Toward a Typology of Project Strategy based on Business Environment Contingency Variable in Projects of Petrochemical Industry of Iran

In order to achieve higher performance in organizations, the need for alignment of strategy with contingency variables like Structure and Environment is necessary. Petrochemical Projects in Iran have faced a violent business environment as a result of the Sanctions, change in oil price, exchange rate, and input price of plants. Based on the contingency theory, in order to achieve better performance results in projects as contemporary organizations, it is necessary to consider Business Environment in formulation of project strategy. Therefore, the purpose of the current research was to present the typology of the project strategy based on Business Environment contingency variable influencing the Iranian petrochemical Projects. By reviewing literature we provide a conceptual model as our first-order construct. Using cases study research; we chose to employ qualitative method for improving the model. The case data of 10 projects was selected from the petrochemical Projects. Qualitative data analysis was used for data analysis. In addition to interview, multifaceted data collection including document investigating and questionnaire was also considered. Regard to selecting the Miles and Snow business strategies as baseline of the project strategy, project strategy typologies was plotted in a two-dimensional matrix in terms of fundamental/gradual environmental changes and internal/external project focus. These typologies were redefined for project level through interviews results. Finding suggests that Business Environment difference of projects caused different projects Strategies that required different entrepreneurial, engineering and administrative capabilities to manage projects.