Organizational Entrainment of Project Launch in the Research Context of Chinese Real Estate Firms

Abstract

Despite wide recognition of organizational entrainment (i.e., activities pace adjustment to catch emerging opportunity) in case studies, there is a lack of large-sample empirical evidence illustrating entrainment in project management. We examine outcome-based and process-based entrainment using survival analysis with 90,755 observations of 149 Chinese real estate firms’ residential development projects. The results suggest external environmental favorableness—as a zeitgeber—both directly accelerates the project launch pace and strengthens the deceleration effects of structural inertia and acceleration effects of resource munificence on the project launch pace. Our study contributes to organizational entrainment, flexibility-focused project management, and project launch literature.