Role of information technology and knowledge management in influencing project performance

Projects have become means to accomplish strategic objectives and goals of organizations. Research has shown that it is not easy to associate information technology (IT) systems and knowledge management (KM) with business performance and we propose that this difficulty of associating IS and KM with business performance can be extrapolated to project performance. Given that research linking these three concepts - IT, KM, and project performance - is sparse, we use an inductive and grounded approach, complemented by the available past research findings, to develop a research model. This model was developed employing the interpretive structural modeling (ISM) methodology. We used ISM because it helped us integrate both qualitative and quantitative variables and allowed us to capture the shared mental models of practitioners. Based on our study of an IT organization, we show that drivers of project management (PM) effectiveness can be categorized into distinct groups-some of which are easier to manage compared to the other. We discuss our results to provide implications for both research and practice.