Modeling and analysis of project team formation factors in a project-oriented virtual organization (ProVO)

In this era of rapid changes in the project-oriented R&D organization’s environment, some are actively pursuing joint research to gain a leading edge over other R&D organizations. The condition for joint research is the knowledge that an organization needs from other organizations and the capability of collaboration. This study presents a ProVO model using the concept of virtual organization and project team formation based on knowledge and collaboration. In this model, VO is represented by the capability of carrying out a project and the cost of employment. Capability consists of knowledge competence (KC) and collaboration competence (CC). KC, in turn, consists of individual knowledge and collective knowledge from social network, while CC consists of density, degree centrality, and closeness centrality. To verify the presented model, we conducted a case study on a research institute. The analysis results show that all five project team formation factors of KC and CC are statistically significant. A prototype was also developed for selecting project team members using the binary logistics regression model. The proposed ProVO model can assist quantitative decision making on the selection of project team members by a project-oriented R&D organization from the aspects of knowledge and collaboration.