The effectiveness of project managers: Implications of a political model of influence

Many R&D establishments are facing increasing pressure to reduce costs, leading to high competition among groups for scarce resources and for status. In many cases this is leading to reorganization of R&D laboratories designed to enhance the authority and effectiveness of project managers. These reorganizations are often guided by the generally accepted paradigm of organizational reality, here termed the rational actor model. This model makes critical assumptions about relationships between authority, power, managerial effectiveness, and managerial skill. An alternative model of organizational reality also exists which makes contrasting assumptions about sources and means of influence and their relationship to project manager effectiveness. This model is termed the organizational politics model. In this paper, research from a variety of settings is used to suggest that the organizational politics model actually explains the effectiveness of project managers in R&D better than does the rational actor model. The implications of this for management development are discussed.