Project Team Rewards
Literature Review
32
3.5.4. Rewarding as Project Success Factor
Figure 1
(p. 7) illustrates that reward literature considers employees’ motivation and
rewards as one factor influencing organisational success. Accordingly, it could be assumed
that project team members’ motivation and hence rewards are considered by project
management literature as one influencing factor of project success. This is not the case.
No reviewed literature dealing with project success does consider rewards or team
members’ motivation as a success factor. Fortune & White (2006) analysed 63 papers and
identified 27 critical success factors (for a list see Appendix VIII: Critical Project Success
Factors, p. 96). None of the factors are related to team members’ motivation or rewards.
Interestingly, “skilled/suitably/qualified/sufficient staff” is identified as a success factor
(Fortune & White 2006:55). In reward literature, it is widely recognised that even the
highest skilled employees are inefficient if they are not motivated to use their skills (e.g.
Armstrong 2002, Locke & Latham 2004, and Wilson 2003). Apparently, this is ignored in
the project management literature. Another identified success factor is “Good performance
by suppliers/contractors/consultants” (Fortune & White 2006:55). Surprisingly, team
members’ performance is not mentioned. In contrast, reward literature does recognise
employees’ performance as an important requirement for organisational success (see
Figure 1, p. 7).
Bearing in mind that project management literature does not consider rewards or even
employees’ motivation as critical success factors it is not surprising that rewards are only
covered superficially by the project management literature. However, there is little reason
to assume that rewards and motivation are not critical for success in project management
while they are for line work.
3.5.5. Summary and Evaluation of Rewards in
Project Management
Project management literature covers rewards only superficially, if at all. Rewards and
employees’ motivation are even not considered as critical success factors. The project
management authors that do cover rewards mostly provide arguments similar to those of
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