A Configurational Approach to Project Delays

Abstract

While qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) has often been portrayed as an alternative to mainstream statistical methods, there is a growing debate on how the techniques can be combined. This article shows how, using a sequential design, the integration of a large-N survival analysis with a smaller-N QCA yielded new insights about the reasons for project delay in a multiproject organization. While the regression served to trace significant explanatory variables and their net effects, the QCA nuanced these findings by demonstrating how variables combine across distinct categories of cases. As a result, the differing logics underlying externally and internally generated delays were elucidated. Implications for our understanding of multiproject organizing and for mixed methods research are discussed.