variables.Recent research has found that shared leadership leads to better task outcomes in terms of consistency,quality,quantity,and innovation.In terms of intervening variables,teambuilding practices(TBP),teamwork quality(TWQ),and project complexity with shared leadership(SL)have never been studied empirically in projects to the best of researcher knowledge and literature.The study argued that transformational and shared leadership styles lead to team-building practices,and team-building practices predict quality teamwork,and teamwork quality contributes to a successful project.A new empirical study: The novel insights provide the serial mediation and moderation mediation between leadership styles(transformational and shared)and ISD project success.This research provides quantitative evidence evaluating the relationship between leadership styles(transformational and shared)and ISD project success independently and serially intervening of team-building practices and teamwork quality,respectively.The research also provides empirical evidence of moderation mediation of project complexity and team-building practices,project complexity,and teamwork quality between leadership styles(transformational and shared)and ISD project success.This study proposes to examine the unresolved problem of the overlooked phenomenon of prior studies with empirical evidence.A theoretical contribution: The research contributes to the relevant literature in various ways.First,the research advances our understanding of transformational leadership behavior,shared leadership behavior,team-building practices,teamwork quality,project success,and project complexity.Second,through the empirical evidence of the impact of leadership styles(transformational leadership and shared leadership)on information system development project success.The study will also enhance our understanding of the mediation and moderation mediation role of team-building,teamwork quality,project complexity between leadership behaviors and project success.This study examined the effect of two major leadership styles(transformational leadership and shared leadership)on project success,both directly and indirectly,to determine their influence on project success.Study 1 investigated the impact of project managers’ transformational leadership behavior on project success.The study also determined the independent mediation influence of team-building practices and teamwork quality between project managers’ transformational leadership style and ISD project success.Study 1 determines the serial mediation effect of team-building practices and teamwork quality between project managers’ transformational leadership behavior and ISD project success,respectively.The study found that team-building practices and teamwork quality independently and serially mediate the relationship between transformational leadership behavior of project managers and ISD project success.In empirical Study 2 one of the objectives is to determine the independent and serial mediation of team-building practices and teamwork quality between project managers’ shared leadership and project success.The study found that team-building practices and teamwork quality independently mediate the relationship between shared leadership behavior and ISD project success.The study also found that both mediators teambuilding practices and teamwork quality serially mediate the association between shared leadership of managers and ISD project success.Study 3 examined the impact of project managers’ shared leadership style on ISD project success.Another objective of study 3 is to check the moderation mediation impact of team-building practices(mediator)and project complexity(moderator)and,teamwork quality(mediator)and project complexity(moderator)between project managers leadership behavior(transformational and shared)and ISD project success.Based on the available literature,a number of hypotheses have been developed in order to address the research questions of all three studies.The Study 3 found that project complexity and team-building moderate-mediate the association between project managers’ both leadership behavior(transformational leadership and shared)and ISD project success.The study also found that project complexity and teamwork quality moderate-mediate the relationship between leadership styles(transformational and shared)of project managers and ISD project success.The data were collected through online questionnaires from the information system development(ISD)sector of Pakistan.The questionnaire link has been sent through emails to 800 ISD project managers.There were 374 genuine replies,representing a response rate of 46.75 percent.For the data analysis,several statistical approaches such as descriptive statistics,correlation,and regression were used in combination with SPSS,AMOS,and AMOS add-ins statistical software.Bootstrapped analyses were used to evaluate hypotheses using PROCESS macros(SPSS plugin).Prior to testing the hypothesized model,a variety of statistical approaches are employed to verify the model’s fitness.The statistical results supported all hypotheses of the study.The following conclusions have been reached through empirical analyses of this study:A better relationship between managers and project team members is important for the growth of the organization and for the personnel themselves.For any organization,the staff should be the first priority.They require direction and support from their leaders.The behaviors of their leaders significantly influence the behaviors of subordinates.Employees do not leave the organization;they leave the bad leaders.The project team members or employees are humans,they have feelings,and every staff member has unique psychology.As a result,every individual needs the consideration of his leader.The leader should pay attention to each team member as much as possible.Appreciate the subordinates for the good work.Both transformational leadership and shared leadership styles are important for a successful project.In shared leadership,the team members are more energetic and feel the leader’s responsibility in some phases of the project.Transformational leaders motivate and encourage team members.In information system development projects,shared leadership style is more suitable than transformational leadership.Transformational leadership is more visionary and motivates team members to do a task.Information system development is technical work as compared to other sectors projects.It is difficult for transformational leaders to have enough knowledge about coding,designing,database GUI and other things.In shared leadership,the expert person can lead the project team in a specific domain.Team-building practices and teamwork quality play a significant role in the project team to raise the likelihood of a successful project.It is the project leader’s responsibility to build a project team to improve social connections among team members and define the roles of individual members or groups of members within teams.The leader of the project assigns a clear role to an individual and provides unambiguous objectives.The project leader needs to build an environment where conflict can be resolved among team members.Teamwork quality and project success depend on their synchronization.The more the project team members communicate(formal or informal),coordinate,cohere,and support each other,the greater the probability of the project’s success.