BUS603: Managing People

The research made the following recommendation:

The adopted structure at the functional organizations in the study has a strong negative impact over its projects' overall performance. However, there are many other factors like the planning, team expertise, external environmental factors and many other factors contributing to the positive performance of the projects. Project managers in such type of organizations should work hard to limit the negative effect of the adopted structure by enhancing the performance of the other factors contributing to the positive projects' overall performance, especially the team expert and external environmental factors.

Although the adopted structure does not have a strong negative influence on the performance of projects at the weak matrix organizations, project managers in such types of organizations should be aware of the many challenges and problems that face project implementation as this organization emerged as a highly problematic structure. Therefore, project managers are advised to monitor the effect of the many factors that affect projects overall performance, take advantage of the factors that have positive influence especially the team expertise and limit the effect of the adopted structure and the other factors that negatively influence project performance. Since there are many factors that influence projects overall performance other than the ones listed in the study, this structure requires further research to assess all the factors that works in conjunction with each other. This approach might enable top management to identify those factors that have good influence and works towards enhancing them, and state the factors that have negative influence and discharge all the efforts towards mitigating their negative effects on projects overall performance.

The adopted structure at the balanced matrix NGOs has a strong negative effect over the projects overall performance, however similar to the case of the functional structure; top management should monitor the effects of the other factors that influence projects' overall performance. The findings highlighted the neutral feedback of project managers regarding most of the problems facing projects' implementation, this issue triggers researchers' eagerness and curiosity to discover more in depth the effect of those problems. Therefore, the study recommends further research for such types of structure in the form of a case study to understand deeply how projects are treated within a climate of balancing the authority accountability between the functions and projects.

The case of strong matrix NGOs suggests the presence of many other factors as well that influence projects overall performance requiring further research to assess the influence of those factors. The findings showed that this structure suffers from problems related to procurement delays for bulk procurement and contracts procedures delay. Since a major characteristic of this structure is empowering projects by delegating the authority to project managers, the study recommends that NGOs adopting this structure can look further for delegating much more authority to projects to ensure optimal performance. Meanwhile, since such types of organizations are very close to project-based organizations, the research suggests that those NGOs can discuss further approaches related to restructuring their operations towards moving to full project authority instead of delegating a partial authority. Moreover, those NGOs should effectively monitor the external environmental factors and mitigate any potential challenges.

The project-based NGOs appeared as the least problematic organizations delegating full authority to projects. The adopted structure of such NGOs appeared to have a significant and positive influence on projects overall performance. Supporting many authors' findings regarding the advantages of this structure, this study was able to bring insights that for the case of NGOs in the study, the project-based structure can best mitigate the challenges that face projects implementation and ensure that projects can perform well within the constraints of time, cost and quality deliverables.

Mechanistic to organic

Driven by the humanitarian and development approach of those NGOs in Lebanon, it is prominent that their projects stand effectively to their end objectives and no compromise should be tolerated at any of the project's key indicators. Therefore, the study recommends that NGOs in Lebanon consider the advantages of the project-based structure in expediting the pace of their operation while not compromising on the quality and budgetary performance of their projects, as a mean to serve their overall humanitarian objective of reaching a world free of violence, war, diseases, poverty and many other forms of crisis. Furthermore, the study highlighted that mechanistic organization that allows the introduction of functional, weak and balanced matrix structures for managing projects, causes the introduction of structures that have negative impact on managing projects. On the other extreme, the organic organizational structure that allows the introduction of strong matrix and projectized project structure, triggers the introduction of structures that have positive influence on managing projects. According to the literature, the mechanistic structure is characterized by such a formalized and centralized approach with lots of bureaucracy while the organic structure is characterized by such a decentralized and less formalized approach. The responses of project managers of NGOs in Lebanon reveal that those working in centralized mechanistic organizations suffer from many problems including the problem of adopted structure and those working at decentralized organic organizations face less problems in implementing their projects and don't suffer from the problems of inadequacy of adopted structure.

Meanwhile, the study recommends that humanitarian organizations adopt a mechanistic, highly formalized, centralized and bureaucratic structures to perform the necessary restructuring and move towards being organic, decentralized and less bureaucratic to enhance the overall performance of their projects. Since the impact of NGOs projects is measured in the number of lives saved and effective interventions in times of crisis, these NGOs should adopt a structure that offers a decentralized, less formalized and less bureaucratic approach to better serve their humanitarian missions in Lebanon.