The use of WhatsApp as a project management tool in Irish Small retail businesses
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Authors
Paul, Neha
Issue Date
2025.17.12
Degree
Master of Business Administration
Publisher
Dublin Business School
Rights holder
Rights
Open Access
Abstract
This research examines usage of WhatsApp as an informal project management tool by small retail businesses in Ireland. The research employed a cross-sectional design that is quantitative and positivistic and adopted a structured online survey that was distributed to 113 owners, managers, and employees. The data indicate that WhatsApp is highly used because it is free, convenient and familiar, helps with communication, assignment, time and group activities. The statistical analysis revealed that perceived task effectiveness and enhanced communication had a strong effect on predicting user satisfaction, whereas the perception of security did not make any significant prediction. Nonetheless, the information overload, the absence of the orderly tracking, and the scalability restriction were indicated. Though WhatsApp is capable of serving the immediate requirements of small and resource-constrained businesses, about three-quarters of the respondents are willing to use formal project management tools when the operations scale up. The study deduces that WhatsApp can be a viable bridge solution, effective in the short-term operations but not in complex project management over a long term.