نقش چابکی مدیریت پروژه در موفقیت کمپین‌های بازاریابی دیجیتال: اثر تعدیلی پیچیدگی پروژه

Introduction: In recent decades, innovation and new product development have become central themes in management and marketing. To survive in highly competitive environments, organizations must adopt innovative approaches to designing products and services. Project management has therefore emerged as a strategic tool for integrating innovation-related activities and addressing challenges arising from cross-functional collaboration. Unlike routine operations, projects are temporary, unique, and goal-oriented, making them essential vehicles for implementing innovation and strategic change. Rapid technological advancement—driven by the Internet of Things, blockchain, big data, artificial intelligence, and accelerated by disruptions such as COVID-19—has reshaped traditional marketing structures. Customers now experience brands through dynamic, multi-touchpoint “customer journeys,” making digital marketing a key mechanism for targeting audiences with greater precision and lower cost. However, the fragmented digital ecosystem and proliferation of channels complicate campaign management and heighten the need for message consistency.

These developments have increased the importance of agile project management. Traditional linear and hierarchical project approaches are no longer sufficient for innovative and complex digital initiatives. Agile methods emphasize iteration, stakeholder collaboration, rapid decision-making, and flexibility. Similarly, marketing agility—characterized by speed, market sensing, iterative experimentation, and continuous learning—has been shown to enhance marketing ROI and responsiveness. At the same time, growing attention is being paid to project complexity, a multidimensional construct that can both hinder coordination and enable creative problem-solving. Existing literature rarely integrates project agility, marketing agility, project complexity, and digital marketing success in a single model. This study addresses this gap by examining how project management agility influences digital marketing campaign success and how project complexity may shape this relationship

Methodology: This study investigates the multilevel interplay between project management agility, marketing agility, strategic agility, project complexity, and digital marketing campaign success among knowledge-based firms. Drawing upon the research onion framework proposed by Saunders et al. (2009), the study adopts a positivist philosophy and a deductive approach to empirically test a conceptual model grounded in agility and dynamic capability literature. The research is applied in purpose, quantitative in nature, and employs a cross-sectional survey strategy. The statistical population consists of 250 knowledge-based firms located in the Persian Gulf Science and Technology Park (Bushehr Province, Iran). Using Cochran’s formula at a 95% confidence level, a sample size of 152 firms was determined. The firm was considered the unit of analysis, with data collected from key informants (managers and senior experts) representing organizational-level practices. Data were gathered through a structured questionnaire based on validated international scales and analyzed using SPSS and PLS-SEM (SmartPLS) to examine direct, mediating, and moderating relationships. The findings indicate that project management agility does not exert a significant direct effect on digital marketing campaign success. Instead, its impact is realized indirectly through marketing agility and strategic agility. Both marketing agility and strategic agility demonstrate significant positive effects on campaign success, highlighting the importance of translating operational agility into market-facing and strategic capabilities. Furthermore, project complexity does not significantly moderate the relationship between project management agility and campaign performance, suggesting that in knowledge-based firms operating in dynamic digital environments, agility mechanisms may already mitigate complexity-related constraints. The study contributes to the literature by integrating project-level and strategic-level agility into a unified framework and demonstrates that digital campaign performance depends on the systemic alignment of operational, marketing, and strategic capabilities rather than isolated agile practices.

Discussion and Results: In this study, data were collected from managers and experts of knowledge-based companies operating in the fields of marine-based economy, energy, creative cultural industries, tourism, and agriculture in Bushehr Province. Demographic results indicated that most respondents were mid-level managers and senior experts, with the majority holding bachelor’s or master’s degrees. This suggests that the sample had sufficient managerial knowledge and experience to evaluate the research topics. Descriptive analysis showed that respondents’ perceptions of project management agility, marketing agility, strategic agility, and digital marketing campaign success were generally below the theoretical midpoint (3 on a five-point scale). This indicates weaknesses among the surveyed companies in responding quickly to market changes, achieving strategic alignment, and adopting modern digital marketing approaches. Managers specifically highlighted inadequate coordination between marketing teams and operational units, as well as slow decision-making in turbulent environments. Hypothesis testing revealed that project management agility had a strong and significant effect on both marketing agility and strategic agility (t = 9.37 and 5.19). This supports previous studies showing that agile project teams respond more quickly to change, strengthening marketing and strategic capabilities. Marketing agility and strategic agility also had significant positive effects on digital campaign success (t = 6.77 and 12.74), confirming their mediating role. However, the direct path from project management agility to campaign success was not significant (t = 1.42). Similarly, project complexity did not moderate the relationship (t = 1.21), likely due to the relatively small scale and lower complexity of projects in many knowledge-based firms.

Overall, the findings suggest that achieving digital marketing campaign success requires not only agile project management but also systematic development of marketing and strategic agility.

Conclusion: This study demonstrates that digital marketing campaign success is not driven by a single factor but emerges from the synergy among project management agility, marketing agility, and strategic agility. The findings reveal that project management agility does not directly affect campaign performance; instead, its influence operates through market-oriented and strategic capabilities. The non-significant moderating role of project complexity suggests that knowledge-based firms may be capable of managing agility and complexity simultaneously in turbulent digital environments. Overall, the results highlight the importance of adopting a systemic view of agility, where the alignment of operational, marketing, and strategic capabilities becomes essential for achieving sustainable campaign effectiveness.

Keywords: Project management agility, marketing agility, strategic agility, project complexity, digital campaign success.