Impact of Project Manager’s Soft Skills on Project Success: Moderating Role of Cultural Practices In Public Health Sector Projects of Pakistan

Abstract

In Pakistan public health sector projects are run under The Ministry of National Health Services. The selected public health sector projects face many execution and different implementation issues in developing countries like Pakistan. These issues are sometimes faced in the forms of operational issues in approvals, task-based monitoring reports, advocacy and awareness, and data entry at different health facilities levels are also the major issues. A major component of good management practice comprises of project manager soft skills such as leadership skills, good communication skills and team work skills. In a resource restricted environment these skills are pivotal for the success of a project. Project’s success relies on several inputs and variables. The main objectives of this research are to examine the impacts of project manager soft skills and the moderating effects of cultural practices. The objective of this research also to ascertain, recognize and explain the moderating roles of cultural practices between project manager soft skills and project success. According to this research the project success depends on the project manager soft skills and projects are to be completed within allocated budget (Cost), meeting customer satisfaction with quality outcome. However, there are some cultural practices like artifacts, norms and shared beliefs which has moderating effects on the project success. The data was collected from six different projects in Islamabad Pakistan through structured questionnaire adapted from previous research studies. The final results by using particularly SPSS software shows the positive relationship between project manager soft skills and the project success. With the moderating roles of cultural practices.