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This study aims to identify the influence exerted by the performance of human resources (HR) through effectiveness and efficiency in the success of business projects in Mexico.

The methodological design was quantitative, explanatory, observational and transversal, where a sample of 502 was used. A structural equation model (SEM) was developed using the statistical software AMOS v25 to test the hypothesis. SPSS v25 was used for data analysis. Regarding the goodness and fit indices of the SEM, χ² = 388.83/df = 143; χ²/df = 2.71; p < 0.001; GFI = 0.92; AGFI = 0.91; CFI = 0.96; TLI = 0.95; NFI = 0.94; IFI = 0.96; RMSEA = 0.05; RMR = 0.04; SRMR = 0.03, which turned out to be acceptable.

Through the results obtained through the SEM, it is shown that there is a positive and significant relationship between the performance of HR through their effectiveness (r = 0.65, p < 0.01) and efficiency (r = 0.64, p < 0.01) with respect to the success of the business projects. Likewise, the effectiveness of HR has a positive and significant influence on the efficiency (ß₂ = 0.46; p < 0.001) and the success of business projects (ß₃ = 0.89; p < 0.001) in Mexico. In the same way, efficiency positively and significantly influences the success of enterprises (ß₄ = 0.35; p < 0.001) in Mexico.

In this research, only the performance of the HR was assessed through efficiency and effectiveness as one of the variables that intervene in the development of the business project, and that is one of the main factors of analysis to achieve the success of the enterprise. In this sense, the results are limited to the extent that the findings can be generalized to business projects that are developed in different entities such as universities, incubators and other instances that promote the development of business projects and thereby guarantee success. In this sense, it is considered to carry out more research regarding these variables and others that can study the phenomenon and generate new scientific research.

HR performance is considered as one of the main factors that allow the success of business projects. However, some practical limitations are determined by the vision, strategies, as well as the orientation that entities such as universities, and incubators, among other organizations, determine to develop the business project and thus guarantee its success. Other practical implications lie in the leadership that the entrepreneur exercises in his/her work team and collaborators to generate synergy between them considering culture and identity, as well as the commitment to the business project.

The findings are relevant and of great value because they support entrepreneurship models, giving an alternative focus in the study to achieve success, specifically in the state of Guanajuato, which represents one of the main states that have with a greater number of ventures focused on the automotive, food, leather and footwear cluster, among other SMEs that promote business projects and is one of the main states of the Mexican Republic that contributes to the economic development of the region as well as the nation. Likewise, the study is relevant because there is currently not enough research focused on the variables analyzed on the success of business projects in the Mexican context.

This study aims to develop a model for coordination and communication overhead in distributed software development through case study analysis in the Indian outsourcing software industry. The model is based on business knowledge, which can be classified as domain, regulatory, strategic, business process and operation process knowledge as per existing literature.

Double case study method was used to verify an existing knowledge–management framework of software development from the literature. The stakeholders of both the cases were interviewed, and project documents were verified to reach conclusions.

The findings supported the business knowledge classification from the literature. The concept can be used to analyze the software project in a distributed environment.

The research work findings are based only on two case studies. The study findings cannot be generalized and should be used as a learning tool. There can be large variations of project characteristics with differences in business knowledge requirements. The research shows the importance of business knowledge transfer in global software development.

Projects managers in the distributed software development environment can use the findings in project planning and work allocation for better control over cost and schedule, etc.

There is little research works attempted to study the business knowledge classification in the global software industry making the research novel.

This study examines the role of passion in gender-specific entrepreneurial responses in times of crises and how passion manifests itself in a digital environment. Entrepreneurial passion feeds energy, tenacity, self-confidence and momentum, creating added value for a given economy.

A qualitative approach was used to conduct semi-structured interviews. To reach the research objectives, the author examined a sample of 22 female entrepreneurs and 19 male entrepreneurs in a comparative design.

The results obtained through a qualitative study prove that entrepreneurial passion is a driver of self-confidence for entrepreneurs. Moreover, the nature of entrepreneurial passion differs across gender in times of crises. Indeed, female entrepreneurs try to take their lives into their own hands by creating their own destinies. They have seized opportunities arising from purely technological progress to create their own businesses on social networks and solve the unemployment problem. Meanwhile, male entrepreneurs pursue opportunities based on market supply and demand to increase their market share and face a crisis.

These findings offer novel insights into research on social media entrepreneurs. This study could help new entrepreneurs highlight their abilities, particularly those that are most salient and central.

This study adds a new dimension to the literature on the role and nature of entrepreneurial passion in times of crises.

Organizations have always faced the possibility of disruptions. Traditional approaches, such as shifting risks through insurance or improving organizational resiliency, view disruptions as threats. This study aims to propose a new perspective where disruptions can also be opportunities. By adopting project portfolio management (PPM), organizations can develop proactive capabilities to manage uncertainty and prepare to exploit future disruptions.

Drawing on publicly available research reports, company reports, professional standards and press reports, this study describes key features of PPM and provides detailed practical guidance on how to apply PPM in daily operations, especially in preparation for the next disruption.

The key steps in applying PPM in daily operations are: align portfolios and projects with strategic goals and objectives; establish a robust governance framework; optimize resource capability and capacity; build and implement appropriate implementation methodologies; continuously monitor, review and optimize the project portfolio; and develop a culture that embraces risks, innovation and adaptability.

This research has several limitations and implications. On limitations, the study was constrained by publicly available data, an in-depth interview with a consulting firm and a survey based on convenient sampling. These limitations will impact the generalizability of the findings. On implications, this paper shows how organizations can prepare for future disruptions by applying PPM. There are other ways to prepare for the unpredictable future, and further research is needed to explore other methods.

The results of this study have important practical implications for all organizations and in all sectors. Major disruptions are matters of “when,” not “how,” and responsible organizations need to pay attention. Based on the PPM discipline, this research provides an approach for business executives and project management practitioners to tackle this challenge. Furthermore, portfolio managers should use this information to promote and advocate for more disciplined planning to confront the uncertain future.

The findings of this paper carry important social implications. As the recent events showed the vastness of disruptions, from extreme heat to fires in Maui, sitting idly and waiting passively for an unpredictable future is not an option. This paper advocates the need for more awareness and preparation for future disruption by applying PPM. Furthermore, this research provides concrete guidelines for organizations and practitioners to consider as they confront the unknown. Additional research should investigate other effective strategies to meet the challenges of an uncertain and volatile future.

This study offers practical steps on how organizations may manage not only to survive but also to thrive in an uncertain and volatile world.

Taking a co-creation perspective and integrating knowledge-based and resource-based perspectives, the authors examine the role of customer participation in organizational performance and project success. The authors also investigate the mediating role of knowledge integration and the moderating role of requirement risk for these relationships in uncertain contexts.

The authors undertook two studies. The first study was carried out in 2018 in which the authors drew on survey data from 150 information technology (IT) sector employees and examined the mediating role of knowledge integration in the relationship of customer participation with organizational performance and project success. In the second study undertaken in 2020, the authors drew on data from 92 IT and telecom sector employees and examined the moderating role of requirement risk in the relationship between customer participation and knowledge integration. Study 2 was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic when employees were largely working from home and were more sensitive to risks and uncertainty about the scope and system requirements. Both studies were survey-based, and analysis was carried out using structural equation modeling.

The authors’ two-study examination indicated that knowledge integration positively mediates the relationship of customer participation with organizational performance and project success during the co-creation process. Furthermore, the authors demonstrate that when requirement risks are high, customer participation relationship with knowledge integration is weaker.

The authors show that integrating customer knowledge is critical to project success and organizational performance. By identifying risk uncertainties and environmental contingencies, the authors highlight the constraints of customer participation for knowledge integration, organizational performance and project success. The authors provide some key study findings based on survey data obtained from project teams during two periods (normal and pandemic).

The presence of securities crowdfunding (SCF) FinTech in the Islamic financial landscape opens investment opportunities through shares and sukuk (Sharia bond) instruments. This study aims to examine the effect of investment risk (IR), legal risk (LR), product knowledge (PK), Sharia compliance (SC) and subjective norm (SN) on investment decisions in businesses and projects run by small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

The questionnaires were distributed to prospective investors with prior knowledge of SCF and Islamic investment. The data collected was then examined using partial least square-structural equation modeling using SmartPLS 4.0.

The results show that LR has positive and significant implications for supporting investment through SCF, while IR has the opposite. The main findings in this study explain that PK and SC are proven to strengthen the intention to invest in SCF. Meanwhile, SN, which also strengthens intention, is the greatest influence. Therefore, it is highly recommended that SCF organizers collaborate with regulators (OJK), universities, academics and the investor community, as well as Muslim entrepreneurs, to provide education and literacy regarding SCF products and the underlying contracts, along with the consequences and uniqueness of investment vis SCF.

From a managerial side, Sharia expert educators can be appointed to increase investors’ literacy and confidence to support SMEs’ business expansion via SCF. In addition, to minimize investment risk, SCF organizers are also advised to issue sukuk and shares in different low-risk businesses/sectors, followed by investment amounts that are more affordable for novice investors.

Research on SCF as an alternative to SME financing is still scarce. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first research to empirically test the relationship between risk, SC, PK and SN on potential investors’ decisions to support SMEs through the SCF mechanism.

In the current economic scenario characterized by turbulence, innovation is a requisite for company's growth. The innovation activities are implemented through the realization of innovative project. This paper aims to prospect the promising opportunities coming from the application of Machine Learning (ML) algorithms to project risk management for organizational innovation, where a large amount of data supports the decision-making process within the companies and the organizations.

Moving from a structured literature review (SLR), a final sample of 42 papers has been analyzed through a descriptive, content and bibliographic analysis. Moreover, metrics for measuring the impact of the citation index approach and the CPY (Citations per year) have been defined. The descriptive and cluster analysis has been realized with VOSviewer, a tool for constructing and visualizing bibliometric networks and clusters.

Prospective future developments and forthcoming challenges of ML applications for managing risks in projects have been identified in the following research context: software development projects; construction industry projects; climate and environmental issues and Health and Safety projects. Insights about the impact of ML for improving organizational innovation through the project risks management are defined.

The study have some limitations regarding the choice of keywords and as well the database chosen for selecting the final sample. Another limitation regards the number of the analyzed papers.

The analysis demonstrated how much the use of ML techniques for project risk management is still new and has many unexplored areas, given the increasing trend in annual scientific publications. This evidence represents an opportunities for supporting the organizational innovation in companies engaged into complex projects whose risk management become strategic.

This paper aims to examine project management segments based on customer satisfaction drivers and loyalty rather than traditional demographic or behavioural variables.

Data were gathered over 18 consecutive months, and 3,129 surveys were completed using a questionnaire. The statistical methods included partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modelling, finite mixture segmentation, prediction-oriented segmentation (PLS-POS) and multi-group analysis (PLS-MGA).

The findings indicate the existence of three segments among system delivery project customers based on the differences in the strengths of the path coefficients in the customer-centric structural model. In Segment 1, satisfaction based on the proposal was crucial for loyalty, with the value-for-money construct negatively impacting the repurchase intent construct. Segment 2 had a solid value-for-money orientation. In Segment 3, the critical path indicated that satisfaction drove repurchase intention, with satisfaction based mainly on the installation.

The research contributes to the segmentation theory by introducing a new way to segment the systems delivery projects customers based on the perceived strength of the relationships in a customer-centric structural model, which aligns with traditional segmentation theory in a way that most segmentation analyses do not. A new segmentation approach to the domain of project management theory is presented. Based on the results, treating the system delivery project customer base as a single homogenous group can lead to managerially misleading conclusions.

The purpose of this study is to identify the business strategies that entrepreneurs have formulated to establish the business with the intention of scaling up in the information technology (IT) sector in Chile, given that they have managed to scale up sustainably at an average annual rate of 73.3% and an average annual employee growth rate of 37% for four consecutive years after an establishment period of 25 months.

Three methodological steps were used to identify which strategic initiatives are relevant to the establishment of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on the path to scaling up. The first part consisted of identifying the literature and defining the research propositions and research questions. The second part was to prepare, collect and analyse the data to conduct the research by applying, transcribing, reviewing and coding the sources of evidence to explore how SMEs are able to develop strategic initiatives for the start-up process. The final stage was to validate the research proposal to identify potential strategic initiatives identified during the multi-case study.

As a result of the data analysis and empirical findings, three deliberate strategic initiatives were identified: staying engaged with customers, delivering successful business solutions and articulating social capital. However, in crisis situations, entrepreneurs readjust their strategies based on their management skills and an emergent strategic initiative was identified as securing the financial structure and revolutionising change. While this research was not designed to identify personal attributes, it did highlight the importance of adaptation and learning as a skill to drive the business model for scaling up during the establishment of their business.

It is clear that the study focused on Chile and cannot be replicated in other regions or sectors due to the characteristics of the sample itself, but it provides empirical evidence that there are cycles prior to scale up that need to be understood. The findings were empirically validated during the establishment phase, but the deliberate and emergent strategic initiatives that consolidated the SME to prepare for its scale-up process are not evident in the theory.

The IT sector will continue to grow and change after the pandemic, and the global economy will use more digital systems, creating new ways of working with the use of IT. This context will impact on SMEs where strategies, whether deliberate or emergent, will need to be part of the new business models, and therefore, caution should be exercised when using the results of this study. Public and private institutions should educate and guide entrepreneurs for the potential scaling up of their SMEs without having to wait 42 months, according to Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2021-2022 (Hill et al., 2022). Scaling up can begin as early as 25 months after establishment, breaking the paradigm of the theory that the SME must be established in a period of 3.5 years. This period cannot be generalised as business opportunities in the IT sector are faster. The research also contributes by reporting that contingency planning is relevant during the establishment phase.

Educational institutions and the public sector have made efforts to change business cultures regarding the importance of strengthening entrepreneurship, but teaching the emergent strategies that often challenge SME creation is not yet widespread in educational formats. This is a challenge not only for institutions but also for entrepreneurs trying to anticipate the constant changes in the global economy. This research provides an opportunity to create more dynamic business models with more conscious risk planning.

Although the literature has confirmed the findings, this research has provided a pre-scaling picture that links these two important stages on the axis of deliberate and emergent strategies. The findings confirm the importance of correctly embedding five strategic initiatives for the establishment of the SME if it is to continue on its journey towards business scale-up. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence in emerging economies on how entrepreneurs have found the right path to scale-up.

The consulting team intervenes in the integrated construction consulting (ICC) network structure centered on “client-contractor-consultant.” Team boundary-spanning behavior (TBB) driven by the network structure is crucial to project performance. This article investigated how to stimulate the consulting project performance (CPP) improvement by considering the interactive effect of network structure and TBB. To be specific, this paper explored the configuration between structural characteristics of project networks, the dimension of TBB, and project performance in ICC projects.

Network density and centrality were used to reflect network structure. This study collected 216 valid responses from construction professionals (including project managers, department managers, and project engineers) via a questionnaire survey and analyzed the data using fsQCA.

Combining with the corresponding typical project case and analysis, the results concluded four types of configurations for achieving high performance in the ICC projects. Meanwhile, network centrality, density, ambassadorial behavior, coordination behavior, and detection behavior significantly impact high consulting project performance. Matching ICC network characteristics with the TBB is important. There are also three low performance configurations for the ICC projects. Low performance state also occurs when network centrality or density and coordination behavior is simultaneously low. Only the right match between the network characteristics and TBB can produce high consulting project performance.

The network centrality and density, the implementation of TBB vary, and the paths to achieve high consulting project performance are different. Clients, ICC projects, and consulting teams should choose the appropriate development paths according to the actual situation. (1) Clients should commit to applying the ICC project model with high network centrality, density, and coordination behavior of ICC enterprises to promote project performance. (2) Consulting enterprises should carry out ICC business based on detecting behavior and coordinating behavior. (3) The market should cultivate head consulting enterprises with independence and integration, and bring into play the effectiveness of consulting team ambassadorial behavior.

Comparing the results of the four high CPP configurations, the network structure characteristics are essential, which means that in the Chinese consulting practice between the owner and the consulting firm pay attention to the use of appropriate ICC organizational structure model and arrange the degree of centralization of authorized responsibilities. Coordination behavior is necessary to achieve high CPP. Therefore, Chinese consulting firms should pay attention to effective communication and exchange with project contractors in order to get high CPP in conducting business; meanwhile, enabling behavior can achieve high CPP both in the presence and absence of configuration H1 and H4, which indicates that enabling behavior has substitution effect. Comparing the three low CPP configurations also contrarily confirms the indispensability of coordinating behavior. Comparing the results of high and low CPP configurations, the TBB is seriously missing and not properly applied in CPP enhancement. In detail, Chinese consulting firms have been regarded as independent third parties providing services, and less attention has been paid to the TBB of Chinese consulting firms in past practice, thus leading to the dilemma of inadequate empowerment of consulting firms due to their unclear status. To solve this dilemma, the findings of this paper offer a solution at the micro level to change the previous perception of consulting and demonstrate that Chinese consulting practice needs to pay attention to TBB with owners and contractors, and apply it well to enhance the reputation, management consulting level and capability, and experience and expertise of consulting firms to achieve high CPP.

The research results changed from the previous bilateral project governance to a new perspective of network embedding. It provided a theoretical basis for the improvement path of high consulting project performance, as well as providing ideas for clients on the organizational design of ICC projects. On the other hand, it provided a practical reference for TBB positioning of ICC enterprises for transformation and upgrading development.