Project management office in non-governmental organizations: an ex post facto study.
| Autor | Lacruz, Adonai |
| Cargo | Clinical report |
Introduction
Many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) carry out their actions through projects related to their institutional mission (Diallo and Thuillier, 2004). The establishment of organizational units called project management offices (PMOs) has contributed to improve projects' performance (Golini et at, 2014).
NGOs financing can be considered a "donation market" (Glaeser, 2003, p. 15), with movements similar to those on stock exchanges. Public and private organizations offer resources for the development of NGOs' projects, usually by examining proposals submitted in response to public notices. These funds tend to be smaller than NGOs' demands, thus creating competition between these organizations. To deal with this situation, they tried to professionalize their management processes (Silva, 2010; Alvarez, 2009), and PMOs have proved to be a useful unit (Project Management Institute (PMI), 2013), with a central role in the search for resources, since its main objective is to make project management more efficient (Stanleigh, 2006).
Fundraising is a critical stage for NGOs. For instance, the directory Analise Gestao Ambiental shows that 97 percent of the resources for environmental NGOs in Brazil, in (2013), came from donations linked to projects (Analise Gestao Ambiental (AGA), 2015), which demonstrates that NGOs' operation is mostly guaranteed by fundraising. Thus, a PMO is an organizational resource that supports this operation (Bates, 1998), by enabling the development and implementation of standards, methods, training and team support (Block and Frame, 1998), while providing capabilities (McKelvie and Davidsson, 2009) that are essential in the competition for financial resources.
We can consider a PMO as an internal strategic resource of the organization, more specifically a source of sustainable competitive advantage for fundraising in the donation market, by providing useful organizational skills (Barney and Hesterly, 2007) for its institutional objectives.
Under the theoretical lens of the resource-based view (RBV), an organizational structure perspective described in Barney and Hesterly (2007), resources can create a sustainable competitive advantage when they become organizational competencies. PMOs, as an internal strategic resource, can provide a sustained competitive advantage in the management of third sector projects, by turning this resource into an organizational competence.
Literature on this matter is rich: it shows that project management has a positive influence on project performance (Joslin and Muller, 2015; Liu, 2015; Yazici, 2009); it describes it with different guidelines (Project Management Body of Knowledge, International Project Management Association Competence Baseline, Prince 2, ISO 21.500 Guidance on Project Management, PMD Pro, PM4DEV, etc.); and it analyzes PMOs' moderating role during ten year-periods (Jalal and Koosha, 2015; Liu and Yetton, 2007). However, we found only a few studies that address NGOs (Lacruz, 2015; Golini et al, 2014; Gomes, 2014).
In addition, we did not find empirical studies on the performance of fundraising processes for projects. Research on third sector projects is a critical issue, especially on this specific stage, since such organizations carry out their actions mainly through projects financed by different donors, in order to accomplish their institutional mission (Lacruz, 2014).
Brazilian studies generally address the discussion of project performance through a triple internal constraint (cost, time and scope), using a cross-section analysis that limits the disclosure of potential PMO moderation capacity, and mainly from studies of private for-profit organizations (Barbalho et al, 2014; Cianfanelli and Pessoa, 2014; Martins et al, 2011).
Despite the wide range of studies on the contribution of PMOs to internal project management (Jalal and Koosha, 2015; Lacruz, 2015; Liu and Yetton, 2007; Dai and Wells, 2004), there is a lack of empirical evidence on their moderation capacity, especially in NGOs. This study seeks to contribute to a better understanding of potential PMO effects, particularly as a moderator of the relationship between project management and projects' fundraising.
To fill this research gap, this study investigates the moderating role of PMO in NGOs, by examining their performance on fundraising processes. We conducted a longitudinal analysis ex post facto, in order to answer the following question: do PMOs in NGOs affect the performance of projects' fundraising?
We investigated this hypothetical relationship in a third sector organization, given the lack of public data. Although we could establish causal relations between variables, the purpose of the study was not to explain why or how the facts happened, but rather to explore those facts by pointing out to a possible causal link based on evidence.
The relevance of this study lies in the potential contribution to theory of the analysis of PMO performance, which is a well-researched topic in project management (Joslin and Muller, 2015; Jalal and Koosha, 2015; Golini et al., 2014), from the perspective of fundraising, a typical stage in the life cycle of third sector projects (Lacruz, 2014). It is an open question whether PMO moderates the relationship between project management and fundraising in the third sector. If proved, this relationship may serve as evidence for other studies, with explanatory research designs, to investigate the relationship between PMOs and metrics of fundraising.
Theoretical background
In order to build a theoretical basis for the analyses and discussions, this section approaches the RBV and PMOs in NGOs.
The RBV
RBV can be used to analyze the influence of PMOs on NGO fundraising for projects. This perspective on organizational structure states that organizational resources can create sustainable competitive advantage when they become organizational competencies.
The literature on organizational strategy considers two paradigms that explain a superior sustainable performance. The first rests on the concepts of industrial organization (McGrath et al., 1995), and the second perspective says that companies are essentially idiosyncratic from the standpoint of organizational economics. The latter corresponds to RBV, in which there is a connection between an organization's internal attributes and its competitive performance (Barney, 1991).
A relevant RBV contribution is that it shows the attributes that allow an organization to achieve superior performance over a long period, since they do not depend on industry conditions. Another benefit of this theory lies in its usefulness for managers that seek to understand, keep or expand their competitive advantage (Peteraf, 1993). Therefore, strategic management under RBV enables organizations to create economic value from heterogeneity, by acquiring and developing resources and capabilities.
The vast diversity of studies reveals that there are subtle but relevant differences in the definition of resources (Amit and Schoemaker, 1993; Daft, 1983; Hoskisson et al., 2009; Wernerfelt, 1984). In this article, according to most studies regarding project management and RBV, we use Daft's (1983) definition: "resources are understood as assets, capacities, organizational processes, attributes, knowledge, information, etc., that the organization controls and that allow it to create and implement strategies that improve its performance."
Based on the categorizations of several authors, Barney (1991) divided resources in three classes of capital: human, physical, and organizational capital. Human capital relates to training, relationships, experience, intelligence, critical capacity and contributions from managers and employees. Physical capital comprises the technology used in the organization, its plant and equipment, its geographic location and its access to raw materials and inputs. Organizational capital refers to management, including its structure of formal reports, formal and informal planning, control and coordination systems, as well as the informal relationships between different groups in the organization and between the firm and the external environment.
According to RBV, organizations' different performances result from the variability of their resources and capabilities (Hitt et al., 2001; Powell, 1995). An organization can outperform its competitors by implementing strategies, but the cost of acquiring/keeping the resources that support such strategies should be significantly less than their economic value, allowing the organization to exploit competitive imperfections in strategic factors' markets (Barney, 1986).
Several authors (Amit and Schoemaker, 1993; Hitt et al, 2001; Peteraf, 1993) agree that positive returns achieved by organizations are the result of the interaction between their resources and their strategies, and that both strategy and organizational structure affect the organization's economic performance and the market where it operates. For RBV, organizational success stems from the economic value of resources, inimitable by other organizations, and for which there are no substitutes (Powell, 1995).
Barney (1991, p. 107) stated: "It is not difficult to see that valuable and rare organizational resources may be a source of competitive advantage." However, as he explains, not all resources of an organization have the potential to create competitive advantage. To do this, a resource must have four attributes: be valuable, rare, imperfectly imitable, and imperfectly substitutable.
This author highlighted two issues that became the axioms of RBV: resources are spread heterogeneously across organizations; and resources are non-transferable between organizations without an additional cost. Based on these axioms, he concluded that valuable and rare resources are capable of creating a competitive advantage, while those that are both inimitable and irreplaceable provide the basis for a...
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