Qualitative Analysis of the Innovative Knowledge Creation Style of Project Managers and its Relationship with Performance Stability in IT Projects

Abstract

Innovation is the backbone of the information technology industry. IT projects are creating new innovative knowledge and are targeting successful performance. This is a qualitative study applied on the project managers in the IT sector to describe the relationship between the innovative knowledge creation and the stability of the IT projects’ performance. The study is applied on different project managers from the middle-east zone and is focusing on the description of the characteristics of the innovative project manager of information technology projects. The research also classifies the performance of the IT project into stable and nonstable one. It deals with the cases in which the instability of the IT project performance is accepted by the innovative project manager. It also deals with the role of innovation in stabilizing the project performance. The project performance differs qualitatively from organization to another. One of the factors that are describing these difference is the complexity of the IT project. The study also is contributing to the body of science by designing a conceptual model for the relationship between the innovative knowledge creation process and the stability of the IT project performance. Projects are classified into high complexity projects and low complexity ones based on four dimensions; the size of the project, the interdependency level of the project with other projects, the environmental complexity of the project, and the system variety of the project components. The relationship between innovation and risk averse tendency is discussed as well in this research. Narrative and systematic analysis of the respondents’ stories are detailed and linked to the IT project performance. The stability dimensions of the IT project performance are described by four dimensions which are the quality of the performance, the time, the cost, and the productivity of the innovative project manager.