Placing project partakers’ emotions, attitudes and norms in the context of project vision, artifacts, leader values, contextual performance and success

The authors propose a model suggesting that project leader building activities which support instilling a project vision, artifacts and are guided by this individual´s values, affect partakers´ emotions, attitudes and behavioral norms that are focused on expected project outcomes, termed project spirit. Furthermore, spirit is proposed to affect partakers´ contextual performance and, through contextual performance, to affect project success. The proposed mediational model is supported with empirical results from 200 partakers in 63 projects sampled across a variety of organizations. Project leader building activities affected partakers´ spirit, and contextual performance mediated this relationship with project success. Our empirical findings suggest that leaders can be trained to execute behaviors that generate a project´s spirit, which in turn boosts contextual performance and enhances project outcomes.