Redefining resilience: insights into project management’s capabilities of organisations through the pandemic and beyond

Purpose - To better understand the resilience of project management (PM) companies post-pandemic and gain insights into the interplay of the level of preparation, the status of the project and the size of the company. Design/methodology/approach - Logistic regression was used to analyse the data from 285 companies belonging to more than 7 sectors to understand the crucial factors required to have above-standard project performance post-pandemic. Findings - Higher project performance was observed in companies with more than 30 years of experience, whereas company history, target group or PM activity did not predict better project performance. The retail sector is leading across all the sectors, whereas the majority of companies have still not recovered from the pandemic. Research limitations/implications - New factors like planning and controlling phases in PM are identified in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) settings to be most impacted post-pandemic, whereas size and length of being in business are other key variables highlighted in this research for better PM performance post-pandemic. Originality/value - A large-scale analysis of 285 Saudi companies is quite novel in scale and innovation. This cross-sector empirical research highlights key areas of consideration post-pandemic, which were missing from the narrative due to access and emerging issues earlier.