Sample Answer

llecting both qualitative and quantitative data, to prove the hypothesis that there exists a critical relationship between organisational culture and project management. Secondary data will be collected from the literature study, and real-world case studies, to provide a proposed solution for the mitigation of this problem in the researcher’s working environment.

Organisations accomplish strategic and business goals through the delivery of projects to accomplish tasks (Du Plessis & Hoole, 2006a; Swan, Scarbrough & Newell 2010). Projects are predominantly conceptualised and delivered within organisations, and as such are prone to be influenced by an organisation’s prevailing culture. Studies have revealed that the culture of an organisation has a significant influence on project and organisational performance (Yazici 2010 cited by Wiewiora, Murphy, Trigunarsyah & Coffey, 2012; Nguyen & Watanabe, 2017). Larson and Gray (2011:79) supports this assertion, noting the existence of a strong connection between organisational culture, project management and project success.

However, the influence that organisational culture exerts on project management is not always positive. The researcher has observed this phenomenon first-hand, from starting his career as a project team-lead at Siemens telecommunications, to his current dual role as a senior project management consultant for an Information Technology (IT) business consultancy called Moyo Business Advisory (MBA) and programme manager for the Information Management (IM) division of Anglo American. In both instances, the researcher has observed that it is the organisation’s cultural style (Cooke and Rousseau, 1988; Lynch, 1997; Groysberg, B., Lee J., Price, J., Yo-Jud and Cheng, J., 2018: Online) that plays the dominant role in determining the way in which projects are managed, and ultimately the project’s success, not project management principles. The latter phenomenon leads to project management b