WHEN DELAY CASCADES: HOW TASK DEFERRAL, TEAM COMPENSATION, AND GOVERNANCE MASKING DISRUPT PROJECT SCHEDULES
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.61421/IJSSMER.2026.4510Keywords:
task deferral, project schedule adherence, behavioral project management, temporary organizations, temporal amplification, team compensation, observational methods, project governanceAbstract
Purpose. Workplace procrastination is predominantly studied through self-report instruments that cannot capture how temporal deferral propagates through interdependent project networks. This study investigates the behavioral signatures of procrastination-consistent task deferral and the mechanisms through which such deferral disrupts project schedule adherence.
Design/Methodology. A partially disclosed non-participant observational design was employed across three maximum-variation projects (construction, information technology, and public-sector infrastructure) over 14 weeks, yielding 186 observation records and 312 hours of field observation. Data were analyzed using structured codebook thematic analysis. A three-level evidentiary framework was used as a construct-validity screen to distinguish directly observable deferral from stronger procrastination-consistent interpretations; it was not treated as a separate frequency-coding scheme.
Findings. The study identifies a Behavioral Deferral Cascade in which task-initiation deferral around project phase transitions interacts with network dependencies, downstream task starvation, team compensation, and governance visibility. The source data show that task-initiation deferral at phase boundaries was coded in 67 of 186 observation records, while downstream task starvation was coded in 54 records, schedule compression in 41, silent workload absorption in 41, and insufficient progress visibility in 31. The pattern suggests that localized temporal variance can be amplified structurally and then concealed when teams preserve milestones through unplanned compensatory effort.
Originality/Value. The study advances a process model, the Behavioral Deferral Cascade, linking individual temporal behavior to project-level disruption. It distinguishes Nominal Schedule Adherence (NSA) from Compensated Schedule Adherence (CSA) and proposes the Temporal Amplification Ratio (TAR) as an exploratory construct for future validation rather than as an established project-control metric.
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