The application of project management practices in contemporary business is continuously increasing with the aim of delivering the work packages in a more cost-conscious and controlled way while making the best use of limited human resources to meet customer requirements and create competitive advantage. In order to be considered competent, individuals working in the field should demonstrate a certain level of knowledge, skills, and abilities – assessed, developed or improved through a certification system. Taking into account the importance of information modeling and technology in the domain of project management as a set of practices that determine structure, lifecycle and accessibility requirements of information and the emphasis placed on the behavioral competencies of project, program and portfolio managers, the authors of the paper focused on exploring the challenges and specificities of the project management profession in Croatia. Empirical research was conducted in two steps. Firstly, a qualitative research was done using in-depth interviews with a member of the editorial board of a new project management international certification standard and two representatives of the certification body in Croatia: the director and the assessor. The collected data were analyzed using grounded theory approach and results in four main areas were obtained: project management and certification challenges, addressing certification body needs, the missing link between educational institutions and project management in practice and key project management competencies. In the next step, a quantitative research with a questionnaire as a research instrument was conducted among 53 certified project, program and portfolio managers in Croatia regarding their perception of the importance of the behavioral project management competencies. The results show that the majority of the certified experts in the field consider "leadership" to be the most important behavioral project management competency, closely followed by teamwork and self-management, while relations and engagement, conflict and crisis as well as negotiation and resourcefulness are considered to be of the least importance for conducting the project, program, and portfolio successfully. Statistically significant differences in assigning importance to various project management competencies were revealed with regard to several respondents' independent characteristics.

Industry 4.0 and underlying advanced technologies are gaining importance more than ever before and triggering digital transformation of organizations across industries. At the same time, an increasing number of organizations are using a temporary project-based way of working, thus creating dynamic systems in which projects are not merely tools for performing processes, but also strategic options for dealing with complex business environments. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that significant focus is being placed on the link between these concepts. With the aim of examining applications of digital technologies in project management, a comprehensive review was conducted on 188 academic articles published between 1991 and 2023 and indexed in the Web of Science database. Bibliometric and systematic literature review methods were used through co-occurrence, along with visual representation of interconnected data. The results highlight the prominent research topics in the field – challenges and opportunities for project management in the digital age, advanced project management in construction projects, artificial intelligence and project success, and managing information and production systems. Finally, potential research directions include the critical importance of striking a balance between technology and human relations to achieve success in modern project management in the midst of the Industry 4.0 era.

In the last few decades project management gained popularity in all types of organizations across many industries and increasing number of projects, programs and portfolios are professionally managed. Therefore, competent project managers and associates who can cope with problems that are occurring became the ultimate need of the business entity. However, project management competencies as a set of knowledge, personal behavior, skills and experience are very complex and therefore require acquiring a variety of elements within three different areas: contextual, behavioral and technical. Further, in order to assess and develop or improve relevant project management competencies, a system for assessment was developed and levels of competences defined within certification process. Also, considering that certification can contribute to project success by ensuring that project managers and associates have adequate competencies for managing projects, programs and portfolios, as well to integrate, plan and control the schedule-intense and unique efforts to improve overall organizational performance, authors of this paper examine the interest for project management certification in the Mediterranean countries – Croatia, Italy, Portugal and Spain. The focus of the research is on the influence of a particular culture on the attitude regarding the project management competence, so as competence-based certification. This paper therefore describes initial results on relations and influences among competence, certification, culture and business practices. The findings are based on the data provided by the national project management associations, the obtained results about the relationship among cultural characteristics, competences in project management and project success are discussed and will be used as the foundation for further research in this field.

In a dynamic modern business environment, project management has been receiving significant attention as a way to improve organizational practices and keep pace with market needs in various industries. Consequently, a growing focus was placed on competent individuals who will successfully manage projects no matter their primary area of specialization, and it became necessary to determine the correct knowledge, skills and abilities, as well as to formalize them in a way to be used for evaluating the potential candidates, choosing the right ones for the job and helping them to grow over time. As project management competencies have been broadly discussed in the literature, the aim of this paper was to examine the key research interests of the authors in the field in the last two decades to identify the main research directions and areas for filling in the research gaps. A systematic literature review was conducted on 487 academic papers published and indexed in the WoS database between 2004 and 2024. The results of the keyword co-occurrence analysis highlighted four prominent research directions—the evolving role of project manager and project management competence development, integrating knowledge management strategies for project success, leadership and emotional intelligence as pillars of advanced project management and innovative approaches to project management in the construction sector. Development of specific competencies and their formalization, cross-sector analyses, and ways to upskill the individuals working in single- or multi-project domains are recognized as future research directions.