CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT IN SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES

The trend of specificity in studies on small and medium-sized enterprises management focuses on the search for characteristic qualitative and quantitative features distinguishing these entities from others, particularly from large enterprises. Research conducted within this trend may concern the general characteristics of small and medium-sized companies, as well as their functional characteristics connected with particular areas of management. One such area of growing importance for today’s organizations is project management. This approach plays an important role in a dynamic, complex and uncertain environment, providing a response to accelerated competition, increased economic pressures, and rapid technological change. Use the project management by small and medium-sized enterprises enables cost reduction and facilitates the introduction of new products and services to the market, primarily including innovative solutions in response to individual and changing client requirements. However, project management should be implemented with consideration for the individual needs and possibilities of specific business entities, including SMEs. Taking this facts into consideration, the goal of the paper is to identify and evaluate select areas related to qualitative characteristics of project management in SMEs. The analysis refers to individual phases of a project life cycle, is of comparative nature, and is based on the results of studies conducted on a sample of 563 small and medium-sized enterprises and 334 large enterprises. The test of the difference between two population proportions was used to identify the areas of project management characteristic to SMEs statistically. Based on the study results, five research hypotheses have been verified concerning the basic goals, role of the owner, interorganizational cooperation, and limited formalization in the process of project management in small and medium-sized enterprises.