Challenges of Project Organization Structure in Telecom Projects: The case of ethio-telecom

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Date

2019-07

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Addis Ababa University

Abstract

This study is conducted to assess the project organization structure practice and challenges in Ethiotelecom and also to suggest possible solutions to ease the challenges by identifying the knowledge gap of the project teams. The researcher has done preliminary interview and observed some challenges in each project organization structure related with managing people. As a result the researcher was interested to make deep investigation on their human resource management & leadership practice on the context of each project organization structure in order to understand their challenges and also to identify their knowledge gap by taking pure & matrix project organization structure. Descriptive research design and mixed research approach was applied for this research. The researcher has used hundred percent of the project managers and coordinators, and also used ten percent of the project staffs using simple random sampling for the assessment. The results of the study reveal that all the three (Matrix, Functional, and Pure) type of project organization structure mentioned in the literature are found in Ethio-telecom. The project team has their own selection criteria to select the appropriate project organization structure and they are happy with their choice in their practice. The study also reveals the challenges associated with each project organization structure like getting the right staff for the project, maintaining the staff throughout the life cycle of the project, not rewarding the staff based on their performance, authority and responsibility gap of the project managers on the project teams. The knowledge gap assessment in each project organization’s structure shows that the project teams have poor HRM and leadership practice. As a result, the project teams couldn’t able to ease the challenges exist in each project organization structure as expected. Based on the findings, therefore, recommendations for ethio-telecom project teams are provided so as to manage and lead the projects efficiently in each project organization structure.

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Keywords

project organization structure, Human resource management, Staffing, Performance Appraisal

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