Integrated Model of Strategic Alignment and Project Portfolio Management Success
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Abstract
This paper addresses a critical gap in project management literature by integrating two distinct research traditions: strategic alignment and project portfolio management (PPM) success. While strategic alignment research offers a precise typology of alignment types (e.g., intellectual, operational, cross-domain), it has not connected these to portfolio outcomes. Conversely, PPM success research has identified validated mechanisms driving portfolio success (e.g., management quality, business case control) but has not explored how different alignment types influence these mechanisms. Prior integration attempts have treated strategy or alignment as aggregate variables, overlooking the nuanced internal structure of alignment. This study develops a conceptual model that maps specific strategic alignment types onto validated PPM success mechanisms, categorized by their organizational level of operation (strategic translation, execution, boundary-spanning). Four testable propositions are derived, offering a more granular theoretical vocabulary for researchers and a diagnostic-to-decision pathway for practitioners. The model shifts the research question from whether alignment predicts portfolio success to which type of alignment predicts which success mechanism under specific conditions
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