The Impact of Transformational Leadership Style on Project Success through Teamwork; The Moderating Role of Inter-Organizational Relationships

Abstract

In modern times, the number of projects is exponentially increasing and organizations are becoming more and more Project-oriented with every passing day. Project Success has become the ultimate target for every Organization and Project Manager. However, Project Success rates have not been as high as these organizations and managers would desire. Research is still being done to understand and identify the elements of project success and mitigate the probability of failure of projects. Till date, multiple components have been identified that influence project success including characteristics of a project manager, role of organization and inter-personal skill etc. The research is an attempt to further probe into the role of Project Manager, Project Team and Organization to understand their contribution in project success. Previous studies have proved that Teamwork and Transformational leadership have a significant impact on project success. This study extends the horizons of this relationship by including an external influencing factor i.e., Inter-organizational Relationship (IOR) to validate its influence on project success within public plus private sectors. A quantitative study was conducted considering the firms operating in Lahore, Pakistan as the subject population of the research. A sample size of 222 was considered and an approach of convenience sampling was adapted to collect data through questionnaires. Regression was applied on the primary data acquired from the respondents which proved that the Project Manager’s Transformational Leadership Style has a substantial and constructive effect on quality of teamwork, wherein teamwork acts as a mediator between project manager’s style of leadership and Project Success. Furthermore, the Inter-Organizational Relationship act as a moderator between the relationship of Project Manager’s Transformational Leadership style and Project Success. Through data collected from Project Managers of firms operating in Lahore, Pakistan, the study allows to express a bigger picture towards the role of Project Manager, Project Teams and Organization leading to Project Success. In theory, incorporation of external ix constraints like IOR and their influence on Project Success completely changes the dimensions of previous studies and articulates the fact that Projects are an open-system rather than a closed-system and should be studied as is, in order to achieve more accurate results.