Optimal Structure for Managing NGOs
Results and Discussion
Variables in this study
Dependent variable: Projects Overall Performance Independent variables: Project planning factors- team expertise factor- structural factors-external factors.
Problems associated with projects' implementation
The study ranked project manager's level of agreement regarding the problems facing projects' implementation according to the mean and standard deviations of their responses. Therefore, each of the five structures were identified as either the most or least problematic structure with respect to four types of problems; project planning, structural, lack of expertise and external problems. The pie chart below shows the types of problems faced by each organizational type and provides a comprehensive representation of the least and most problematic structures. As such, the least and the most structures were classified as per the following:
Least problematic structures
(1) Project-based structure: first least problematic structure facing some challenges from external environment.
(2) Strong matrix structure: second least problematic structure facing some structural problems (bulk procurement delays and contracts' procedures delays) in addition to some external problems.
Most problematic structures
(1) Weak matrix structure: first most problematic structure facing planning, structural and external problems
(2) Functional structure: second most problematic structure facing planning, structural and external problems
(3) Balanced matrix structure: third most problematic structure facing planning, structural and external problems.
The results revealed that none of the NGOs in this study face the problem of the lack of the necessary expertise to execute projects (Figure 2).
The influence of each of the project planning, structural, team expertise and external factors on projects' overall performance
In order to test the assumptions in this study and identify the influence of each single variable on projects overall performance, correlation analysis was utilized and yielded the below results depicted in Table 2. The correlation analysis allowed testing the following null hypothesis:
Null hypothesis 1: A relationship does not exist between the NGOs structure and their projects overall performance.
Null hypothesis 2: The functional structure, weak and balanced matrix structures are the most effective structures for managing NGOs projects.
Null hypothesis 3: The strong matrix and the project-based structures are the least effective structures for managing NGOs projects.
As shown in Table 2, the adopted structure at each of the functional, weak and balanced matrix NGOs had a negative impact over the project's overall performance. On the other hand, in each of the strong matrix and project-based NGOs, the adopted structure had a positive influence over the projects' overall performance. Therefore, these results allowed the successful rejection of the first null hypothesis about the absence of a relationship between the adopted structure and projects' overall performance in the five organizational types.
The correlation analysis referred to a strong significant negative influence of the adopted structure over the project's overall performance of the functional and balanced matrix NGOs. On the contrary, despite of the presence of a negative relationship between the adopted structure and the projects overall performance of weak matrix NGOs, this negative influence was ranked as weak and insignificant to projects' overall performance. Therefore, the results allowed for successful rejection of the second null hypothesis highlighting the functional and balanced matrix NGOs as the most effective structures for managing NGOs projects. However, in the case of weak matrix NGOs, the results didn't allow any possibility of rejecting the null hypothesis that this structure is the most effective structure for managing NGOs projects.
Regarding the strong matrix and project-based NGOs, the correlation analysis highlighted a positive significant relationship between the adopted structure and projects' overall performance. However, this significant positive relationship was marked as strong in the case of project-based NGOs and moderate in the case of strong matrix NGOs. Therefore, this allowed for successful rejection of the third null hypothesis stating that the strong matrix and project-based structures are the least effective structures for managing NGOs projects.
The influence among critical factors
Integrating the critical factors all together is prominent to determine the projects' overall performance of each of the five organizational types. Multiple regression analysis was utilized and contributed to understanding the below questions that came up after conducting correlation analysis:
(1) What are the critical factors that could reduce the negative impact of the adopted structure at each of the functional and balanced matrix NGOs?
(2) Why the adopted structure didn't have significant impact over the projects' performance of the weak matrix NGOs?
(3) Why the adopted structure had a moderate and not strong positive impact over the performance of strong matrix NGOs?
(4) Would the adopted structure at the project-based NGOs still have a positive significant impact over the projects' overall performance even when being integrated with the other factors?
(5) What are the least and the most effective structures for managing NGOs project tackling the case of the 20 NGOs in the study?
(6) What is the optimal structure for managing NGOs projects? could this structure be drawn as a model?
The results of multiple regression analysis are depicted in Tables 3 and 4.
Functional and balanced matrix NGOs
As shown in Table 2, a good percentage of the changes in projects overall performance can be attributed to the factors listed in the study (76% in the case of functional structure and 69% in the case of balanced matrix structure). Regarding the factors that appeared to be most significant to the projects overall performance, it is the team expertise factor that was manifested to have this significant positive influence on the projects 'overall performance of each functional and balanced matrix NGOs as depicted in Table 3. Furthermore, the external factors appeared to have a positive significant impact over the performance of functional NGOs. Therefore, the team expertise factor could reduce the impact of the negative structure in each of the functional and balanced matrix NGOs in addition to the external factors in the case of functional NGOs. The regression equations for both functional and balanced matrix NGOs are as per the following:
Projects overall performance (Functional NGOs) = -1.029 +0.883 (Team expertise factors) +0.242 (External factors)
Projects overall performance (Balanced Matrix NGOs) = 0.442 +0.794 (Team expertise factors).
Weak and strong matrix NGOs
The results shown in Table 2 revealed that there are many factors, not listed in this study, affecting the projects overall performance of each of the weak and strong matrix NGOs (23% of the changes in projects overall performance can be attributed to the study factors in the case of weak matrix NGOs and 31% can be attributed to the study factors in case of strong matrix NGOs). However, it is worth mentioning the significant positive impact of the team expertise factor in case of weak matrix NGOs and significant negative impact of the external environment in the case of strong matrix NGOs. Therefore, when discovering the many other factors and study the influence among each others, it would be more obvious the influence of the adopted structures in both type of organizations. The regression equations for both the weak and strong matrix NGOs are as per the following:
Projects overall performance (weak matrix NGOs) = 1.006 +0.417 (Team expertise factors)
Projects overall performance (strong matrix NGOs) = 5.091 – 0.289 (External factors).
Project- based NGOs
Results on the factors affecting the projects' overall performance of project-based NGOs showed that an acceptable percentage of the changes in the projects' overall performance can be attributed to the factors listed in this study (64% of the changes in the projects' overall performance can be attributed to study factors). Furthermore, the adopted structure also emerged as a significant positive factor to projects overall performance even when being integrated with the other factors. The regression equation of the project-based NGOs is as per the following:
Projects overall performance (project-based NGOs) = 0.963 (adopted structure).
The optimal structure for managing NGOs projects
The findings of the study showed the project-based structure as the least problematic structure and its projects are performing very well in terms of cost, time and quality deliverables. Driven by the main purpose of this study to identify the best structure that can ensure optimal performance of the NGOs projects in Lebanon especially when being integrated with other factors, the project-based structure emerged as a sole structure that appeared to be highly and positively connected to projects overall performance. However, drawing this structure as a model require increasing the scope of the research to include more humanitarian NGOs and more countries similar to Lebanon. Furthermore, repeating this study tackling other NGOs and yielding the same results allow for generalization that the project-based structure is the optimal structure for managing NGOs projects.