Preparedness for contingencies: a systematic review of the factors that influence the crisis resilience of project managers

Search strategy

We conducted a comprehensive systematic review of relevant articles in inter-disciplinary fields, utilising established methodologies and protocols. We developed a search strategy to identify relevant literature for this systematic search. This search strategy was created to include a computerised literature search of two databases using the library services provided by Scopus and Web of Science. Instead of publishers or journals, we utilised library services to obtain two comprehensive databases of academic publications on peer-reviewed journals and to cross-check the findings of our investigation. In addition, the multidisciplinary nature of the concept of resilience and crisis preparedness, as well as its applicability across multiple sectors, supported the decision to search for relevant papers through a library service rather than through publishers or journals. In our systematic paper search, we combined the term “resilience” with the Boolean operator and the following search terms: “individual resilience”, “project manager” AND “resilience”, “crisis preparedness”, “project resilience”, “team resilience”, and “construction resilience”. All searches covered the period from the database’s inception in 1993 to 2022 and included journal articles, review papers, and only English-language publications.

Selection criteria

The PRISMA Statement served as the foundation for the criterion for selection (Moher et al., 2009). The primary goal of the search was to map current literature on individual resilience in the fields of social sciences, environmental sciences, business, and economics. The topics were then narrowed down to environmental science, multidisciplinary, social science, psychology, arts and humanities, and earth science. The time period covered by the search was from 1993 to 2022. No articles published prior to 1993 were included in the search results. The search focuses primarily on the nations of ASEAN, Europe, and the United States. As a result, any articles from another country were excluded. The keyword search strategy was carried out twice to add credibility to the study, as per our inquiry to the library services regarding keywords. Accordingly, we compiled a list of 1539 articles that could be relevant and performed a preliminary screening using a title/keyword and summary check, eventually eliminating 1494 articles and inquiring about 45. Each author independently reviewed and analysed the remaining 45 articles to determine their applicability to the subsequent analysis steps based on a set of predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Quality assessment

In this study, only original research articles and review articles were used. All duplicates were meticulously examined to ensure the quality of the review. To ensure the quality and relevance of the academic literature included in the review process, the abstracts of the papers were thoroughly evaluated. Each research project was subsequently subjected to a thorough evaluation. The second criterion for exclusion was restricting the papers to those that had been published in English-only journals. Thirty-four (34) articles that were written in a language other than English were excluded from the study (15 German, 5 Spanish, 4 Russian, 2 Croatian, 4 French, 1 Norwegian, 1 Turkish, 1Afrikaan, 1 Russian). After eliminating duplicate records, another publication was removed from the analysis. After applying the aforementioned criteria for acceptance and rejection, we narrowed the pool of potential papers down to 45.

Data extraction

The bibliographic references of the included papers were then examined to confirm the study’s veracity and rule out the possibility of omissions. Because of this, we hand-selected 10 papers that we felt answered our research question and met our other inclusion criteria. Because of their prevalence in the reviewed papers, the following contributions were chosen for consideration. The systematic review procedure that we used to compile our final dataset of 55 studies.

Records distribution over the years

While there has been an overall increase in crisis resilience and preparedness research publications over the research period (1993–2022), there have been significant shifts in the publication distribution between time series phases, as shown in Figure 1. The time series distribution of resilience and crisis preparedness research papers can be divided into three phases. The first period covers the years 2000–2015; during this time, there were only about 22% of all publications in the field of resilience and crisis preparedness, and the average annual number of publications in this area was less than two. This period is characterised by a slow rate of development. The second phase of the crisis resilience and preparedness research, lasting from 2016 to 2021, is a part of the rapid expansion phase. During this time, new publications on crisis resilience and preparedness research appeared, indicating an increased interest in these topics among global researchers. This phase is part of the rapid growth phase of resilience and crisis preparedness research. The third phase runs from 2021 to 2022, indicating that research on resilience and crisis preparedness has reached a stable development phase. This trend indicates that global researchers are becoming increasingly interested in resilience and crisis preparedness research. We can conclude and forecast that the number of publications will continue to increase beginning in the first quarter of 2022. The completion date of this strategy search is 18^th May 2022.

Figure 1. Time series distribution of publications.

Publication distribution countrywise

Both the countries from which the articles were sourced and the total number of articles published are considered in this analysis of the geographic distribution of materials on disaster resilience and preparedness. The global coverage of the terms “crisis resilience” and “preparedness” is displayed in Figures 2 and 3. First place goes to the United States (12). According to a number of reports, the United States has been hit the hardest by this phenomenon, with a large number of citizens experiencing the effects of a number of different natural disasters. Canada and Australia are ranked second and third, with eight each, among nations where disaster resilience and preparedness measurement tools have recently advanced in development. As a result, policymakers at the national, district, and municipal levels are concerned and have taken decisive action, focusing on the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR).

Figure 2. World map on countries’ publications.

Figure 3. Country wise distribution.

The United Kingdom has four publications; China, Hong Kong, Israel, Malaysia, New Zealand, Norway, and Singapore each have two. They are ranked lower than the rest of the world’s countries. “Crisis resilience” and “preparedness” develop more slowly here. Studies on disaster risk management have been conducted on a global scale, with the majority of studies focusing on either developed or developing countries.

Most cited journals

The chosen 55 papers were published in 18 different interdisciplinary journals as depicted in Figure 4. This diversity reflects the immense fragmentation of expertise and scientific disciplines involved in crisis resilience and preparedness at present. To make logical sense of what is already known, a focused investigation is required to make sense of the vast number of publications.

Figure 4. Most cited journals.

Group and Organizational Management, International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment, International Journal of Information Systems and Project Management, International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, International Journal Sustainable Construction, Journal of Engineering, Design, and Technology, and Market Trziste are the journals with the highest average number of citations per year (2). The previous publication is primarily concerned with IS/IT, project management, and sustainable construction. Case studies conducted by academics and patricians are included. Using an academic approach, the second section examines the reasons behind crisis resilience. In addition, it addresses disaster resilience indexes and built environment capacities. The topics and content are centered on spreading awareness of preparedness for crisis resilience.

Bibiometric analysis

This study also employed bibliometrics to examine the content of publications (titles and abstracts) found in the scientific databases Scopus and Web of Science (ISI). VOSViewer version 1.6.18 were utilised in the process of carrying out the analyses. Bibliometric analysis is utilised to categorise clusters of related publications discovered by a co-citation analysis utilising textual data. This bibliometric study, which continues the analysis of the first three decades of resilience and crisis preparedness research, aims to (1) create a map based on bibliographic data to create co-authorship, co-occurrence, citation, and bibliographic coupling in the period between 1993 and 2022; and (2) create a term co-occurrence map based on bibliographic data. The research reveals that there are seven distinct trajectories for future development. By comparing the most recent literature on resilience and crisis preparedness, the development paths and underlying strategic principles uncovered by this bibliometric analysis are then contrasted. Overall, this provides a systematic review of the research on resilience and preparedness conducted between 1993 and 2022, and it further reveals the divisions within its intellectual structure. The dichotomous nature of the development paths of resilience and crisis preparedness that each thematic cluster relates to creates a division.

Co-authorship analysis

In this study, VOSViewer was used to analyse the co-authorship by countries’ co-occurrence network of crisis resilience and preparedness research. Figure 5 is a network visualisation map showing author cooccurrence, which was generated by selecting co-authorship as the type of analysis, countries as the unit of analysis, full counting as the counting method, and three as the minimum number of documents per author. Figure 5 (5A, 5B, and 5C) shows the number of authors and their home countries for studies on crisis resilience and preparedness. The names of the countries were labelled with circles. What was represented by the space between the two circles was the degree of their connection. In this diagram, the coauthorship between two countries was represented by the thickness of the connecting curve lines. Each country’s total number of citations was used to calculate its share of the circle’s area. The bar in the lower right corner of the graph indicated the average year of the studies, and the circles’ colours reflected that. The range of colours represented the typical publication year in each nation. There are significant relationships between the distance between nodes and the thickness of connecting lines, both of which reflect the extent to which authors have worked together. If two authors have a strong connection and are geographically close together, they are more likely to work together on future projects.

Figure 5. A. Co-authorship by countries map network visualisation. B. Co-authorship by countries map network overlay visualisation. C. Co-authorship by countries map network density visualisation.

Research hotspots and frontier analysis

Figure 7 depicts the term co-occurrence map based on text data for the clusters of crisis resilience and preparedness research. The node size is proportional to the number of times a term appears in the titles and abstracts of publications; the larger the node, the greater the word count. In light of this, this paper explored the distribution of hotspots in resilience and crisis preparedness research by visually analysing the cooccurrence of keywords in resilience and preparedness research using VOSViewer. It selected cooccurrence as the analysis type, keywords as the unit of analysis, full counting as the counting method, and a minimum of three occurrences per keyword.

According to Figure 6, the research hotspots for resilience and crisis preparedness are organised into eight keyword clusters, with the distinct clusters representing the distribution of resilience and crisis preparedness research in various domains. Cluster 1 (red region) represents relationship-related research on resilience and crisis preparedness. Cluster 1 contains ten keywords, including conflict, work, physical safety outcome, strategic resilience, adversity, effect, attribute, economic hardship, employee resilience, acceptance resilience, and policymaker, and is the largest cluster in the distribution of resilience and crisis preparedness research hotspots. According to the distribution of nodes, high-frequency keywords such as strategic resilience and adversity are relatively close and their connecting lines are relatively thick. One of the most promising new avenues of research in resilience is the application of complex adaptive systems (CAS) theory (Cavallo & Ireland, 2014). A “blessing in disguise” is a capability that emerges and grows in response to a systemic threat, whether real or imagined. Ability to persevere and maintain one’s essential traits and sense of self while also growing stronger, wiser, and more capable is what we mean when we talk about resilience. The approach itself is not revolutionary. Through the promotion of local genetic adaptation, the generation of spatial and temporal heterogeneity, the maintenance of local biodiversity, and the development of an ecosystem that is more resistant to future shocks, researchers studying ecological resilience are identifying the self-organizing processes that create self-regeneration and natural regeneration. Researchers have used this term to explore the intricate connection and tactic of resilience and crisis preparedness by, for example, looking at resilience antecedents in different settings. For concepts and resilience in particular, the close proximity of their nodes and the thickness of their connecting lines indicate a high degree of cooccurrence. In addition, the keywords in cluster 1 are spread out more than in any other cluster, as shown by the distribution of nodes. The dispersed nature of the research hubs in this cluster reflects the breadth of the topic of resilience and crisis preparedness in the context of interpersonal relationships (Andrianu, 2020; Calvente & Smicker, 2019).

Figure 6. Term co-occurrence map network visualisation.

Cluster 2 (orange region) represents team-related research on resilience and crisis preparedness. Cluster 2 consists of six keywords: trust, project team resilience, evidence, signature strength, creative problem, and project management. Compared to Cluster 1, this cluster has a shorter distance between nodes and a relatively close network connection, indicating that research on team resilience and crisis preparedness is relatively concentrated. According to the distribution of keywords in Cluster 2, the research hotspots for resilience and crisis preparedness in the field of teams include trust, project management, and creative problem solving, among others. Among them, regarding the study of strategy, some scholars propose the team’s core (Figure 6: Term co-occurrence map network visualization). It is interesting to note Cluster 2’s keyword strategy, which is central and close to Cluster 1 (relationships). Moreover, the frequency of project team resilience is relatively high, making it one of the research hotspots in the field of teams. It is reasonable to conclude that the resilience of project teams is correlated with trust in a cluster of teams (Pavez et al., 2021; Carmeli et al., 2021; Chapman et al., 2020).

Cluster 3 (region in light blue) represents resilience and crisis preparedness research in the field of project management. Cluster 3 contains nine keywords, including influence, challenge, strategy, project, success, competency, leadership, and project success. Compared to other clusters, the nodes in Cluster 3 are relatively close, with the exception of influence, and the connecting lines between some nodes are relatively thick, such as the connecting lines between project manager and competency and project manager and leadership, indicating that the research on resilience and crisis preparedness in the field of project managers is less scattered and more focused, and that the keywords are closely related. Focusing on the distribution of keyword nodes in Cluster 3, the resilience and crisis preparedness research hotspots in the field of project management centre on competency and leadership. Concerning a project manager’s research, organisational crises are low-probability, high-impact events that undermine an organization’s competitiveness and sustainability. It is a managerial and leadership responsibility to design and implement an organisational framework capable of dealing with these traumatic events (Carmeli et al., 2021; Aruta, 2021; Douglas, 2021).

Cluster 4 contains nine keywords: leader in disaster management, climate change, responsibility, risk, disaster resilience, sense, flood, flood disaster, Malaysian city. Compared to the first three clusters, the keywords surrounding vulnerability in cluster 4 are relatively concentrated, the distance between them is relatively close, and the connecting lines are relatively longer, such as vulnerability and flood, as well as flood crisis, indicating that the research hotspots of resilience and crisis preparedness in the field of vulnerability exhibit the characteristics of concentration and general dispersion. This cluster contains one of the largest numbers of keywords, indicating that the research on resilience and crisis preparedness in the field of vulnerability spans a broad spectrum and that the research hotspots are relatively concentrated and focused on vulnerability (Crosweller & Tschakert, 2021; Karki, 2019; Hickman, 2018).

Cluster 5 (brown region) represents resilience and crisis preparedness research conducted within the concept domain. Cluster 5 consists of ten keywords, including project resilience, lack, conceptual framework, disruptive event, project agility, comparative analysis, linearity, crisis subjectivity, multiple levels, and vulnerability management. Compared to other clusters, the nodes in cluster 5 are relatively distant from one another, with the exception of project agility, disruptive events, and project resilience, and the connecting lines between some nodes are relatively thinner, such as the connecting lines between lack and multiple level, indicating that the research on resilience and crisis preparedness in the field of concepts is relatively dispersed and less focused, and that the connection of keywords is less closely related. Focusing on the distribution of keyword nodes in Cluster 5, the research hotspots of resilience and crisis preparedness in the field of concept are centred on the adaptability of the project (Shenhar & Holzmann, 2017; Calvente & Smicker, 2019).

Cluster 6 (green region) represents resilience and crisis preparedness research in the preparedness field. Nine keywords are included in Cluster 6: perception, COVID-19, exposure, crisis preparedness, organisational preparedness, higher level, difference, organisation, and construction industry. Compared to the first five clusters, the keywords surrounding measure in cluster 6 are relatively dispersed, and the distance between the keywords surrounding them is relatively short, such as stress, mental health, and factor, indicating that the research hotspots of resilience and crisis preparedness in the field of measure exhibit partial concentration and general dispersion. Despite the fact that crisis experience and technical risk in an industry were not the most significant predictors of crisis preparedness, high-performing organisations reported greater levels of crisis preparedness (Carmeli et al., 2021; Carmeli & Schaubroeck, 2008; Labaš, 2017). Crisis-prepared organisations are perceived to be more capable of forecasting, recognising, managing, and making effective decisions during times of crisis (Asheim et al., 2020). Therefore, crisis preparedness within an organisation is strategic and has a substantial impact on the organisation. In contrast, highly successful organisations are crisis-ready to a significant degree (Mokline & Ben Abdallah, 2021; Chen & Zhang, 2021; Bardoel & Drago, 2021; Andrianu, 2020).

Cluster 7 (the purple region) represents resilience and crisis preparedness research in the measurement field. Eight keywords are included in Cluster 7: factor, workplace, mental health, depression, stress, tradesman, psychological distress, and self. Compared to the first six clusters, the measure keywords in cluster 7 are relatively concentrated, the distance between them is relatively close, and the connecting lines are relatively thick and long, such as mental health and psychological distress, indicating that the resilience and crisis preparedness research hotspots in the field of measure exhibit the characteristics of concentration and high co-occurrence. In the field of measurement (Asheim et al., 2020), the research hotspots for resilience and crisis preparedness are stress, psychological distress, and mental health. This is well supported in the findings by Miller-Graff (2022), Nwaogu et al. (2022), First & Houston (2022), Nwaogu et al. (2021) and Aruta (2021).

Cluster 8 (yellow region) represents research in the field of entrepreneurship pertaining to resilience and crisis preparedness. There are nine keywords in Cluster 8: business success, entrepreneur, entrepreneurial success, organisational crisis preparedness, persistence, disaster preparedness, guidance, training, and conceptualization. Compared to the first seven clusters, the keywords surrounding entrepreneurs in cluster 8 are relatively concentrated, the distance between the keywords surrounding them is relatively close, and the connecting lines, such as training and guidance, are relatively thick, indicating that the research hotspots of resilience and crisis preparedness in the field of entrepreneurship exhibit concentration characteristics. In the field of entrepreneurship, the research hotspots for resilience and crisis preparedness are organisational persistence and crisis preparedness (Renko et al., 2021; Anwar et al., 2021; Mokline & Ben Abdallah, 2021; Smith et al., 2022; Fisher et al., 2016; Matin & Taylor, 2015).

Figure 7 is a visual representation of the co-occurrence map overlay. VOSViewer analysed 55 papers on crisis resilience and preparedness, with co-occurrence of terms determining the size of the circle. Using the icon in the lower right corner, the colours of the circles represented the average frequency of the study. The distance between circles indicates their interconnectedness. The thickness of the connecting lines indicated the degree of co-occurrence between two terms. The various hues of the circles represented clusters separated by co-occurrences. The area of each circle indicated the frequency with which each term occurred. Visualization of term co-occurrence map overlay illustrates the evolution of research domains and identifies potential hotspots and frontiers, such as vulnerability and risk, leadership, and emotional intelligence, among others. This laid the foundation for future scholarly inquiry.

Figure 7. Term co-occurrence map overlay visualisation.

Figure 8 is a density visualisation graph generated in order to gather additional information about these keywords. Similar to the network visualisation, items are indicated by their label in the item density display. Each point on a map is coloured based on the item density at that location. This colour is midway between yellow and blue by default. When a point’s colour is closer to yellow, more objects are located near it, and the objects’ combined weights are larger. On the other hand, the closer a point’s colour is to blue, the fewer objects there are in its vicinity and the lighter their weights. The keywords Project Manager, Competency, Relationship (interpersonal), Risk & Vulnerability, Concepts, Preparedness, Measure, and Entrepreneur are highly densely concentrated, indicating a close relationship between these This figure was extracted from the VOSviewer, which do not need permission.keywords and other keywords. And it is acceptable to conclude that the higher the density, the more mature and thoroughly developed the theme’s research (Hu and Zhang, 2015). However, we could not overlook the fact that there are fewer terms in the yellow area than in the blue-green area. It is revealed that there are fewer fundamental research domains on organisational crisis preparedness, leadership (disaster management), failures and that many of these disciplines are underdeveloped.

Figure 8. Term co-occurrence map density visualisation.

Table 1 shows the results of counting how often the 25 most frequently occurring keywords occurred within the context of resilience and crisis preparedness research.

Determinant 1: Leadership (individual resilience, influence, team trust, emotional intelligence)

Some of the most important skills for a project manager to have are leadership (Moradi et al., 2020; Alvarenga et al., 2019); transformational leadership (Fareed et al., 2021); and soft skills (Moradi et al., 2020). Construction projects are at risk of failing when led by incompetent managers. The failure or poor performance of construction projects is often attributable to a lack of a visible project manager and the management of relationships with team members and stakeholders (Kapogiannis et al., 2021). This was empirically shown to be the case in Indonesia, where the success of complex projects was directly tied to the transformational leadership and soft skills of the project managers overseeing them (Rogo et al., 2020). Poor leadership is the main cause of the failure of 80% of Pakistan’s projects, say Fareed et al. (2021). Furthermore, their data shows that a balance of IQ and EQ is essential for project success. Additionally, public sector project success is greatly influenced by transformational leadership. A study by Moradi et al. (2020) used Norway and Finland as test cases and argued that there is currently very little research-based knowledge on different environments that appear to require certain types of competencies from project managers; this reflects the maxim that “one size does not fit all.” To a large extent, the situation in Poland is similar, as Podgórska & Pichlak (2019) have remarked. They went into depth about the findings’ empirical support for the impact of the project manager’s leadership competencies and emotional and managerial skills on the project’s success. Furthermore, they argued that the results analysis proved that different competencies are required for the success of different projects. Based on empirical evidence, it has been established that a project manager’s direction is crucial to an organization’s success, especially in highly fluid settings. Research by Alvarenga et al. (2019) and others in Brazil confirms the rising importance of soft skills and underlines the importance of expanding project knowledge and bridging the gap between theory and practice. The studies that investigate the link between a project manager’s leadership and the outcome of the project cover a wide range of projects and place special emphasis on the conditions under which this link is formed, particularly in economies that are still developing.

Determinant 2: Agility (proactive, coping capacity, adaptive capacity)

When it was first published in 2001, the Agile Manifesto for Software Development advocated for swift and simple approaches to developing software (Conforto et al., 2016; Hobbs & Petit, 2017). When compared to the waterfall method, which places an emphasis on the sequential completion of project phases, the Agile methodology still stands as the most practical alternative when managing software projects. For instance, there’s requirement gathering, then development, testing, and finally deployment (Hobbs & Petit, 2017). Since its inception in 1995 (Hobbs & Petit, 2017), SCRUM has grown into one of the most widely used agile development frameworks. Lean, Kanban, and Extreme Programming (XP) are a few other frameworks out there. Agile software development is an evolutionary (iterative and incremental) method that uses a value-driven life cycle to reliably deliver high-quality, low-cost, and on-time software (Ambler, 2009). Stakeholders play an integral role in this process, which is carried out in a highly collaborative, disciplined, and self-organizing manner to guarantee that the team fully grasps and satisfies the stakeholders’ ever-changing requirements. By adjusting their rituals to the specifics of the situation, agile software development teams are able to produce consistent results (Ambler, 2009). It wasn’t long after the Agile Manifesto was published in 2001 that the term “Agile” began to appear in a wide variety of project management literature. In spite of this, the vast majority of studies on the subject remain focused on the software engineering sector (Hobbs & Petit, 2017).

After reviewing the literature on the topic, Conforto et al. (2016) concluded that “definitions of agility found in the project management (PM) and agile project management (APM) disciplines are inconsistent, incomplete, and lack clarity” (Conforto et al., 2016). Researchers analysed 171 projects and identified this management concept as “the project team’s ability to rapidly modify the project plan in response to customer or stakeholder needs, market or technology demands in order to achieve better project and product performance in an innovative and dynamic project environment” (Conforto et al., 2016). This definition clarifies a number of points. Agility is typically viewed as a talent at first (or a quality). The second is that the project team is the most crucial part of the whole, while the project plan is the one that needs the most tweaking. Agility, in sum, necessitates a shift in response to the needs of customers or stakeholders, or the demands of the market and technology, and this shift need not be a disruptive one. On the other hand, Rahi (2019) argues that agility is more about responsiveness (actions taken during or after a disruptive event occurs) than proactiveness (activities undertaken before a disruptive event occurs). It stresses adaptability to change quickly, especially in response to the requirements of stakeholders and customers. Risks that may arise as a result of catering to the wants and needs of customers and other stakeholders are already implicitly addressed by agile methods. When it comes to risk management, agile approaches tend to gloss over crucial details like the creation of rules and processes, mitigation plans, risk repositories for keeping track of hazards, and so on. This demonstrates how Agile systems don’t have any failsafes built in.

Even with these advances in the idea of agility, there are still many other research avenues to explore. It would be interesting, for instance, to look into how agility could be used on massive undertakings. In fact, agility has proven useful for small projects because the client can actively participate in making adjustments and has a close personal connection to such endeavours (may be physically present). On the other hand, “there are a number of barriers to scaling these processes (Agile practises) in large multi-site, multi-customer, and multi-project businesses,” as Hobbs and Petit (2017) put it. This point of view is often disregarded in the academic literature. Investigating how to apply enterprise-level agility to projects is another fascinating area of study. Consultancy firms have developed a plethora of frameworks for just this purpose (Hobbs & Petit, 2017). Although other frameworks [including Agile Scaling Model (ASM) and Disciplined Agile Deliver (DAD)] do exist, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) has seen the most widespread adoption. To help businesses expand their use of Agile methods beyond a single project team, this framework compiles best practises for doing so. Its purpose is to ensure that organisations can continue to reap the benefits of Agile practises (Leffingwell, 2015). Agile principles are great for smaller projects, but Leffingwell (2007) points out that it’s incredibly difficult to implement them at a large organisation. There are two main types of difficulties. The main problem stems from the principles of the Agile methodology (e.g., difficulty of continuous involvement by the client, difficulty of analysing needs and demands, etc.). Second, there are internal factors that work against introducing new approaches like Agile, such as a conservative company culture and an aversion to change. As the company continues to expand, this idea must be refined and developed further to ensure its agility.

In conclusion, from a project management perspective, focusing solely on agility could make a project vulnerable (Rahi, 2019; Rahi et al., 2021) because events outside the scope of customers’ and stakeholders’ expectations as well as market and technology demands can interrupt a project. Consequently, it would be intriguing to investigate new avenues that focus on coping with disruptive events and enhancing a project’s capacity to manage occurrences that may cause it to deviate from its primary objectives. These paths illustrate the objective of this research, which is to make projects more robust. It is evident that current project management methodologies and the knowledge and skills of project managers are insufficient to contribute to crisis events in a vulnerable environment. Consequently, it is essential to equip project managers and project team members with the resilience and preparedness skills necessary for the success of projects locally and globally, especially crisis recovery projects (Amaratunga et al., 2018; Chang-Richards et al., 2017). Adaptive resilience (Shenhar & Holzmann, 2017), professionalism, project managers’ crisis resilience (Bowers et al., 2017), and preparedness (Staupe-Delgado & Kruke, 2017; Bowers et al., 2017) would be great additions to disaster risk reduction and resilience capacity development procedures, particularly for project managers who will manage high-stress, complex, and dynamic vulnerable environment projects (Pavez, Gómez, Laulié, & González, 2021; Ismail, Majid, Roosli, & Samah, 2014; Ismail, Majid, Roosli, & Samah, 2014). The built environment stakeholders in New Zealand (Chang-Richards et al., 2017) and the UK (Amaratunga et al., 2018) both agreed that the main deficiencies were crisis resilience and preparedness, skill, and knowledge. Observations and extensive research conducted in developed countries indicate a lack of crisis resilience and preparedness. There is an immediate need to shift the paradigm from disaster recovery and response to crisis preparedness (Whittaker, Khalfan & UlHaq, 2020). From the available literature, it is worthwhile to investigate crisis resilience and preparedness awareness in the context of project management professionals.

Determinant 3: Interpersonal skill (conflict management, persistence, crisis preparedness)

Podgórska and Pichlak (2019) claim that there is a growing body of uncertainty about what constitutes competence in project management due to the fact that researchers and professional bodies have developed a patchwork of knowledge in this area. According to their findings, a project manager’s competency outline is made up of 81 different skills and traits spread across 11 different categories, including the ability to persuade and communicate effectively, as well as to manage projects effectively and professionally, and to have a firm grasp of the ins and outs of project management (Podgórska & Pichlak, 2019). In each phase of the project life cycle, interpersonal/communication, leadership, and dedication are the most important skills (Bowers et al., 2017; Alvarenga et al., 2019). To manage and enable the completion of the complex task, which was based on a layer of systems integration, it was necessary to communicate and coordinate with a large number of diverse stakeholders whose interests and priorities varied (Alvarenga et al., 2019; Shenhar & Holzmann, 2017). Its success was built on a clear vision, inspiring leadership, and well-managed project communication and documentation procedures (Bowers et al., 2017; Alvarenga et al., 2019). The ability to interact with other teams or members of the organisation or project is primarily required to improve the project manager’s skills (Kapogiannis, Fernando, & Alkhard, 2021). This engagement enhances communication and collaboration (Alvarenga et al., 2019) and fosters trust (McLaren & Loosemore, 2019; Kapogiannis, Fernando, & Alkhard, 2021) between the project manager and the teams. In addition, by enhancing and developing the aforementioned critical factors, the acquisition of relationships will be facilitated and efficient (Kapogiannis et al., 2021).

Determinant 4: Risk management and vulnerability (perception, awareness)

There are always things that could go wrong with a project, but there are also things that could go right, and these are what we call risks and opportunities, respectively (Project Management Institute, 2017; Ward & Chapman, 2003). Therefore, the primary goal of risk management from the perspective of project management is to lessen the impact of undesirable risks while making the most of desirable risks in order to accomplish project goals (Chapman & Ward, 2007; Project Management Institute, 2017). There are two main schools of thought when it comes to assessing risk, and they are what Zhang (2011) refers to as the “risk as an objective fact” school and the “risk as a subjective construct” school. There is a school of thought in risk assessment known as “Risk as an Objective Fact,” which maintains that potential harm exists apart from how people feel about it. The process of identifying, assessing, mitigating, and controlling risks is conducted in accordance with scientific methodologies and transparent procedures (Zhang, 2011). Therefore, we can classify the outcomes of using this strategy for risk management in two ways. Without caring about what the stakeholders think, the first group approaches the project as a system with well-defined goals. As a result, reasonable and systematic risk management processes and methodologies are put into place to deal with the evidential and empirical results of dangers (e.g., the works of Baccarini, 1996; Huchzermeier & Loch, 2001; etc.). Those who hold the view that risk management is a matter of opinion form the second camp. So, people can have varying reactions to the same real-world risks. Factors such as the individual’s background, skillset, and knowledge, as well as psychological and institutional contexts, strongly impact the effectiveness of one’s chosen approach (Ward & Chapman, 2003; Zhang, 2007). Because “uncertainty management is not only about managing perceived threats, opportunities, and their implications,” the approach described by Ward and Chapman (2003), which focuses on managing uncertainty rather than risks, is one of the most important ways to address this type of risk. It necessitates an awareness of, and strategy for dealing with, the myriad of uncertainties that combine to form our individual risk and reward assessments (Ward & Chapman, 2003). The “Risk as a Subjective Construct” school of risk analysis argues that individuals’ perceptions of risk are fundamentally flawed. Individuals recognise threats and devise countermeasures based on their own assessments. In addition, people who experience the world in vastly different ways may select and implement various risk management strategies. As a result, the interplay between causes and effects makes it easier to spot and assess potential dangers (Zhang, 2011). Kutsch and Hall (2005) provide a clear explanation of this viewpoint (“risks as a subjective construction”), which holds that project stakeholders fail to logically recognise risks because they ignore, deny, or avoid them. Ignorance, denial, and avoidance are all linked to external factors that affect how project stakeholders view risks, the efficacy of measures taken to mitigate those risks, and the ultimate success of the endeavour. The concept of vulnerability was first developed in the social sciences, but it has since found use in other disciplines, including economics, information systems, organisational management, politics, and project management (Crosweller & Tschakert, 2021; Podgórska & Pichlak, 2019; Zhang, 2007).

Füssel and Klein (2006) distinguished three major models for conceptualising and defining vulnerability: (1) the “risk-hazard framework,” in which vulnerability represents the relationship between hazard and its detrimental effects on a system; (2) the “social constructivist framework,” in which vulnerability is a prior condition of a system determined by socio-economic and political factors; and (3) a school of thought that views vulnerability as a system function. In his analysis of vulnerability as a re-definition of the project risk process, Zhang (2007) looks to the third school of thought in project management, as presented by Füssel and Klein (2006). He shows the vulnerability of a project from two angles: exposure and capacity. The first dimension is the effect of organisational activities on the occurrence of risk events. According to the second dimension, a project’s susceptibility lessens as its ability to deal with risk events grows. An improvement in risk management is possible through an understanding of vulnerability. To better explain and clarify, “this procedure ignores the layered interactions and feedback between risk events and project systems” (Zhang, 2007). The susceptibility of a project to causing interruptions is what is meant by the term “vulnerability” (Vidal & Marle, 2012; Zhang, 2007). As a result, the presence of threats is not necessary for the existence of vulnerabilities. A weakness in a project could be that there isn’t enough capable people to finish it. It’s possible that this weakness will result in lower output. Thus, a vulnerability (“lack of skilled personnel”) can cause a risk (“poor-quality work”) to materialise, but a vulnerability does not automatically result in a disruptive occurrence (a risk that actually materialized). That is to say, the less susceptible a project is to disruptions, the longer it will last. On the other hand, the greater the project’s vulnerability, the greater the likelihood that it will be negatively affected by disruptions (Aleksic et al., 2017; Zhang, 2007). Vulnerability is defined as “the characteristic of a project that makes it susceptible to being subject to negative events and, if they occur, that makes it incapable of coping with them, thereby allowing them to degrade the project” by Vidal and Marle (2012), who build on Zhang’s (2007) work and perspective on the concept of vulnerability. They also proposed a four-stage process for managing project vulnerabilities, including vulnerability identification, analysis, the creation of a response plan for dealing with vulnerabilities, and vulnerability monitoring and control. Zhang’s (2007) approach is improved by the vulnerability perspective of Vidal and Marle (2012). Vulnerability, from Zhang’s point of view, is any aspect of a project that leaves it open to being negatively impacted by outside forces. Additionally, resilience to disruptive events is correlated with project vulnerability. Factors’ ability to adapt to and recover from disruptions are therefore vulnerable. Another author, Proag (2014), said something along these lines: “the concept of vulnerability indicates a measure of risk associated with the physical, social, and economic components and repercussions stemming from the system’s capacity to respond to the ensuing crisis” (Proag, 2014).