Corporate Digital Responsibility in Project Management

Topic

Corporate digital responsibility (CDR) aims to encourage and ensure ethical and responsible development and deployment of digital technologies and data. CDR addresses various stakeholders, including all business aspects and processes. Project managers on all levels are crucial to achieving strategic goals, as they forge the path to execution and implementation. CDR therefore must play a major role in project management. This paper focuses on the role of a project manager, addressing the level of awareness and the degree of implementation of CDR in project management practice.

Relevance

Customer’s demand for ethically designed products is raising awareness and is driving organizations to prioritize digitally responsible operations. To successfully meet these requirements, it is essential to embed CDR principles throughout the organization, including in project management. This paper introduces a newly conceptualized CDR-based framework specifically designed for project management. Additionally, the study offers valuable insights into the level of CDR awareness among project managers and the extent of its implementation in projects. These outcome provide a solid foundation for taking next steps in practice, validating, and enabling project managers to execute projects in a digitally responsible manner that addresses the needs of all stakeholders.

Results

Results indicate that project managers generally have a high level of awareness of corporate digital responsibility within project management; however, the implementation of CDR measures in practice is comparatively lower. Findings also demonstrate a moderate and statistically significant positive relationship between awareness and implementation of CDR. Results further show that agile project management methods, the project size, or the industry in which the project is conducted, do not influence the level of awareness of CDR of a project manager.

Implications for practitioners

• Bridge the gap between awareness and implementation: Ensure that project managers are motivated to integrate CDR principles into their projects and possess the necessary knowledge, skills, and guidelines to do so effectively.
• Multifaceted approach: Practical implementations require more than just being aware. Multiple dimensions such as organizational aspects, stakeholder expectations or the regulatory environment need to be considered to ensure comprehensive implementation.
• Embed CDR values in project management method: Expand the used project management method by integrating CDR-values and creating new roles and responsibilities.
• Learn from best and worst practices: Considering the limited historical experience in this field, actively engage in discussions on this topic with others and improve the project management approach towards a successful CDR integration.

Methods

To evaluate the level of awareness and degree of implementation of CDR, a quantitative approach was chosen. To gather data from a larger sample, an online survey was designed. Two different distribution channels were utilized: the survey link was shared through a LinkedIn post targeting project managers, and it was also included in two different project management newsletters, accompanied by a brief introduction and the study’s purpose. Data was collected for three weeks and analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics. Different regression models were applied to examine and validate the research model.