PLS Path Modeling for Causal Detection of Project Management Skills: a research field in National Research Council in Italy

Framework of this paper is the causal detection of Project Management (PM) competencies in the world of science and research. Activation of hard and soft skills of Principal Investigators in public research organizations becomes crucial to improve the management of research projects toward efficiency and effectiveness. How important is the awareness of project goals? What is the impact of leadership competencies with respect to other soft skills in PM? A conceptual model with theoretical constructs and latent variables is introduced to analyze the causal detection among different types of variables, including the activation of hard and soft PM skills of Principal Investigators in public organizations. Partial Least Squares Path Modeling is suitably defined and applied in a research field in the largest public research organization in Italy, namely the National Research Council (CNR