Project spirit: Placing partakers' emotions, attitudes and norms in the context of project vision, artifacts, leader values, contextual performance and success

• Published in: Journal of high technology management research 2010, Vol.21 (1), p.2-13
• Main Authors: Aronson, Z.H., Shenhar, A.J., Reilly, R.R.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Contextual performance; Culture; Excitement; Leadership; Organizational behavior; Project management; Project settings; Studies; Success
• ISSN: 1047-8310; 1879-1638
• DOI: 10.1016/j.hitech.2010.02.002

Our model posits that leader building activities which support instilling a project vision, artifacts and are guided by this individual's values, affect partakers' emotions, attitudes and behavioral norms that are focused on expected project outcomes, termed project spirit. By partakers, we refer to project participants. Furthermore, spirit is proposed to affect partakers' contextual performance and, through contextual performance, to affect project success. The proposed mediational model is supported with empirical results from 200 partakers in 63 projects sampled across a variety of organizations. Results suggest that project leader building activities affected partakers' spirit, and contextual performance mediated this relationship with project success. Our empirical findings suggest that leaders can be trained to execute behaviors that generate a project's spirit, which in turn boosts contextual performance and enhances project outcomes.