Rethinking the roles of project management maturity and organisational culture for perceived performance: an empirical study based on German evidence

Scholars and practitioners alike have long been concerned with identifying those factors that account for most relevant impact on project success. We now add to the existing body of knowledge in this article, by re-appraising the roles of Project Management Maturity (PMM) and Organisational Culture (OC) for several performance indicators. Our work is a replication which questions the results of Yazici's US-focused prior research. We collected fresh primary data from 66 German project managers that we processed using structural equation modelling. Based on partial least squares path modelling, two major contributions emerge. First, and contrary to the original study, we found a significant effect of perceptions of PMM on those of project and firm performance. Second, and in line with Yazici, we confirmed the positive correlation between perceived clan-culture orientation and perceived project performance. Our research findings are discussed in the light of how practising managers may benefit from our recommendations.