Impacts of Fear of Project Failure on Project Outcomes: Does Leveraging Stress lead to IT Project Success or Failure

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Impacts of Fear of Project Failure on Project Outcomes: Does Leveraging Stress lead to
IT Project Success or Failure
Name of the Student
Name of the University

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Abstract
The global business and commercial scenario, over the years, have developed considerably
and have also undergone huge dynamics and in the recent period, international phenomena of
utmost importance, like that of Globalisation, trade liberalisation as well as technological and
infrastructural innovations have cumulatively led to the creation of a more integrated,
inclusive and interconnected global marketplace. The Information Technology have been
growing impressively and expansively, which in turn has led to increase complexities and
dynamics in the projects and activities in these industries. This in turn, has resulted in
workplace burdens, pressures and also considerable amount of stress among the employees,
especially the ones associated with the projects of the concerned industries.

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Table of Contents
Abstract......................................................................................................................................ii
Index of Tables........................................................................................................................vii
Index of Figures......................................................................................................................viii
Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................1
Introduction............................................................................................................................1
Research Background.............................................................................................................2
Significance of the Research..................................................................................................4
Research Problem...................................................................................................................5
Research Aim.........................................................................................................................5
Research Objectives...............................................................................................................6
Research Questions................................................................................................................6
1.8 Research Hypotheses.......................................................................................................7
Structure of the Dissertation...................................................................................................8
Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW.......................................................................................10
2.1 Introduction....................................................................................................................10
2.2 Project Failures: Meaning and Definition......................................................................11
2.2.1 Project Failure.............................................................................................................11

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2.2.2 Project Failures in the Information Technology Industry...........................................12
2.3 Types of project failures in the IT industry....................................................................12
2.4 Causes of Growth of the IT industry..............................................................................13
2.5 Causes of failure of projects: Case Study of the IT industry.........................................15
2.5.1 Failure of projects in general...................................................................................15
2.5.2 Causes of project failures in the IT industry...........................................................17
2.6 Negative Emotions in Workplaces.................................................................................20
2.6.1 Types of negative emotions in workplaces in general............................................22
2.7 Negative Emotions over Project Failure........................................................................23
2.8 Impacts of fear of project failure on project outcomes..................................................25
2.9 Stress: Definition and Meaning......................................................................................27
2.9.1 Consequences of Stress in human lives..................................................................27
2.9.2 Stress in Workplace.................................................................................................28
2.10 Effects of stress in Project Management......................................................................28
2.10.1 Leveraging stress to increase productivity............................................................30
2.11 Stress in Information Technology Industry..................................................................30
2.12 Literature Gap..............................................................................................................31
2.13 Conceptual Framework................................................................................................32
Chapter 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY...........................................................................34

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3.0 Introduction....................................................................................................................34
3.1 Research Proposition......................................................................................................34
3.2 Research Framework......................................................................................................34
3.3 Research Philosophy......................................................................................................35
3.4 Research Design.............................................................................................................36
3.5 Research Approach........................................................................................................37
3.6 Research Hypotheses.....................................................................................................39
3.7 Data Types, Collection and Analysis.............................................................................39
3.7.1 Data Type................................................................................................................39
3.7.2 Data Collection Methods.........................................................................................40
3.7.3 Sample Selection and Sample Size.........................................................................41
3.7.4 Data Analysis..........................................................................................................42
3.8 Ethical Consideration.....................................................................................................43
3.9 Research Limitations......................................................................................................44
Chapter 4: DATA ANALYSIS................................................................................................46
4.1 Introduction....................................................................................................................46
4.2 Quantitative Data Analysis............................................................................................46
4.2.1 Demographic Characteristics of the selected respondents......................................47
4.2.2 Work experience and project handling experience of the respondents...................49

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4.4.5 Correlation Analysis................................................................................................63
4.4.6 Regression Analysis................................................................................................65
4.5 Qualitative analysis........................................................................................................67
Chapter 5: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION....................................................................71
5.1 Introduction....................................................................................................................71
5.2 Discussion......................................................................................................................71
Chapter 6: Conclusion..............................................................................................................74
6.1 Limitation.......................................................................................................................76
6.2 Suggestion......................................................................................................................77
6.3 Future research...............................................................................................................81
References................................................................................................................................83
Appendix..................................................................................................................................93
Survey Questionnaire...........................................................................................................93
Interview Transcript.............................................................................................................95
Interview 1:..............................................................................................................................95
Interview 2:..............................................................................................................................96

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Index of Tables
Table 1: Types of project failures (Especially in the IT industries).........................................13
Table 2: You have succeeded in most of your projects.............................................52
Table 3: Negative emotions are common in managing projects..............................54
Table 4: You often experience the fear of failure of projects you handle..............55
Table 5: You feel high level of stress in handling the projects................................57
Table 6: Fear of failure motivates you to work harder......................................................58
Table 7: Fear of failure hampers the outcome of your projects.......................................59
Table 8: High level of stress leads to higher productivity.................................................61
Table 9: High stress hampers the outcome of the projects handled by you.................62
Table 10: Correlation Analysis of the different study variables..............................................64
Table 11: Regression Analysis.................................................................................................66
Table 12: ANOVA Table.........................................................................................................66
Table 13: Coefficients..............................................................................................................66

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Index of Figures
Figure 1: Increase in the revenue generation in global IT industry (2005-2017) in billion euro
(Statista.com 2018)....................................................................................................................3
Figure 2: Structure of the Dissertation.......................................................................................8
Figure 3: Common reasons behind failure of projects and their relative weightage...............15
Figure 4: Reasons behind software project failures across the globe as per the developers
(2015).......................................................................................................................................19
Figure 5: Six types of emptions in general in work (Affective Events Theory)......................21
Figure 6: Negative emotions associated with project failures in generalised framework........24
Figure 7: Yerkes-Dodson Curve for stress and performance...................................................29
Figure 8: Conceptual Framework for the concerned research.................................................32
Figure 9: Research Onion.........................................................................................................35
Figure 10: Types of Philosophies in Research.........................................................................36
Figure 11: Types of Research Designs.....................................................................................37
Figure 12: Types of Research Approaches..............................................................................38
Figure 13: Data types used in research....................................................................................39
Figure 14: Age distribution of the selected respondents..........................................................47
Figure 15: Gender distribution of the selected respondents.....................................................48
Figure 16: Work experience of the respondents in their current workplace............................49