THE EFFECT OF TEN PROJECT MANAGEMENT KNOWLEDGE AREAS ON THE DELAY OF EXAPNSION PROJECTS: THE CASE OF HABESHA BREWERIES

Abstract

The expansion program in a brewery requires the coordination of various knowledge areas such as project stakeholder, scope, time, cost, quality, resource, communication, risk, procurement, and integration management to ensure timely completion of the program. Any delay in the expansion program not only results in increased project costs but also impacts the bottom-line of the organization. This research aims to investigate the effect of 10 project knowledge area on the delay of the expansion program in the case of HBSC. To achieve the research objectives, this study applied explanatory research design and quantitative research methods. An online survey questionnaire has been used to collect the data. A total of 203 respondents were selected using a stratified and random sampling technique from the case brewery. The data analysis was done using descriptive statistics such as standard deviation, mean and frequency analysis. Furthermore, inferential statistics such as correlation analysis and regression analysis were conducted to determine the relationship between the independent variables which are the 10-project knowledge area and the dependent variable which is delay of expansion program. The six knowledge areas were found to have a significant effect on the delay of the expansion program, namely, project stakeholder, time, cost, resource, communication, and procurement. The regression analysis result showed that the six knowledge areas namely, project stakeholder, time, cost, resource, communication, and procurement, explained 55.9%of the variance in the delay of the expansion program. This indicates that these six project knowledge areas are vital for project managers to focus on if they want to reduce the delay in expansion program. The result show that the remaining project knowledge areas namely, scope, quality, risk, and integration have no significant effect on expansion projects delay. The finding opens a window for further in-depth studies to identify other factors that can cause delays in the expansion program. future research could focus on the impact of external factors such environmental, pollical and economical and others that may have a relationship with the expansion program delay.