Project management practice within the Lebanese real estate industry

Within the Lebanese real estate sector, project management processes and practices are being redefined to account for international economic strategies and aggressive competition at national level. Many investors have recently discovered the emerging Lebanese real estate market as an opportunity for a very lucrative business. However, historically the Lebanese market has been characterised by precariousness due to political instability, environmental risks, funding difficulties, demographics and cultural issues. We investigate project management practices and their contribution to the success of the Lebanese real estate sector through an inductive study. This research looks at the project level and the organisational level as well as the interactive and human processes related to managing projects. A multidimensional stakeholder approach is employed to enhance our understanding of the existing project management success theory specifically in relation to the conditions which apply to the Lebanese real estate sector.  The findings from seven data rich, semi-structured interviews with different stakeholders within the Lebanese real estate sector inform the development of a success measurement framework that accounts for diverse success criteria in the Lebanese market. This framework offers an important contribution: while it complements prior work on project management and success, it also highlights a number of previously unidentified, context-specific determinants that are critical for success in Lebanon. These include culture, time management, human resources management and project financing. The framework is not intended to produce yet another list of critical success factors, but rather to serve as a dual-purpose, context specific tool for both practitioners and researchers. The later stages of this study will seek in-depth expert views through a larger scale mixed-method programme of research in order to verify and validate the framework.