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Top management support: Mantra or necessity?
Raymond Young a,*, Ernest Jordan b
a The Frame Group, Level 11, 189 Kent Street, Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
b Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
Received 2 June 2008; accepted 3 June 2008
Abstract
This research provides evidence that top management support is the most important critical success factor for project success and is
not simply one of many factors. The finding is justified in the context of the project management literature and the IS factor research on
project success. There are implications for practice because it appears that the conventional technical and project management advice has
less impact on project success than previously thought. Boards and top managers may have to personally accept that they have more
influence on whether a project succeeds or fails.
2008 Elsevier Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Top management support; Critical success factor; Project success; Project failure; Benefits realisation; IT-enabled business project; Organisational
change; Project champion
1. Introduction
The importance of top management support (TMS) has
long been recognised in the IS literature 1–4]. However,
practitioners and researchers alike, have focussed their
attention on factors they can more directly control 5]
and appear to only pay lip-service to TMS 6–8].
Prescriptions for TMS are not well developed 9]. Some
impose very demanding requirements for top management
resources simply to improve technical quality or user satisfaction
3,10–12], goals of little direct interest to top
managers. Other prescriptions for communication, enthusiasm,
involvement and participation appear to be little more
than exhortation 4,7,11,13]. TMS is generally promoted as
being inherently good 14] but there is clear evidence that too
much TMS can be dysfunctional and lead to failure 15,16].
Projects can succeed without following the general prescriptions
for TMS and others can fail while following all
the common prescriptions 17]. As a result, the advice for
top managers lacks credibility. However, few would doubt
the need for TMS 18] and TMS is consistently recognised
as a critical success factor 5].
The problem is that current prescriptions are practitioner-
led and mantra-like in their call for TMS. Top managers
have the freedom to provide or withhold their support
but current prescriptions are failing to have any significant
influence on their behaviour. This paper will therefore make
a significant realignment in approach and reconsider the
issue of TMS from the perspective of the most relevant
stakeholders (boards and top managers). It has conceptualised
this problem as two related issues: (1) how important is
TMS and (2) what constitutes effective TMS, but for reasons
of length will focus on the first and more fundamental
of these two issues. If top managers are not convinced of the
importance of TMS, there is very little point defining TMS
in more detail. The second issue will be addressed in a future
paper and this paper will simply summarise the range of
behaviours that might constitute TMS.
To manage scope the paper will study TMS in the
context of IS projects – an issue demanding board level
attention because of the high levels of investment and the
strategic consequences of failure 19,20].
0263-7863/$34.00 2008 Elsevier Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijproman.2008.06.001
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 458 779 334.
E-mail addresses:
(R. Young),
(E. Jordan).
Available online at
International Journal of Project Management 26 (2008) 713–725
ویرایش توسط hamid.acm : 14th May 2010 در ساعت 21:53
