Stakeholder management and project performance of open air market projects in Nyeri county, Kenya

Abstract

Project performance is evaluated differently by various stakeholders of the project based on their expectations in relation to the actual quality, cost and time. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of stakeholder management on project performance with the specific objectives being: to determine the influence of stakeholder need and expectation identification; communication; conflict management and stakeholder participation on project performance. The research adopted both descriptive and explanatory research design. The target population was all the six Open air upgrading projects in Nyeri County funded under Economic Stimulus Programme. The target population was appropriate as it represented all the constituencies in Nyeri County. The study targeted 255 respondents out of which 213 successfully filled the questionnaire. The respondents comprised of project managers, vendors, general public, project staffs and the local authorities. The researcher used questionnaires to collect primary data. Descriptive data analysis was employed in the study where the researcher ran the data through the SPSS to obtain the descriptive statistics such as:the mean, mode, frequencies and percentages. The findings of the study were presented using charts, graphs and tables. The results of the study established that the coefficients of independent variables were positive and significant and thus these factors determine project performance. It was recommended that: the government must ensure the aspect of stakeholder involvement is adequately covered during the feasibility study of the intervention; that the channels, format, frequency and responsibility of sharing of the progress report to the stakeholders be well defined during the conception stages of the intervention; that project management must change their reactive approach on occurrence of conflict but rather adopt a proactive approach in determining the highly susceptible issues and identify possible solution.