on the Creation of Project Management Structures
FEATURED PAPER
By Luca Costa
Università degli Studi di Bologna
Bologna Business School
Bologna, Italy
Abstract
Project management requests are growing with the market’s demand for efficiency and the existing high level of competition among players in all industries and segments of the market.
The maturity of companies concerning project management is a key factor in the success of their business initiatives. The existing corporate culture influences the choices of people, structures, and the subsequent tailoring of processes.
According to Professor Edgar Schein’s schema, beliefs are cultural artifacts whose understanding allows the synthesis of proper strategies for the success of initiatives. The environment’s beliefs strongly influence the creation and the subsequent effectiveness of the project manager’s role and the project’s organization.
In the following notes, we propose two case studies showing an organizational transformation focused on the creation of a project management structure.
Any choice is a consequence of contingent conditions, external factors, and the effect of culture. To characterize the impact of culture, we focus on beliefs, whose identification and classification, with the support of influence maps and a cultural depth schema, allow understanding of decisional behaviors and the justifications of choices, and the establishment of implementation strategies.
The cases and the solution schema are not exhaustive and are proposed as templates that the readers tailor and use in their environments.
Keywords: Project Management, Project Management Structures, Corporate Culture, Beliefs, Cultural Artifacts, Change Management.
Introductory Notes
During a conference the author attended some years ago, the speaker exposed a successful initiative to introduce an innovative ERP solution in his company. The speaker claimed that a key aspect of its success was “to engage a good PM.” After a couple of questions, it became evident how the speaker considered having on board the skills of a good PM as the key asset to secure the initiative’s success. The message was that a skillful person could fill with just his skills the organizational gaps and deficiencies of his department or company. In doing so, the speaker underrated the importance of readiness and compatibility with his environment regarding the role of the project manager.
The project manager interacts with the organization, establishes relationships with peers and managers, needs to access resources, and is supposed to leverage existing structures and processes. In case resources, communication channels, structures, and processes – in one expression, the artifacts of project management culture – do not exist or should be changed, it is the responsibility of the project manager to create those, and then they have two projects to carry out at the same time: the nominal one, pursuing business objectives and a second, more or less hidden, pursuing a cultural change in the organization. If both projects are comparably challenging, their outcomes are under threat, or at least, the extent of the investment could be underestimated.
In any case, creating a Project Management structure broadly impacts the organization’s environment, including culture.
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How to cite this paper: Cost, L. (2025). Influence of Corporate Culture on the Creation of Project Management Structures, PM World Journal, Vol. XIV, Issue VI, June. Available online at https://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/pmwj153-jun2025-Costa-Influence-of-Corporate-Culture-on-Project-Management-Structures.pdf
About the Author
Luca Costa
Bologna, Italy
Luca Costa, MSc in Physics, Executive MBA at Bologna Business School, certified Project Management Professional (PMP™) acts mainly as a consultant both as a freelancer and for consulting companies based in Italy. An adjunct lecturer at the School of Economics and Management of the University of Bologna, for Bologna Business School he is directing three Open Programs, several Custom Programs about Project Management, Risk Management, PMP Certification and Change Management.
His main areas of interest are, in addition to Project and Program Management, Change Management, and in particular the measurement of Change Readiness of business environments, for which he has developed an original approach. He has also been a speaker at several conferences on these topics, including the PMI global summit in 2022.
In his past he acted first as Project and Program Manager, then as Business Developer for multinational IT companies, developing PLM solutions, managing projects for configurators and advanced graphics for automotive companies, and organizing Academies in multicultural environments. These often multicultural and complex experiences were the main factors that sparked his interest in project management and change management. He is, finally, a volunteer for the Project Management Institute for which he has served as Branch Director and has organized numerous conferences. He has personal interests in traveling, photography, history and he’s a passionate fan of the Boston Red Sox. He can be contacted at luca.costa@bbs.unibo.it
