Project Uncertainty, Management Practice and Project Performance: An Empirical Analysis on Customized Information Systems Development Projects

Abstract

This paper develops a risk-based integrated model of information systems development(ISD) project performance to explain the effect of project inherent uncertainty and management practices on project performance. Based on the dataset collected from customized information systems development projects of software houses in Hangzhou City of China,this paper carries out an empirical analysis on the research model. The results reveal that performance risk in development stage and performance risk in implementation stage are two intervening variables, which mediated the effects of project inherent uncertainty and management practices on both process and product performance. The findings suggest that management factors such as project planning and control,internal integration,user participation and top management support can improve project performance in the presence of project inherent uncertainty. In addition, the key influencing factors are found to be different in different project stages.Key influencing factors are project planning and control, internal integration and user participation in development stage. Key influencing factors are user participation and top management support in implementation stage.However,we have not found evidence for significant positive influence of process performance on product performance,which means that projects which come in within time and cost budgets may deliver poor systems.