Full Text Available

Note: Clicking the button above will open the full text document at the original institutional repository in a new window.

Personality profiling and project success factors: a study in the transportation and operations department of an organisation

The use of personality profiling in various fields, industries and sectors has increased over the last decade. The applications of profiling vary and include assessments as to whether a candidate is suitable for a work opportunity to whether a team's personalities are conducive to achieve their obje...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: De Vries, Franco
Other Authors: Shaw, Corrinne
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Department of Mechanical Engineering 2017
Subjects:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1867613216741261312
access_status_str Open Access
author De Vries, Franco
author2 Shaw, Corrinne
author_browse De Vries, Franco
Shaw, Corrinne
author_facet Shaw, Corrinne
De Vries, Franco
author_sort De Vries, Franco
collection Thesis
description The use of personality profiling in various fields, industries and sectors has increased over the last decade. The applications of profiling vary and include assessments as to whether a candidate is suitable for a work opportunity to whether a team's personalities are conducive to achieve their objectives. In the discipline of project management, personality profiling has been used to match project managers to projects as a means to contribute to project success. The organisation in focus in this case study have implemented personality typing in 2012 and the results have shown that since the inception of personality typing there has been improvement in health, environment and safety project success metrics. However, the results have also shown that the implementation of personality typing has had no effect on other project success metrics such as project cost and schedule attainment. This research study addresses the questions of which factors affect the project managers' ability to achieve project success and how personality profiling affects these factors. This study is conducted as a case study in the Transportation and Operations department of the organisation. Literature on the origin and details of personality typing is discussed, its prevalence in the work place and which personality types are more likely to achieve project success. Furthermore, literature on the factors which typically influence the ability to achieve project success are presented. The research design was based on Maxwell's qualitative interactive research design model and the justification for case study methodology is provided. The primary means of data collection was semi-structured interviews. The data generated was analysed using qualitative data analysis using the compare and contrast principles of grounded theory. Consideration of research validation or trustworthiness and ethics were provided. Six factors were found to influence the project manager's ability to achieve project success. These were: the effect of the organisational policies and procedures; the project manager's leadership abilities; the contractor's performance level; the health of relationships with stakeholders; the planning effectiveness and compliance; and the effect of external factors. Secondly it was found that personality typing has mostly a positive influence on these factors and project success. This dissertation concludes with a review of the findings and its implications, the limitations of the study, practical recommendations for the organisation and recommendations for further studies.
format Thesis
id oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/25016
institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:32:37.404Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2017
publishDateRange 2017
publishDateSort 2017
publisher Department of Mechanical Engineering
publisherStr Department of Mechanical Engineering
record_format dspace
source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/25016 Personality profiling and project success factors: a study in the transportation and operations department of an organisation De Vries, Franco Shaw, Corrinne Engineering Management The use of personality profiling in various fields, industries and sectors has increased over the last decade. The applications of profiling vary and include assessments as to whether a candidate is suitable for a work opportunity to whether a team's personalities are conducive to achieve their objectives. In the discipline of project management, personality profiling has been used to match project managers to projects as a means to contribute to project success. The organisation in focus in this case study have implemented personality typing in 2012 and the results have shown that since the inception of personality typing there has been improvement in health, environment and safety project success metrics. However, the results have also shown that the implementation of personality typing has had no effect on other project success metrics such as project cost and schedule attainment. This research study addresses the questions of which factors affect the project managers' ability to achieve project success and how personality profiling affects these factors. This study is conducted as a case study in the Transportation and Operations department of the organisation. Literature on the origin and details of personality typing is discussed, its prevalence in the work place and which personality types are more likely to achieve project success. Furthermore, literature on the factors which typically influence the ability to achieve project success are presented. The research design was based on Maxwell's qualitative interactive research design model and the justification for case study methodology is provided. The primary means of data collection was semi-structured interviews. The data generated was analysed using qualitative data analysis using the compare and contrast principles of grounded theory. Consideration of research validation or trustworthiness and ethics were provided. Six factors were found to influence the project manager's ability to achieve project success. These were: the effect of the organisational policies and procedures; the project manager's leadership abilities; the contractor's performance level; the health of relationships with stakeholders; the planning effectiveness and compliance; and the effect of external factors. Secondly it was found that personality typing has mostly a positive influence on these factors and project success. This dissertation concludes with a review of the findings and its implications, the limitations of the study, practical recommendations for the organisation and recommendations for further studies. 2017-09-01T14:18:30Z 2017-09-01T14:18:30Z 2017 Master Thesis Masters MPhil http://hdl.handle.net/11427/25016 eng application/pdf Department of Mechanical Engineering Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment University of Cape Town
spellingShingle Engineering Management
De Vries, Franco
Personality profiling and project success factors: a study in the transportation and operations department of an organisation
thesis_degree_str Master's
title Personality profiling and project success factors: a study in the transportation and operations department of an organisation
title_full Personality profiling and project success factors: a study in the transportation and operations department of an organisation
title_fullStr Personality profiling and project success factors: a study in the transportation and operations department of an organisation
title_full_unstemmed Personality profiling and project success factors: a study in the transportation and operations department of an organisation
title_short Personality profiling and project success factors: a study in the transportation and operations department of an organisation
title_sort personality profiling and project success factors a study in the transportation and operations department of an organisation
topic Engineering Management
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/25016
work_keys_str_mv AT devriesfranco personalityprofilingandprojectsuccessfactorsastudyinthetransportationandoperationsdepartmentofanorganisation