Assessment of Stakeholders Management Protocols with a Special Focus on Selected Joint Projects in Ethiopia

Abstract

The purpose /objective of this study is to provide new theoretical and empirical insights into joint project stakeholder related phenomena through the study of how stakeholders attempt to influence joint projects; and how a joint project management tries to manage these influences in joint multi-firm projects. Accordingly, the focus of this study is the evaluation of the stakeholder management protocol of joint projects performed by selected non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that are recently functioning in Ethiopia. For the reason that the overriding purpose of the study is to investigate the stakeholder management experience of the designated institutions as practiced in the selected projects, this study has made use of descriptive method of research design. In the meanwhile, mixed research approach has been adopted to carry out the study. Moreover, because it was possible to obtain the information the researcher needed from all stakeholders of the designated institutions simultaneously, the time dimension of the study is cross-sectional. The target population of this study is the entire project personnel, the relevant government officials, and project beneficiaries of the chosen projects, out of which 15% is taken as a representative sample. Because the appraisal principally targeted on those individuals who had experiences with project stakeholder management, a non-probability judgment sampling technique was adopted. Finally, the findings of this study highlighted the importance of stakeholder management in joint projects. Through the application of the ideas of stakeholder theory, the results of this study provided new theoretical and empirical understanding of how joint project stakeholders may influence the project management’s decision making during the project lifecycle. These findings also demonstrated how a joint project may analyze its stakeholder environment and respond to stakeholder pressures and unexpected events in the context of joint projects. Ultimately, the new knowledge of joint stakeholders’ influence strategies and better understanding of how a joint project can deal with stakeholder influences supports project managers in the development of effective project stakeholder management approaches.

Keywords: Project Stakeholders, Project Stakeholders Management, Joint Projects, Conflicting Interests

DOI: 10.7176/JESD/14-9-03

Publication date:May 31^st 2023