entities having a life span of five years or
more. Previous research found 15% for
PMOs with five years and more (Hobbs
& Aubry, 2010). Recent research has
provided some understanding of the
reasons why PMOs are changing so
frequently and of the change process
(Aubry, Hobbs, Müller, & Blomquist,
2011). This result could be interpreted
as an indication that entities in this
research are focused on part of the public
administration bureaucratic hierarchy.
Political positions aside, this hierarchy
is quite stable, even though the govern
ing parties change (Kernaghan, 2005).
However, the variable of entities
having five years and more contributes
to the differentiation between entities.
Entities dealing with engineering and
construction projects have greater lon
gevity than those dealing with IS/IT
and business process projects with the
highest percentage of entities having
five years and more. The number of
simultaneous projects significantly dif
ferentiates engineering and construc
tion projects from the three others with
a high number.
The number of simultaneous proj
ects within the PMO distinguishes
entities dealing with engineering and
construction projects by the high num
ber of projects. This result is to be con
sidered along with the scope of projects,
in which engineering and construction
projects have highest costs and longer
durations.
The percentage of projects and proj
ect managers in the PMO was used
to propose a typology of PMO (Hobbs
& Aubry, 2008). In the public sector,
this typology was not validated; how
ever, these two variables differentiate
entities dealing with different types of
projects. Entities with engineering and
construction projects and IS/IT projects
both differ significantly from entities
involved with business processes and
new product and service development
projects. The former are more likely
to have more projects than the latter.
Having a large number of project man
agers differentiates entities engaged in
engineering and construction projects,
in which 50% have a large proportion of
project managers. Conversely, very few
entities with business process projects
have such a large number of project
managers.
The profiles of project managers have
been assessed by a high level of education
in project management and the extent of
their experience in project management.
The percentage of project managers with
a master’s degree in project management
significantly differentiates entities with
IS/IT projects as those having the high
est percentage. Project manager experi
ence is significantly greater in entities
conducting engineering and construction
projects. Globally, however, all entities
have experienced project management
personnel.
In terms of methodology, developing
a homegrown methodology differenti
ates the entities, and those involved in
engineering and construction projects
are more likely to develop their own.
Entities dealing with new product and
services projects also post high levels,
but do not significantly differ from the
others.
Two different roles differentiate the
entities: project management and proj
ect monitoring. Entities engaged in
engineering and construction projects
perform the least direct project man
agement compared with the three other
types of entities. Conversely, IS/IT enti
ties are more likely to engage in project
management compared with engineer
ing and construction projects and busi
ness process projects. Interestingly, the
role of controlling projects does not
differ significantly among the entities.
In terms of decisionmaking authority,
entities with less authority are more
likely to be engaged in business process
projects, whereas those with the highest
level of authority are found within engi
neering and construction projects. It is
also worth mentioning that the num
ber of people working in the entities
(with the exclusion of project managers)
does not differ significantly among the
entities.
Project Types and Functions
Conversely, based on the findings of a
previous PMO typology study (Hobbs &
Aubry, 2011), the functions here seem
to differentiate among entities dealing
with different sets of projects. All five
groups of functions show a significant
difference (p 0.1) for entities dealing
with different types of projects.
Upon examining descriptive sta
tistics on the functions, all functions
follow approximately the same distri
bution pattern: functions in group 4—
Collaboration and communication—are
the most frequently performed by all enti
ties, whereas in group 3—Organizational
learning—is the least frequent. The low
est importance of ‘Organizational learn
ing’ confirms previous results showing a
lack of real motivation among organiza
tions in all sectors to invest in knowledge
and learning. But what is really astonish
ing about these public sector results is
the strength of the ‘Collaboration and
communication’ function for all types of
projects. As in previous studies (Hobbs
& Aubry, 2007), we were expecting the
function ‘Monitoring and controlling
project management performance’ to
be the most frequently performed func
tion. This group of functions includes
reporting to and advising upper man
agement. In the public sector, it might
be the rule of paying careful attention
to political relationships because politi
cians are major stakeholders. Following
Unger et al. (2012), ‘Collaboration and
communication’ have a positive impact
on cooperation and resource allocation
and are said to have a coordinator role.
This finding challenges previous results
in which ‘project performance monitor
ing and control’ was typically the major
function of a PMO; it also highlights the
important coordinator role PMOs have
in the public sector.
Now, turning to a statistical analy
sis of the differences in what entities
do differently in dealing with different
types of projects, Table 6 shows that
entities involved in new product and
service development do not differentiate
themselves significantly from the others.
