The Impact of Project-related Failures on Team Members and Support Mechanisms – A Narrative Analysis

Purpose
Past studies on project-related failures have focused on developing criteria for measuring and achieving project success and failure without addressing the impact of failures on team members. Therefore, this study focuses on reviewing the impact of project failure on team members and the support offered by leaders.

Design/Methodology/Approach
A qualitative research approach was adopted, and data was collected through interviews involving 15 construction professionals. The data was analysed using the narrative data analysis method and the Just Culture theory as a theoretical lens.

Findings
Failure impacts team members’ emotions and morale negatively in form of grief, stress, and in some cases death. Family and personal relationships are also strained due to the financial burden of losing employment. Support offered to team members includes increased training and supervision focused on meeting the project outputs (time, cost and quality). Such responses do not address the emotional and morale-related impact of failure on team members. Instead, team members are blamed and punished which demonstrates a prevalence of a retributive response to failure.

Originality
Unlike, studies that focus on the criteria for measuring and mitigating project failure with the view of achieving project outputs, this study encourages providing emotional support to team members.

Implications
Project team members should be supported emotionally besides retraining/upskilling and supervision. Accordingly, there is need to adopt a Just Culture which focuses on who are affected and how they can be supported, instead of focusing on who to blame.

Limitations
Considering the limited number of participants, the study’s findings cannot be generalized. Hence, future studies with a larger population are encouraged.