Purpose

Although scholars have considered the success factors of process improvement (PI) projects, limited research has considered the factors that influence failure. The purpose of this paper is to extend the understanding of PI project failure by systematically reviewing the research on generic project failure, and developing research propositions and future research directions specifically for PI projects.

Design/methodology/approach

A systematic literature review protocol resulted in a total of 97 research papers that are reviewed for contributions on project failure.

Findings

An inductive category formation process resulted in three categories of findings. The first category are the causes for project failure, the second category is about relatedness between failure factors and the third category is on failure mitigation strategies. For each category, propositions for future research on PI projects specifically are developed. Additional future research directions proposed lay in better understanding PI project failure as it unfolds (i.e. process studies vs cross-sectional), understanding PI project failure from a theoretical perspective and better understanding of PI project failure antecedents.

Originality/value

This paper takes a multi-disciplinary and project type approach, synthesizes the existing knowledge and reflects upon the developments in the field of research. Propositions and a framework for future research on PI project failure are presented.

中文翻译：

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过程改进项目失败：系统文献回顾和未来研究议程

目的

尽管学者们考虑了过程改进（PI）项目的成功因素，但有限的研究考虑了影响失败的因素。本文的目的是通过系统地回顾关于通用项目失败的研究，并针对PI项目提出研究命题和未来的研究方向，从而扩展对PI项目失败的理解。

设计/方法/方法

一个系统的文献审查协议产生了总共 97 篇研究论文，这些论文被审查了对项目失败的贡献。

发现

归纳类别形成过程产生了三类结果。第一类是项目失败的原因，第二类是关于失败因素之间的相关性，第三类是关于失败缓解策略。对于每个类别，都专门针对 PI 项目的未来研究提出了建议。提出的其他未来研究方向在于更好地理解 PI 项目失败的展开（即过程研究与横截面研究），从理论角度理解 PI 项目失败以及更好地理解 PI 项目失败的前因。

原创性/价值

本文采用多学科和项目型的方法，综合现有知识，反思研究领域的发展。提出了关于 PI 项目失败的未来研究的建议和框架。