Investigation of success factors for smaller engineering firms

This research identified the success factors that had an effect on the profitability of smaller engineering firms, and established appropriate dependent and dependent variables that was analyzed to establish frequencies of occurrence and relationships between the variables. Large engineering firms can be more successful than small engineering firms due to the high cost of resources. Therefore, small engineering firms can benefit highly from this research since this information is not available and not shared by the large engineering firms. Data was collected by a survey instrument based on a fish bone diagram illustrating critical success factors. Descriptive statistics as well as chi-square, pear son correlation, and logistic regression analysis were used in data analysis. It was found in the study that majority of the engineering firms were corporations and offered civil engineering services. Upper management was involved with project duties significantly and project management software was not used extensively. This study was limited to Michigan firms and analyzed all engineering firms in one group. It is suggested that future studies have a national scope and analyze individual engineering disciplines.