Investigating the Moderating Role of Political Factors on Internal Success Factors and Project Success: Empirical Evidence from Pakistan

The global collective actions of countries are insufficient to meet the goals agreed upon under the Paris Agreement. On one hand, countries are trailing behind in meeting their renewable energy targets. On the other hand, the implementation of renewable energy projects is affected by the political, regulatory, and policy challenges faced by engineering, procurement, and construction firms. Such issues force project firms to overlook their best practices and cause delays in connecting renewable energy plants to the national grid. This study investigates the relationship between two key project-level critical success factors and the project success of renewable energy projects in Pakistan with the moderating role of political factors. Using a data set of 238 respondents and Smart PLS 4 to analyze the data set, the results confirm the positive impact of communication and organizational factors on a project’s success. The findings also indicate that political factors are a major bottleneck that weakens the capability of project organizations to implement renewable energy projects in Pakistan. The current line of inquiry has implications for the ability of governments to effectively manage the power generation sector and support the transition to renewable energy. It also has significant theoretical implications for environmental contingency theory in terms of the adaptation of project firms to the external environment. The study concludes that project firms in the renewable energy sector need to be aware of political forces in the external environment to not only minimize their impact but to also provide timely completion of projects within and beyond Pakistan.