importance to the constructs and variables followed Saaty’s (1990) recommendations, and consistency ratios for
all of the expert ratings were calculated.
Our methodology is based on the idea
that project management is significant
for integrating sustainability dimensions and variables (Bocchini et al.,
2014). This point can be explained by
the fact that all three dimensions of
sustainability (economic, environmental, and social) had obtained strong
importance in project management
from the experts’ view. In addition, this
study highlights this fact as an important
practical implication, because practitioners can easily integrate all variables
validated here into their own strategies.
Furthermore, the results of this
study show the convergence between
sustainability and project management
and the existence of the relationship
with project success, corroborating Mir
and Pinnington (2014) and Shenhar and
Dvir (2007), who indicated the potential
impact of sustainability in project management on project success. Based on
expert reviews using AHP panel methods, a major implication of our study’s
findings is that project managers should
systematically consider the contributions of their projects to the triple bottom line and sustainability. Addressing
the impacts of sustainability in project management on project success
has the potential to increase the efficacy and efficiency of projects as well
as improve stakeholders’ satisfaction.
Looking at the results, theoretical implications are pointed out, and they can
provide new insights for applying new
research focusing on developing quantitative studies to obtain mathematically and statistically obtain evidence
of this relationship. New qualitative
studies approaching other methods as,
for example multiple case studies in
mixed or specific sectors, can also be
conducted.
Final Considerations
This study is motivated to contribute to
the discussion of the central topics and
concepts of the research (sustainability
in project management and project suc-
cess). This research presents qualitative
and quantitative analyses based on data
collection with academic experts trying
to answer the main objective of identify-
ing variables of sustainability in project
management and explore this relation
with project success. For this purpose,
the qualitative evaluation with experts
contributed to promoting the reduction
of variables and improving a data col-
lection instrument structure for future
application in this research. The quan-
titative evaluation used the method of
analytic hierarchy process by means of
a forum with academic experts in proj-
ect management and sustainability, and
contributed to providing outputs for the
validation of variables and constructs of
the theoretical framework presented in
Tables 2 and 3.
The results pointed to a framework
of sustainability in project management
oriented toward project success, con-
taining 8 dimensions (first level) and 31
variables with satisfactory consistence
and relevance according to the expert
panel. In this proposition, the project
success dimension named impact on
team was presented with less relevance.
Similarly, seven variables of sustain-
ability in project management were less
relevant (the variables Econ02, Econ05,
and Econ08 of the economic construct,
the variables Environ02 and Environ07
of the environmental construct, and the
variables Social02 and Social05 of the
social construct) because they were not
assigned a preference level by at least
one expert.
These results explain the objective
of this research This study does not
end the discussion here, however; it
is a contribution to the academic lit-
erature, especially for developing the
theoretical framework on the dimen-
sions and variables of sustainability in
project management and project suc-
cess, as well as discussing the rela-
tions between the issues concerning
sustainability in project management
and project success.
In this sense, it is evident there is
a need for further research to expand
upon the initial efforts in order to align
the concepts of sustainability in proj-
ect management and understand its
relationship with the achievement of
success in projects even better and to
actually obtain a validated proposition
that is applicable in the practice of proj-
ects and organizations. Moreover, the
approach given to the outputs of the
AHP method may also be considered
a contribution from this study; addi-
tionally, a suggestion is made for new
studies concerning the subject, apply-
ing different decision-making methods
and, perhaps, increasing the number of
experts. As a practical contribution, the
results from this study can be used as a
reference for organizations, providing
direction for strategies, as well as initial
guidance for the development of indi-
cators related to this matrix, in other
words, sustainability in project manage-
ment oriented to success.
As for the limitations of this study,
the subjective performance and conduct of the researchers are highlighted
with regard to the processing of the
data and analyses of the results, without being restricted directly to the
results of the AHP. By applying other
approaches, such as ANP (analytic network process), the interdependencies
among criteria could be investigated.
Another important limitation is that
this study included experts from six
different countries, with different cultures and knowledge background and
faced difficult access to these experts,
which may have affected the results. In
addition, the expert groups were not
defined based on criteria such as types
of projects and organizations, among
others. In order to minimize this limitation, Levene’s test was used, whose
results showed that the two types of
experts (with knowledge in both project management and sustainability and
with knowledge in project management
only) might have been influenced by
the fact that they have different kinds of
knowledge. Another suggestion is that
