Project Management Journal

The Impact of Project Managers' Personality on Project Success in NGOs

PA
PERS

shown in Table 2. Hypotheses 3 and 4 were therefore not supported.

We conducted a mediational anal-
ysis by applying the bootstrapping
method presented by Preacher and
Hayes (2008). Bootstrapping is a non-
parametric method that generates an
estimate of the indirect effect, including
a 95% confidence interval. When zero is
not in the 95% confidence interval, one
can conclude that the indirect effect
is significantly different from zero at
p , 0.05 (two-tailed). The bootstrap-
ping method allows researchers to avoid
the shortcomings of the earlier stepwise
approach for testing mediation (Hayes,
2013). Furthermore, better estimates
can be drawn with the bootstrapping
method because of its resampling with
replacement approach. With 95% con-
fidence intervals, 5,000 bootstrapped
resamples were used for this analysis.
The mediation analyses (using Model 4
of the PROCESS Macro for SPSS) were
run separately for each independent
variable to check for the indirect effects
of transformational leadership.

Table 5 presents the direct effects,
total effects, and bootstrapped results
for the indirect effects of the Big Five
personality dimensions on project
success. The true indirect effects via
transformational leadership on the rela-
tions between the other four personal-
ity traits (Extraversion, Agreeableness,
Conscientiousness, and Openness to
Experience) fell between 0.10 and
0.38, 0.35 and 0.24, 0.12 and 0.29, and
0.24 and 0.45, respectively. For these
results, zero was not present in the 95%
confidence intervals, so the effects of
Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscien-
tiousness, and Openness to Experience
on project success were mediated by
transformational leadership.

From Table 5, it can also be construed that the true indirect effect via transformational leadership on the relation between Neuroticism and project success fell between 20.03 and 0.08, with zero present in the 95% confidence interval. Accordingly, the effect of Neuroticism on project success was not mediated by transformation leadership. Thus, Hypothesis 6 was partially supported.

Discussion

This study provided some important findings for researchers as well as for practitioners in terms of the relations between personality traits (including transformational leadership) and project success. Out of the Big Five personality traits, Openness to Experience was the strongest predictor of project success. In problematic situations, leaders and managers need more creative solutions and outside-the-box thinking, which might have helped produce the current results. Agreeableness was the second strongest predictor of project success. This finding can be explained

Predictors
Project Success

b R2 Adj R2 R2

Step 1

Control variables 0.003 20.015 0.003

Step 2

Extraversion 0.211**

Agreeableness 0.287**

Conscientiousness 20.076

Neuroticism 0.118

Openness to Experience 0.297**

0.269 0.232 0.266**

Note: Table values are standardized beta weights.

*p , 0.05; p , 0.01

Table 4: Results of the regression analysis for predicting project success.

IVs
Effect of
IV on M
Effect of
M on DV Direct Effect Total Effect
Bootstrapping Results for
Indirect Effects
LL 95 CI UL 95 CI

Extraversion 0.38** 0.58** 0.17** 0.39** 0.10 0.38 Agreeableness 0.21** 0.58** 0.17** 0.29** 0.35 0.24 Conscientiousness 0.30** 0.64** 20.03 0.16** 0.12 0.29 Neuroticism 0.04 0.63** 20.05 20.02 20.03 0.08 OpennesstoExperience 0.56** 0.61** 0.03 0.38** 0.24 0.45

Note. IV 5 Independent Variable, M 5 Mediator, DV 5 Dependent Variable, LL 5 Lower Limit, UL 5 Upper Limit, CI 5 Confidence Interval. *p , 0.05; p , 0.01