An Exploratory Analysis on the Use of Earned Value Management in Project-Based Italian Organisations

In the modern economic landscape, project management has evolved from a primarily technical discipline into a strategic governance tool for complex organizational processes, yet despite the international recognition of Earned Value Management (EVM) as a best practice, its adoption within the Italian industrial fabric remains fragmented. This research addresses the persistent gap between the theoretical potential of EVM and its practical application by investigating the monitoring practices of Italian project-based organisations through a mixed-methods approach. Utilizing the AIDA database, the study surveyed 90 validated organizations and performed qualitative content analysis on non-adopters, while also conducting a semi-structured interview with a specialized consulting firm to distil operational best practices from a high-competence user profile. The preliminary findings reveal that EVM is an extremely niche phenomenon in Italy, with an adoption rate of only 7.8%, as the vast majority of firms (92.2%) deliberately rely on traditional Budget vs. Actual monitoring due to its perceived simplicity, lower administrative costs, and communicative immediacy. Barriers to implementation are highly context-dependent, where traditional manufacturing firms face cultural and managerial barriers, while the service sector encounters technological and structural gaps in tracking intangible outputs. Ultimately, the study concludes that EVM success is predicated on organizational maturity and the ability to adapt the standard to local culture, and it recommends guidelines that could help EVM to become an effective decision-support tool.