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A multidimensional analysis of project manager competences

A multidimensional analysis of project manager competences
A multidimensional analysis of project manager competences
Projects are important to industry. Project manager (PM) competences are important in project success. Yet current competence studies largely rely on small-sample, homogenous PM surveys which could suffer from uncontrollable biases and may not be generalizable. Often, the studies disregard industry specificity. We attempt to address these issues by exploring the key competences employers require from PMs across multiple industry sectors. We code the contents of 2306 online project management job advertisements in the UK, the USA, Canada, China, India, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore for frequently occurring keywords. Using three-way Multidimensional Scaling (MDS), we extract six dimensions of competence present in the coded keywords: (1) industry-specific and generic skills over project management knowledge/expertise; (2) project management knowledge/expertise over industry-specific and generic skills; (3) (senior) managerial skills; (4) (positive) personal traits; (5) project management methodology experience and professional qualifications; and (6) risk management over a project life-cycle. We find that typically industry puts more weight on generic skills than project management knowledge/expertise, replicating previous PM survey based results. We believe, however, that the main contribution is our finding that different industry sectors place significantly different levels of salience on the six dimensions. We discuss the practical implications of the results
0018-9391
506-517
Chipulu, M.
12545803-0d1f-4a37-b2d2-f0d21165205e
Neoh, J.G.
0193ab71-2ffb-4126-bfca-eca41bd75038
Ojiako, U.
aaf46aee-2d90-4446-a689-84bc963c69aa
Williams, T.
e7b46ae7-6c0c-45a7-a4c4-bd88597f6db4
Chipulu, M.
12545803-0d1f-4a37-b2d2-f0d21165205e
Neoh, J.G.
0193ab71-2ffb-4126-bfca-eca41bd75038
Ojiako, U.
aaf46aee-2d90-4446-a689-84bc963c69aa
Williams, T.
e7b46ae7-6c0c-45a7-a4c4-bd88597f6db4

Chipulu, M., Neoh, J.G., Ojiako, U. and Williams, T. (2013) A multidimensional analysis of project manager competences. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 60 (7), 506-517. (doi:10.1109/TEM.2012.2215330).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Projects are important to industry. Project manager (PM) competences are important in project success. Yet current competence studies largely rely on small-sample, homogenous PM surveys which could suffer from uncontrollable biases and may not be generalizable. Often, the studies disregard industry specificity. We attempt to address these issues by exploring the key competences employers require from PMs across multiple industry sectors. We code the contents of 2306 online project management job advertisements in the UK, the USA, Canada, China, India, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore for frequently occurring keywords. Using three-way Multidimensional Scaling (MDS), we extract six dimensions of competence present in the coded keywords: (1) industry-specific and generic skills over project management knowledge/expertise; (2) project management knowledge/expertise over industry-specific and generic skills; (3) (senior) managerial skills; (4) (positive) personal traits; (5) project management methodology experience and professional qualifications; and (6) risk management over a project life-cycle. We find that typically industry puts more weight on generic skills than project management knowledge/expertise, replicating previous PM survey based results. We believe, however, that the main contribution is our finding that different industry sectors place significantly different levels of salience on the six dimensions. We discuss the practical implications of the results

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More information

Published date: 2013
Organisations: Centre of Excellence for International Banking, Finance & Accounting

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 342355
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/342355
ISSN: 0018-9391
PURE UUID: c493ce4f-71d0-4082-a8a4-19662e5cce9e
ORCID for M. Chipulu: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-0139-6188

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 24 Aug 2012 07:27
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:11

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Contributors

Author: M. Chipulu ORCID iD
Author: J.G. Neoh
Author: U. Ojiako
Author: T. Williams

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