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1. Introduction
Few individuals grow up with the dream of one day becoming project managers. However, it is not a well-understood career path within most modern organizations. Project managers in construction are responsible for the overall success of delivering the owner’s physical development within the constraints of cost, schedule, quality and safety requirements. As such they do not only play a crucial role in the operational activities of architectural and engineering construction companies but also the development of infrastructure in every country (Edum-Fotwe and McCaffer, 2000). Career development of project managers is reliant on mobility across projects rather than on vertical movement provided by permanent organizations (Arthur et al., 2001). After managing several projects individuals may still find themselves “stuck in a rut” with fewer or no career paths or opportunities for development (Palm and Lindahl, 2015). Pursuing project management (PM) as a career is difficult for those individuals with family commitments and generational gender differences (Crawford et al., 2013). In most organizations, human resource support systems do not support the role of project managers (Huemann et al., 2007). This lack of recognition impedes the development of project managers as a recognized and respected profession within the organizational support through designated PM departments, career paths and frameworks (Madter et al., 2012). The complexity of today’s project environments has created an even greater need to ensure that construction organizations have effective career development programmes to fill PM roles with the “right” people for successful delivery (Esa et al., 2014).
Research of this kind, specific to the construction sector, is needed and timely due to the risk associated with construction projects and their ability to cause organization-wide collapse (Kangari, 1988), exacerbated by increases in complexity, globalization and technology. To help to manage this risk, wide-spread change in the sector’s approach to career development of practitioners operating outside of the traditional hierarchy (Pinto and Kharbanda, 1995) and the guidance for improving employee understanding beyond the limits of past performance is imperative. Caretta (1992) found that formal succession planning for higher-level positions creates a measurable profit advantage. Many project-based organizations still struggle to capitalize on the benefits of formal systems and processes for employee career development and succession planning especially within the higher organizational...