The project boundary and occupational stress

Despite advances in project management practices and profession, projects continue to have an unacceptably high failure rate, which may be influenced by project manager being highly stressed and their decision-making capabilities becoming narrowed. The project manager’s role necessitates that they occupy the boundary between sponsoring organisation, clients, and other actors involved in the project environment, where they are often subjected to time pressures, project uncertainties, conflicting demands, complex and often dynamic social structure involved in the project environment. In this social constructionist study thirty six senior executives participants were interviewed. It was observed that when discussing the person-environment fit and competencies of a project manager, occupational stress and stress management were overlooked by executive project sponsors as a possible contributing factor for poor project manager performance and poor project outcomes. Despite the growing body of research evidence that has identified occupational stress across many different professions as having an adverse impact on an individual’s performance and health, there has been little recognition within project management literature of the impacts of stress or coping strategies for managing stressors within the project environment. This strongly suggests that additional research on stress focused on the project environment is warranted, and that both project sponsors and project managers need to be made aware of the antecedents to stress and consequences of stress both in the personal and business sense.