the success of international development projects, trust and communication: an african perspective

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF

JPMA 732 No. of Pages 16, DTD=5.0.1

3 November 2004; Disk UsedARTICLE IN PRESS

www.elsevier.com/locate/ijproman

International Journal of Project Management xxx (2004) xxx–xxx

PROJECTMANAGEMENT

OF

The success of international development projects, trustand communication: an African perspective

Amadou Diallo, Denis Thuillier *

Universite du Quebec a Montreal (UQAM), Ecole des Sciences de la Gestion, Dept. Management and Technologie,

315 Ste Catherine East, CP 6192, Montreal, Que., Canada H3C 4R2

Received 18 June 2003; received in revised form 16 January 2004; accepted 8 October 2004
O
CTED

PRAbstract

Project success is strongly linked to communication and co-operation between stakeholders. This research explores the relation-

ship between trust and communication and tests the influence of these factors upon project success and success criteria for interna-

tional development projects financed by multilateral institutions in sub-Saharan Africa. The research analyses the coordinators�perceptions of project success, communication climate and interpersonal relationship between himself and his stakeholders (task

manager in the multilateral agency, national supervisor) and within the project team. Data were collected from questionnaires com-

pleted by project coordinators of development projects. The statistical analysis confirms that trust and communication between

players are proxy variables. Trust between the task manager and the coordinator is the key success factor, whereas team cohesion

is the second most important factor. Trust between the coordinator and his national supervisor does not play a prominent role,

although the task manager considers significant local autonomy for the coordinator, a prerequisite for funding a subsequent phase

when the project comes to an end.

� 2004 Elsevier Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Project success: Criteria: Success factors: International development: Trust: Communication: Stakeholders: World bank: Project manager:

Africa

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E1. Introduction

Most international assistance provided to developing

countries is managed by projects. These projects are fi-

nanced by multilateral development agencies (the WorldBank, the European Union, the United Nations Devel-

opment Program, the Inter-American Development

Bank, the African Development Bank, the Asian Devel-

opment Bank, etc.), bilateral agencies (USAID, the

French Cooperation, CIDA) and the many organiza-

tions and departments of international cooperation

established by former colonial rulers and the industrial-

ized countries. Over the last few decades, international

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0263-7863/$30.00 � 2004 Elsevier Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.ijproman.2004.10.002

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 514 987 3000x7783.

E-mail address: [email protected] (D. Thuillier).

aid programs were successful in helping developing

and emerging countries to make real progress in the

health system, in agriculture and in the education sys-

tem. However, it is clear that the effectiveness of eco-

nomic reform projects is still being debated. Povertyreduction remains a long-term objective [1–5].

Our intention here is not, however, to assess the

validity of development policies implemented by multi-

lateral institutions [6,7]. The success of an international

development project – its long-term impact on the pros-

perity of the local population – surely depends on how

well it was prepared, and the policies behind its design

(a project is always a more or less appropriate responseto specific needs). However, international development

projects (ID projects) are identified, prepared and imple-

mented within a specific context [8]. There are many

mailto:[email protected]

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2 A. Diallo, D. Thuillier / International Journal of Project Management xxx (2004) xxx–xxx



stakeholders, there are significant political risks, and

there are demanding local constraints. The local mem-

bers of the project management unit may have limited

project management skills and the economic rationality

on which project management is based does not always

fit with local values [9,10]. The stakeholders belong todifferent cultures, and finally, to make matters worse,

those preparing and conducting transactions are sepa-

rated by huge distances. Given this context and the very

‘‘transaction-based’’ nature of assistance projects, one

might wonder whether the quality of interpersonal rela-

tionships and of communication between key players are

not critical success factors, independently of the specific

knowledge, skills and competencies required. This is pre-cisely the focus of this research, which aims to assess the

influence of interpersonal relationships, trust and com-

munication, on the success of ID projects.

The paper is organised into five parts. The first

section provides a review of the project management

literature on success, success criteria and success fac-

tors. The second section presents the unique charac-

teristics of international development projects andthe third section begins with a review of the literature

on the role played by trust between individuals, with-

in work groups and within project teams. This discus-

sion leads to the formulation of the principal issues

addressed in this research. The fourth section covers

the methodology and the statistical strategy used

and the final section presents statistical results and re-

lated comments. The conclusion is a discussion of theresearch results and their implications for ID project

management.

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RRE2. Project success, success criteria and success factors

There is an abundance of literature on project success,

success criteria and success factors for traditional pro-jects. Success criteria correspond to the dimensions (or

measures) on which the success of the project is judged

whereas success factors are key variables that explain

the success of the project. In other words, they are in-

puts to the management system that lead directly or

indirectly to the success of a project [11].

Success can indeed be evaluated only when the cri-

teria are adequately defined. For the project manager,success criteria generally correspond to the traditional

constraints: time, cost and compliance with the client�sterms of reference or ‘‘quality’’. In construction and

engineering, success is evaluated primarily through

the assessment of the output quality, and through

the evaluation of the project management performance

whose criteria are objective, well-accepted and measur-

able. But as the field of project management now in-cludes sectors like biotechnology, information

technology, process reengineering, institutional

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strengthening, social work, etc., the client�s agenda is

different. Whether it is a private firm or an institution,

the client cannot evaluate the success of its project

without referring to the objectives that governed the

identification, the preparation and the project design.

Beyond time and costs, the raison d�etre of a projectlies in its objectives as stated in the logical framework:

project management success does not mean project

success [12] although in the case of construction pro-

jects they are closely linked [13]. Furthermore, success

criteria will differ or will be weighted differently,

depending upon whether the evaluation is performed

by a project manager, a client, or one of the key stake-

holders. Each stakeholder perceives the success accord-ing to criteria (and a hierarchy of the criteria) that

comply with its own agenda. There is no ‘‘absolute’’

success or consistency in success appreciation over

time: there is only ‘‘perceived success’’ [14–16]. Even

when everybody agrees on a list of criteria, determin-

ing the success ‘‘rate’’ still remains a rather difficult

task. Schedule and budget management may be as-

sessed through direct measures while quality manage-ment may be assessed through pass or fail criteria.

However, the client�s satisfaction is not objectively

measurable and the same applies to the knowledge

or the experience accumulated throughout the project,

the magnitude of organisational impacts, or of any

other intangible benefits induced.

The success factors themselves have made the object

of several studies [17–25]. Pinto and Slevin [17,19] sug-gest that success is linked to exogenous and endogenous

factors. These factors include the control level (espe-

cially schedule and cost), the impact on the client, the

support of the general management of the organization,

communication, etc., but also less controllable factors

such as the environment, the political context, the com-

petence of the project manager, etc. The diversity of the

factors mentioned by the project management literatureis considerable: these depend on the scope, the nature

and the originality of the projects. However, one is

struck by the fact that research reported in the project

management literature only rarely examines the link be-

tween the success factors and the success criteria (or

dimensions). However, it is obvious that one factor will

explain one or more success criteria, but not all of them

[24,25].The literature on success factors and success criteria

for international development projects is scarce and

the empirical research specifically dedicated to manage-

ment of ID projects is even more rare. This lead us to

undertake a preliminary exploratory investigation of

the success criteria (dimensions) for ID projects in sub-

Saharan Africa and an investigation of the criteria hier-

archy each stakeholder uses in assessing project success[26]. More specifically, our goal was to understand how

project coordinators perceived the success of their pro-

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A. Diallo, D. Thuillier / International Journal of Project Management xxx (2004) xxx–xxx 3



ject and how they perceived the main stakeholders�assessment of project success. We focused on an analysis

of perceived success (at least as it is perceived by the

coordinator who is the central stakeholder). We relied

on the coordinator�s understanding with, as a premise,

the commonly accepted principle that individuals act(and therefore manage a project) according to their

own perceptions of reality and act based on their percep-

tion of how the most influential stakeholders feel. The

results of this preliminary investigation showed that

coordinators of development projects assessed project

success only with two criteria: the management perform-

ance (time, cost and ‘‘quality’’) and the project�s ‘‘pro-

file’’: the visibility and/or the reputation earned bytheir project. The project impact, which captures the

performance of the project with respect to its objectives

as stated in the logical framework, was not a significant

criteria. 1

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NCOR

RE3. The characteristics of ID projects

According to Youker [8] international development

projects are medium to large public projects and/or pro-

grams financed by multilateral development banks, the

United Nations associated agencies, bilateral agencies,

non-governmental organizations and government

departments in developing countries. Like others, ID

projects deliver goods or services. Originally, most pro-

jects were ‘‘hard’’ projects like civil works, railroads,power plants, etc., but the portfolio has changed to in-

clude an ever-increasing portion of ‘‘soft’’ projects in

education, health, human development, capacity build-

ing, etc.

ID projects are managed either by national project

management units acting with autonomy, or by teams

of nationals embedded into ministries, national depart-

ments, or institutions. The management of the projectcan also be delegated (as often occurs in bilateral assist-

ance) to executing agencies that may be private compa-

nies (such as engineering or consulting firms), NGOs or

international cooperation departments within various

institutions (i.e. universities and colleges for projects in

education, or hospitals for health and nutrition

projects).

In fact, the project management unit of an ID projectonly manages administrative processes (as is also the

case for ‘‘classic’’ projects). Within the framework of

multilateral agency guidelines, the project team is in-

volved in the procurement, organisation and control of

activities carried out by engineering firms, subcontrac-

tors, consultants, etc. Five stakeholders are directly in-

volved in processes in ID projects:
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1 Diallo and Thuillier [26] discuss possible reasons for such

surprising result.

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1. The national project coordinator (or project man-

ager), who is the person responsible for the day-to-

day management. He or she is in charge of the oper-

ations and leads the project team.

2. The task manager located in the headquarters of the

multilateral development agency, who supervises theproject�s implementation and makes sure that the

guidelines of the international institution are strictly

respected by the project�s national management unit.

3. The national supervisor, who is the high-ranking civil

servant (a national department director or sometimes

the minister himself) to whom the national coordina-

tor reports.

4. The project team, which is under the coordinator�sauthority. The team is not exactly an external player

but no matter what its influence, the coordinator can-

not function effectively without the project team.

5. The various firms (engineers, subcontractors, consult-

ants, etc.).

It may come as a surprise that the real client does not

appear on this list. In multilateral aid projects, the clientis usually the country�s residents or a sub-set thereof

called ‘‘the beneficiaries.’’ The beneficiaries, who may

sometimes participate in the project identification phase

(needs assessment), can rarely be effective as clients once

a project is in execution. This is due to the lack of rep-

resentative authorities or organisations, especially when

it comes to validating the quality of the project outputs.

There are exceptions. Some projects, like the ‘‘SocialFunds’’ are designed and managed under a so-called

‘‘participative approach’’. This aims to enhance the

position of the beneficiaries as real stakeholders. They

remain, in spite of their success, limited to social inter-

ventions [27].

International development projects follow transac-

tional processes that have been codified by the lending

institutions under guidelines in order to guarantee thatprojects maintain rigor and transparency in how tasks

are performed and contracts awarded. For example, a

multilateral institution or its technical representative

(the task manager) will not intervene directly in the pro-

ject�s day-to-day management. However, he or she is up-

dated on each step of the project, and the coordinator

must ask the task manager for a ‘‘no objection’’ when

it comes to proceed with major transactions (terms ofreferences, short lists, contracts awards, etc.). The task

manager can reject the coordinator�s request but such

decision is not made without good reason. Generally,

a rejection means the project team has strayed too far

from guidelines or that the process itself includes an

activity that was inadequately planned or simply does

not conform to the project plan. When the task manager

does not grant his no-objection, the process must be re-peated at the local level and face local constraints again

before the coordinator makes a second request for a

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‘‘no-objection’’. This will result in a delay that disrupts

the project schedule and carries all the related impacts.

The effectiveness of actors and, by extension, the suc-

cess of the project itself is therefore very dependent on

the quality of interpersonal relationships and communi-

cation between stakeholders. The purpose of this studyis to examine the quality of interpersonal relationships,

trust and communication between coordinators and

their task manager, between coordinators and their na-

tional supervisor, and within members of the project

team. The goal is to identify the ‘‘soft’’ factors that

can play a decisive role in the overall success of a pro-

ject, or explain performance according to different suc-

cess criteria.
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4. Trust and communication between individuals and

within the project team

4.1. The work groups

A work group is a social system in which individu-als with specific but interdependent roles collectively

share responsibility for the production of goods or

services [27–30]. A project team is a work group,

but the reverse is not true. A project team is set up

to achieve specific objectives under constraints and

within a given period of time. Moreover, the entire

group of actors in ID projects (coordinator, project

team, task manager and national supervisor) alsomeets this definition, even if the task manager and

the national supervisor are more functional than oper-

ational and could therefore be considered more as

stakeholders than full members of the team. This is

a semi-autonomous team (control is exercised by the

coordinator and team activities are regulated by the

task manager) with only one key member, the task

manager, occasionally working locally. The literatureon project teams and on work groups in general

should provide enough theoretical background to

grasp the nature of the problem presented by interper-

sonal relationships and communication, their impact

on project success and on success criteria.

There is no shortage of literature on work groups. The

subject has been examined by social psychologists or

organisational psychologists and according to differentschools (human relations, system dynamics, and behav-

iourism). The empirical literature is abundant. The con-

cept of team originated in the 1930s in the United States.

It proved of great economic value, and was developed

mostly with diverse but complementary approaches.

Once the mechanism of work groups had been under-

stood, research focused on group productivity or effec-

tiveness. Management literature naturally took over,gradually putting the accent on groups of managers or

other professionals (and on research and development

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teams). Comprehensive literature reviews can be found

in [31–33].

4.2. The project team

Literature on project teams is less wide-ranging, ofuneven quality, and remains quite undifferentiated.

One is obliged to cull work that distinctly resembles a

‘‘guru of the month’’ approach (the expression from

[34]), the kind found in some professional publications.

A more scientific approach does, however, exist. It fo-

cuses on processes and attempts to:

� identify the performance factors and the methodsused to speed up the ‘‘team building’’ or ‘‘team devel-

opment’’ process, in order for the group to quickly

achieve a high level of effectiveness [35–40];

� understand the role of the project manager, the kind

of person who is suitable for this position, the charac-

teristics of leadership and their effect on the team�seffectiveness and on project success [41–43].

This literature identifies many factors that explain

team performance. It is impossible to thoroughly sum-

marize the research, particularly since it includes

descriptive factors (such as the team�s structure, organ-ization or diversity), support factors (competencies,

communication) and more abstract factors that are dif-

ficult to grasp, such as cooperation, team members�commitment or empowerment. These are latent varia-bles or complex constructs (concepts) of which only

manifestations may be observed. But constructs bound-

aries are unclear and ‘‘new’’ constructs are built upon

‘‘parts’’ that well accepted constructs have in common.

All this makes the emergence of fundamental explana-

tory factors especially challenging. The authors do not

always make a clear distinction between support and

process factors (team building or team development)and, in any event, one influences the other. Further-

more, the residual influence of time has received little

direct attention; in other words, the influence that

would be independent of its implicit role in the proc-

esses mentioned above [44]. Guzzo and Dickson [33]

in a attempt to built a taxonomy of team performance

factors suggest that factors may be classified into three

categories:

� organisational design (autonomy, interdependence,

definition of responsibilities),

� contextual or support variables (such as competencies

or communication),

� mediating variables such as cooperation, mutual aid

or cohesion.

But each variable in a given cluster also clearly de-

pends on other factors. The level of team cooperation

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depends on factors such as the team�s composition,

members� status, or their shared history. Autonomy on

the other hand is related to how professional the mem-

bers are. It will increase with the level of each member�sknowledge and competence (contextual variables) and it

will depend on trust among team members (see below).The interdependence required is a function of the com-

plexity of the team�s tasks and, last but not least, the

maturity of the team has an effect on cooperation, mu-

tual aid and communication. In spite of many excellent

attempts, a truly thorough listing of interpersonal fac-

tors of team effectiveness and of project success still re-

mains to be established.

4.3. Trust, communication, and the research questions

The concept of trust is not a new one. However it

is worth mentioning that it has only recently been the

focus of research in project management [45,46]. Each

member of a team begins a project with some con-

cerns about what they can expect of their colleagues,

carries expectations concerning their work relation-ships and, due to his or her own individual nature

or circumstances, is inclined to behave in certain ways.

When team members meet for the first time, trust,

communication and cooperation within the team and

between the major stakeholders are not taken for

granted. But without trust, communication and coop-

eration, a team cannot be effective in accomplishing

goals.Trust is a psychological state in which Individual

A, given a specific situation, takes the risk of assum-

ing that Individual B�s first reflex will be to adopt a

behaviour (judgement, a position or action) that

meets Individual A�s expectations. Trust takes the

form of a wager on the behaviour of another. A cer-

tain amount of risk is accepted (i.e. individual A is

somewhat vulnerable . . .) in exchange for a reductionin the transaction costs associated with the manage-

ment of the situation [47–52]. The concept of trust

is integral to what have become Blau�s classic theories

of social exchange [53], and to the transaction costs

theory developed by Coase [54] and Williamson

[55,56]. Beccera and Gupta [57] have made an at-

tempt to integrate the concept of trust into these con-

ceptual frameworks.Trust between individuals is either affect-based

(emotional) or knowledge-based (the result of a cogni-

tive process) and both can interfere [58–60]. Affect-

based trust could be considered in certain extent as

being similar to ‘‘trust at first sight’’ while knowl-

edge-based trust is built steadily on ongoing relations

between the parties over time. Knowledge-based trust

emerges through communication (particularly profes-sional communication) in which each player implicitly

reveals to the other his or her values, expertise, integ-

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rity, consistency, loyalty, sense of justice, etc. [50,63–

67]. A perception of the other�s trustworthiness devel-

ops over time, uncertainty over basic issues gradually

disappears, and a sense of trust becomes established.

Trust (of any kind) speeds up negotiation processes

and in most cases, cuts transaction costs. Trust is aprerequisite for autonomy (hence the definition of

trust; if you trust me, you will let me act independ-

ently). Trust is necessary for cooperation, which is in

turn the social lubricant that allows autonomous

but interdependent group members (see the definition

of the project team above) to achieve common goals

harmoniously [61,62]. Technically dependent members

of a group must cooperate, because cooperation is anindispensable part of the relational dependence re-

quired for their group to be truly functional. It is

also likely that, given the above definition, trust and

cooperation among group members become more

important as their tasks require more interdependence

in their working relationships. Trust may be consid-

ered an independent variable when it is affect-based

and a dependent variable when it is knowledge-based.A minimum of trust is essential because fair commu-

nication cannot occur if information exchange is

clouded with doubts over motives. In the analysis

which follows, we take trust to be an independent

variable that generates autonomy, cooperation and,

as a result, effectiveness. But we will also consider

trust a dependent variable that can be explained by

the quality of communication between stakeholders.As it was the case for ID projects success, success cri-

teria and success factors, we were unable to find research

papers on ID project teams and interpersonal relation-

ships between main ID projects stakeholders. Therefore,

building on the literature presented in the above sec-

tions, we are interested in:

(a) The main characteristics of interpersonal relation-ships between the coordinator of an ID project

and the task manager, between the coordinator

and his national supervisor, and among members

of the project team.

(b) The influence each of these characteristics may have

on the quality of communication between the coor-

dinator and the project stakeholders.

(c) The influence of communication and interpersonalrelationships between stakeholders on ID projects

performance, both in terms of success and of suc-

cess criteria.

This is an exploratory investigation. However, it is

our hope to confirm through statistical analysis that:

Assertion 1:

communication, trust and autonomy are virtually inter-

changeable, i.e. they are almost perfectly correlated.

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Assertion 2:

trust and autonomy accorded by one actor to another is

the result of communication experiences; i.e. it develops

over time.

Assertion 3:

in ID projects, trust is a significant success factor

(although not the only one), both the trust between the

project coordinator and his task manager and the trust

between the coordinator and his national supervisor.

Assertion 4:

Trust within the project team (or any other proxy varia-

ble) is strongly associated with the success of the project

and the various success criteria of ID projects.

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2 Multilateral development agencies suspend disbursements when

debt repayments are overdue without just cause or when the local

political situation is beyond control.3 Drawing on nominal regression it appears that the MANAGE-

MENT criteria was the most significant (p < 0.000). Visibility (PRO-

FILE) came second (p < 0.002) and, surprisingly, as already mentioned

in note 1 Section 2, the IMPACT criteria did not appear to be

significant (p < 0.264). [26] includes a discussion of this last result.

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5. Methodology

Diallo and Thuillier [26] provide a description of the

survey�s database. We collected data by way of question-

naires delivered by mail. We received 93 completed

questionnaires from about 600 sent out to African pro-ject coordinators (350 were sent to Francophones, 250

to Anglophones). The apparent response rate, modest

as it was (15%), is satisfactory considering that a number

of questionnaires were sent to postal boxes in institu-

tions where such mail does not necessarily reach the in-

tended recipient. The postmarks on responses indicated

that the questionnaires came from at least 26 countries

most of them south of Sahara. Francophone and Anglo-phone response rates were proportional to linguistic

populations in sub-Saharan Africa. Diallo and Thuillier

[26] provide a discussion of possible biases arising from

the response rate and non-respondents, the geographical

representativeness of the sample, the distribution of pro-

jects by sector and systematic bias due to ‘‘socially desir-

able’’ responses. As a result of this discussion,

generalisation of findings to the overall population ofprojects in sub-Saharan Africa is considered reasonable.

However, we will elaborate more specifically on the

robustness of empirical estimates in Section 6. Appendix

A presents the projects� main characteristics and a

description of project coordinators� status and income.

The research uses data from nine of the thirteen sec-

tions in the questionnaire. Listed in the order they ap-

peared in the questionnaire, these sections provideinformation on:

� General project description, such as the sector, dura-

tion, amount of funding awarded and respective con-

tributions of the principal donor agencies.

� The global judgement of the coordinator on the suc-

cess of his project as he perceives it.

� The coordinator�s appreciation of statements (items)that make reference to success criteria (such as time,

budget, reputation and the beneficiaries satisfaction).

CTED

PROO

F

The factorial analysis performed in the above men-

tioned research provided three ‘‘macro-dimensions,’’

(or coordinator�s success criteria. . .) to be discussed

later.

� The coordinator�s opinion on statements concerning

the nature and quality of interpersonal relationships,trust and communication between:

– the coordinator and the task manager in the mul-

tilateral development agency,

– the coordinator and his national supervisor,

– the members of the project team (see Appendix B).

� Information on specific contextual events, including

the country�s suspension 2 by donors and stakeholder

turnover.� The coordinator�s opinion on how the stakeholders

judge the success of his project, in particular the task

manager in the international development institution,

his national supervisor and the members of the pro-

ject team.

� Socio-demographic information on the coordinator�sage, sex, professional training, previous project man-

agement experience, professional status and wages.

Information that refers to a subjective judgement was

rated on a Likert scale from 1 to 5 (i.e. from ‘‘strongly

disagree’’ to ‘‘strongly agree’’) or on a binary scale

(0,1) when it was required to answer without any subjec-

tivity. It was mentioned above that the questionnaire in-

cluded a series of statements about the project�s successcriteria. We will not review here the statements in detailor the factorial analysis of these elementary dimensions

(see [26]). We would just say that the factor analysis re-

vealed three principal components or ‘‘macro dimen-

sions’’ (projects success criteria): MANAGEMENT,

PROFILE and IMPACT. Nominal logistic regression

show that only the MANAGEMENT 3 and PROFILE

criteria explained the coordinator�s judgement of the

project�s success, at least as it was perceived by the coor-dinator according to his or her response to the first

assertion in the questionnaire:

My project is a success (SUCCESS).

Assertions describing the relationship between stake-

holders were tested for consistency by calculating Cron-

bach�s alpha for the total sample and for random sub-

groups. The results were satisfactory, always exceeding

0.80 in those groups of statements that were finally re-tained. For each of the research questions (a, b and c)

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222334535_The_success_dimensions_of_international_development_projects_The_perceptions_of_African_project_coordinators?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-c9ab0e719629d211c3006ba203ded833-XXX&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzIyMjY5MzA5NTtBUzoxNjg2ODcyOTQyMzA1MjhAMTQxNzIyOTU5MzU4Mw==

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listed at the end of Section 4, the analysis proceeded

with a simple and direct statistical strategy:

� Factor analysis with the statements (Appendix B) in

order to identify meaningful latent variables or ‘‘con-

structs’’ that drive interpersonal relations betweenstakeholders and within the project team.

� Nominal regression 4 with the communication

between stakeholders and within the team as the

dependent variable and the components of the inter-

personal relations as factors.

� Nominal regression with the success criteria (MAN-

AGEMENT, PROFILE, IMPACT) and the success

(SUCCESS) as dependent variables and the qualityof communication between stakeholders and within

the team as factor.

� The same as above but with the components of inter-

personal relationship as factors of stakeholder com-

munication and team communication.

The most significant results are discussed in what fol-

lows. For better understanding please note that TMstands for task manager, CR for project coordinator,

NS for national supervisor of the coordinator and TE

for project team. Appendix B includes a complete

description of the questions the coordinators were asked

to respond to.

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650

651

652

E

6. Results of the empirical (statistical) analysis

6.1. Components of relationships between stakeholders

6.1.1. The coordinator–task manager interpersonal

relationship

Optimization after orthogonal rotation revealed

three components. Co-ordinates lower than 0.5 after

rotation were removed in order to improve the emer-gence of the constructs, whose meanings are discussed

later:

UNCO

RR 653

654

655

656

657

658659

660

661

662

663

664

665

666667

668

4 Statistical analysis of Likert scales data is not tractable with

classical multivariate regression owing to the violation of usual

assumptions. Multiple discriminant analysis or multinomial logistic

regression stand as accepted alternatives for such surveys. These

techniques are common in business research, marketing, psychology or

medical sciences. Logistic regression does not require a normally

distributed dependant variable, linearity between dependent and

independents, homoscedasticity, independents to be intervals, etc.

However, logistic regression is sensitive to multicollinearity and sample

size (as maximum likelihood estimation implies asymptotic normality).

Reliability of our estimates may be altered by correlation between

variables and by the limited number of cases in our sample for each

combination of independents. For this reason, we tested robustness on

random sub samples to assess the stability of estimations before

jumping to premature conclusions.

CTED

PROO

F

Component 1: TM AUTONOMY, TM TRUST, TM

RELIABILITY, TM RESPECT, TM VALUES, TM

UNDERSTANDING

his proved to be a very significant and consistent

component. It demonstrates the quality of relation-

ships and, after rotation, explains 37% of the commonvariance in responses to the statements in the ques-

tionnaire. The combination of these particular charac-

teristics is not only intuitively appealing but it is also

supported by the specific literature (see Section 3).

Non-parametric correlations show that trust and

autonomy are very highly correlated in our population

(a Kendall�s s of 0.652), and the same is true of trust

and reliability between these two stakeholders (aKendall�s s of 0.584). These variables are virtually

interchangeable. We call this component TM TRUST

(for trust between the coordinator and the task

manager).

Component 2: TM AGE, CR VISITS TM, TM

FAMILY

The coordinators and their task managers are

approximately the same age. Coordinators visit theirtask managers in the headquarters of the multilateral

funding institution, and also visit their task managers

at home (although this does not apply for each case)

during work-related visits. The variance explained by

this component, which we label CR VISITS TM, repre-

sents 17% of the common variance.

Component 3: TM VISITS CR, TM IN MY HOME

Component 3 is the reciprocal of component 2. Thetask managers supervise project activities by regularly

visiting the project team and local officials. They also

make social visits to the home of the project coordina-

tors, as is the customary in Africa. This component,

which we call TM VISITS CR, explains 13% of the com-

mon variance.

6.1.2. The coordinator–national supervisor relationship

In this case more statements were tested and retained

for analysis since we were trying to understand the influ-

ence of phenomena such as actors having known each

other as students (which may have given them more

interests in common than just belonging to the same

generation) or having a language in common other than

French or English, which might indicate that they be-

long to the same ethnic group (see Appendix B). Optimi-zation after orthogonal rotation again produced three

distinct components.

Component 1: NS RELIABILITY, NS TRUST, NS

AUTONOMY, NS INFORMED, CR VISITS NS, NS

VALUES, NS VISITS CR

Just as in the relationship with the task manager, this

component exerts a strong influence. Again we found a

correlation between trust and autonomy (with a Kend-all�s s of 0.578). Professional visits, both of coordinators

to meet their national supervisors and vice versa, show

669

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671

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674675

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682683

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698699

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713714

715

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724725

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732733

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762763

764

765

766




CORR

E

up in the same component. In fact, this variable cap-

tured frequent contacts between local actors. Sometimes

visits are informal or even impromptu (coordinators� of-fices are never far from the supervising departments). It

therefore makes sense that these variables become

grouped into the same component. Given this compo-nent�s similarity to the first component revealed in the

analysis of task manager-coordinator relationship, we

name it NS TRUST. It explains 30% of the common

variance.

Component 2: STUDIES, NS AGE, NS IN MY

HOME, NS FAMILY

This is a homogeneous group of variables that can be

understood in terms of friendships between the coordi-nators and the national supervisor. They share common

backgrounds. Their relationship goes beyond profes-

sional ties. The phenomenon of actors having known

each other as students in the same school (STUDIES) 5

and the fact that they both socialise at the family level

lead us to call this component NS FRIENDSHIP. It ac-

counted for 14% of the common variance.

Component 3: NS VALUES, NS RESPECTThe variable LANGUAGE was not included in this

construct because it weighted only 0.481, hence slightly

under the limit of 0.500 (which is arbitrary. . .). Thereis clearly a group ‘‘values-respect-language’’. We believe

that this construct captures the fact that both the coor-

dinator and his or her national supervisor belong to the

same cultural community. Since values and culture (and

language) are closely related, this component is namedhereafter NS CULTURE. It accounted for 12% of com-

mon variance.

6.1.3. Relationships in the project team

Members of a project team are generally appointed

by the local government, but coordinators may be given

the opportunity to participate in the selection process.

Most of the team members are civil servants or civilservants seconded to the project but sometimes contract-

uals from the private sector are hired for the duration of

the project. Statements in the questionnaire therefore

took this into account. They also included assertions

dealing with interpersonal relationships between team

members (see Appendix B).

Component 1: NO ABSENTEEISM, ATMOS-

PHERE, NO RIVALRIES, MOTIVATION, TEAUTONOMY, MUTUAL AID

This component is homogeneous and very strongly

weighted by the first four variables. The component,

which we label TE COHESION, explains 29% of the

common variance.

UN5 African francophones have an expression to describe the shared

background resulting from completing part or all of their studies

together; they call the person their ‘‘promotionnaire,’’ which refers to

being of the same group of scholars.

CTED

PROO

F

Component 2: KNOW EACH OTHER, CR

KNOWS THEM

These statements reveal the background or the com-

mon heritage shared by team members. We call this con-

struct TE BACKGROUND. It explains 16% of the

common variance.Component 3: TE FAMILY, TE SOLIDARITY

This factor shows the presence of relationships be-

tween team members that went beyond professional

connections. They have personal relationships that in-

clude knowing each other�s families and providing

assistance to each other. We name the construct TE

LINKS. It accounts for 15% of common variance.

Component 4: CHOICE, CONTRACTUALThe coordinator may have chosen individuals in the

team, so factor analysis associates this with the presence

of contractual team members in the project implementa-

tion unit. We label the component TE CHOICE. It ex-

plains 12% of the common variance.

6.2. The communication and the interpersonal

relationships components

Communication was found to be characterised by how

well information circulated among the actors, between

the coordinator and the stakeholders, as well as among

the members of the project team. Since the coordinator

is the team leader and also belongs to it as a member,

we did not consider the communication between them.

The project team is not an exogenous stakeholder fromthe coordinator�s point of view; the coordinator leads

the team and carries responsibility for what it does.

Therefore his or her judgment vis-a-vis the team is biased.

On the other hand, the coordinator is perfectly capable of

judging how well information circulates within the team

without the risk of any such bias.

By making communication variables (TM COMM,

NS COMM, TE COMM) between stakeholders depend-ent, we assumed that it was explained a priori by the

characteristics of the relationship, in particular by trust.

We have also seen that the opposite may be true; trust

can be established through professional communication

(see Section 4.2). Non-parametric tests were conducted

to discern any significant changes in trust (and in com-

munication) between the coordinator and the two prin-

cipal stakeholders that might have occurred over time. 6

The level of trust between actors was not found to have

changed; a result that supports the hypothesis that trust

between actors is more affect-based than founded in

communication. In this context, it is reasonable to think

6 Taking care to select only those cases where neither the task

manager nor the national supervisor changed since the beginning of

the project. The questionnaire included contextual variables: see

Section 4.

OOF

767

768

769

770

771

772773

774

775

776

777

778

779

780781

782

783

784

785

786

787

788

789790

791

792

793

794

795

796

797798

799

800

Table 1

Hierarchy of communication factors between stakeholders

Pseudo R2 (Cox and Snell) Coordinator Task manager

TM COMM

Coordinator National

supervisor NS COMM

Project team TE COMM

n = 86 n = 83 n = 86

1 Global 2 1 Global 2 1 Global 2

0.649 0.676 0.625

TRUST 0.000 0.000 0.000

CR VISITS TM ns ns ns

TM VISITS CR 0.001 0.001 0.035

NS TRUST 0.000 0.000 0.000

NS FRIENDSHIP 0.037 0.020 Ns

NS CULTURE ns ns Ns

TE COHESION 0.000 0.000 0.000

TE BACKGROUND ns ns ns

TE LINKS ns ns ns

E CHOICE ns ns ns

NB: Figures correspond to the probability of the null hypothesis. The lower the probability (particularly when under 0.05), the stronger the

component�s influence on communication.

ns: non significant.




Eof trust more as a variable that can explain communica-

tion than the reverse. 7

Nominal logistic regressions were conducted to find

relationships between the quality of communication

and interpersonal relationship components identified in

Section 4.1. Nominal regression requires a minimumof respondents in the classes of variables retained. We fi-

nally re-coded the quality of communication (1, 2, 3) be-

fore proceeding. Score 3 represented very good

communication; score 2, satisfactory communication

and score 1 was reserved for a communication ‘‘failure’’.

As usual the score 3 (i.e. for the dependent variable the

coordinator strongly agrees that his communication

with his or her stakeholder is very good) acts as theomitted score and thus acts as a reference in the statisti-

cal analysis. 8 Results are seen in Table 1.

These results lead to the following observations:

UNCO

RR

801

802

803

804

805806

807

808

809

810

811

812

813814

815

816

817

818

7 However we were able to show that the statements ‘‘My task

manager has confidence in me’’ and ‘‘My national supervisor has

confidence in me’’ are strongly linked to ‘‘We have common values’’

and ‘‘We have a relationship of mutual respect.’’ Hence recognizing

another�s values requires the passage of time and communication. We

could therefore conclude that knowledge-based trust plays a part in

total trust. It is very possible that our data�s basic unit for the variabletime, a year, is too long to capture the establishment dynamic of

knowledge-based trust through communication, a phenomenon that

would undoubtedly occur in the first months of a project.8 The distribution across groups 1, 2 and 3 is not, however,

homogeneous. Groups (1) that correspond to a lack of communication

between stakeholders are under-represented (about 20% of the total

population). It should be noted that it was the communication within

the team that was the least likely to be rated ‘‘very good.’’ This should

not come as a surprise; there are in effect many members on a team,

and it only takes one of them holding back information to erode the

quality of communication across the team.

CTED

PR1. The pseudo R2 are high. The degree of correlation

between trust and communication leads us to con-

clude that they are proxy variables (proving Assertion

1). Here we are assuming that trust is a factor of good

communication, but the literature suggests that

knowledge-based trust results from communication(Assertion 2, to be tested below).

2. The overall quality of communication between the

coordinator and his or her task manager (TM

COMM) is explained primarily by the task manager�strust in the coordinator (TMTRUST) and (although

to a lesser extent) by how frequently the task manager

comes to visit the project implementation unit (TM

VISITS CR). The importance of TM TRUST con-firms that it is a determining factor, but the coordina-

tors� visits to the offices of the funding institution (CR

VISITS TM) had no significant effect on the quality

of communication.

3. The same can be said for the quality of communi-

cation between coordinators and their national

supervisor (NS COMM). The strength of this link

is even stronger than that with the task manager,although this does not appear in Table 1 because

we only calculated the probability of the null

hypothesis to three decimal places. It is interesting

to note that a good friendship (NS FRIENDSHIP)

excludes the possibility of a complete lack of com-

munication (3–1 is significant). Nevertheless the fact

that a coordinator and his or her national supervi-

sor are good friends and are approximately thesame age does not automatically imply that they

communicate very well (3–2 is no significant).

Finally, belonging to the same cultural community

(NS CULTURE) does not appear to have a signif-

icant effect on communication.

F

819

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826

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833

834

835

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837

838839

840

841

842

843

844

845846

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853854

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864865

866

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872873

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880881

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888889

890

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895

896897

898

899

900

901

Table 2

Communication, project success and the success criteria

Pseudo R2 (Cox and Snell) SUCCESS MANAGEMENT PROFILE IMPACT

n = 77 n = 85 n = 85 n = 85

0.279 0.133 0.341 0.307

1 Global 2 1 Global 2 1 Global 2 1 Global 2

TM COMM 0.003 0.002 0.567 0.106 0.198 0. 448 0.000 0. 000 0.139 0.092 0.096 (0.664)

NS COMM 0.175 0.331 0.260 0.167 0.276 0.147 0.533 0.797 0.906 0. 161 0.000 0.001

TE COMM 0.046 0.083 0.103 0.109 0.214 0.441 0.031 0. 074 0.306 0.005 0.009 0.186

NB: Figures correspond to the probability of a null hypothesis. The lower the probability (particularly when under 0.05), the stronger the





UNCO

RRE

4. The quality of communication within the project

team (TE COMM) appears to be linked only to cohe-

sion (TE COHESION), which confirms what we

already knew and justifies any efforts needed to secure

team building at the outset of a project. We did not

specifically introduce the concept of trust as a specificstatement when describing relationships within the

project team. Nevertheless, it is clear that there can

be no cohesion in a team without trust between its

members, and that cohesion is a good proxy variable

when trust is not explicitly specified.

6.3. Communication, project success and success criteria

Interpersonal factors explain the quality of communi-

cation between actors, and the quality of communica-

tion between actors determines some aspects of project

success, whether it is the project�s success or some of

its criteria. We ran nominal logistic regressions to assess

the influence of the quality of communication on success

or success criteria. The results are shown in Table 2.The following observations can be made:

1. The project SUCCESS

In general terms, a statistically significant link was

found between the success of the project and the quality

of communication between the coordinator and the task

manager. A slightly less significant link was found be-

tween success and the quality of communication amongmembers of the project team. The quality of communi-

cation between coordinators and their national supervi-

sor does not appear a key factor. This is not surprising,

since the organisational context of aid projects is such

that the coordinator–national supervisor professional

relationship is more based on functional responsibilities

than operational concerns.

2. The MANAGEMENT criteriaThe quality of communication between actors did not

have a significant effect on the MANAGEMENT crite-

ria, but TM COMM and TE COMM were both very

close to the threshold of statistical significance in the ex-

treme case (from 3 to 1). It is interesting to note that

CTED

PROO

communication would appear to more readily explain

project SUCCESS (see below) than the MANAGE-

MENT criteria specifically (although the coordinator

believes that), among the three criteria of success (as

drawn from the project coordinator�s understanding),

MANAGEMENT is the one that best explains the suc-cess of the project (see note 3 Section 5). Communica-

tion between the coordinator and the task manager

should therefore explain the project PROFILE variable,

another important success criteria as perceived by the

coordinator. As we will see this proves to be true.

3. The PROFILE criteria

TM COMM and, to a lesser extent, TE COMM

are linked to the project�s visibility. This is under-standable. On the other hand, no significant relation-

ship was found between project PROFILE and NS

COMM, which is surprising, considering the role that

a hierarchy can play in the political amplification of

project achievements. But the VISIBILITY variable

is made up of an ‘‘internal’’ or national visibility

and an ‘‘external’’ visibility with respect to the donor

agency (see Section 6.1). Non-parametric correlationsshowed that internal visibility is explained by the qual-

ity of communication with the task manager or the

fact that the task manager often visits the project,

more than it is explained by the quality of communi-

cation with the national supervisor. Communication

with the minister or department director would there-

fore appear to have little impact on the project�s inter-

nal or overall visibility. Nevertheless it is true that ifthe quality of communication does not play a decisive

role, this does not mean that the quality of the rela-

tionship between the coordinator and his or her na-

tional supervisor does not have an effect on the

PROFILE variable. The possibility to secure eventu-

ally additional funding for the project (ADDFUND

is one of the three components of PROFILE) is clo-

sely linked to the climate of trust and the correlativeautonomy that the minister grants the project coordi-

nator and the support shown by the minister for the

coordinator and the project. The non-parametric cor-

relations clearly show that funding of project subse-

quent phases is conditional upon coordinator

902

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914915

916

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921922

923

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926

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928929

930

931

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935

936937

938

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977

978979

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986987

988

989

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994995

996

997

998




CORR

E

autonomy. Task managers give up when the project

coordinators face excessive control or pressure from

their local hierarchy.

4. The IMPACT criteria

Communication between actors is a significant factor

of project IMPACT. This result is difficult to interpret,given that these are medium- and long-term impacts.

IMPACT is made up of components 9 upon which the

quality of communication between actors would appear

to have little effect. We have some difficulty explaining

this result.

6.4. The interpersonal relationships, the project success

and success criteria

Intuitively we know that the interpersonal relation-

ships between stakeholders have an influence on the

project�s ultimate success. This is clearly documented

in the literature (see Section 4). We conducted nomi-

nal regressions of success criteria (MANAGEMENT,

VISIBILITY and IMPACT) and of the SUCCESS it-self 10 on factors of the stakeholder-to-stakeholder

relationship, and retained only those factors that were

significant in these regressions. Then we estimated a

model that only specified those significant factors as

explanatory variables for each success criteria and

for the success itself.

1. The MANAGEMENT criteriaGenerally speaking, trust between the task manager

and the coordinator (TMTRUST) and team cohesion

(TE COHESION) are significant factors of project man-

agement performance. A high level of trust between the

coordinator and the task manager makes a serious pro-

ject management failure unlikely (thus explaining pro-

ject success).

However, the more often the coordinator visits thetask manager or the funding agency headquarters, the

poorer the project management. Poor project manage-

ment (MANAGEMENT from 3 to 1) in particular is

very strongly associated with frequent coordinators

visits. One could expect the opposite to be true. It

would appear that the cause-and-effect link for visits

must be analysed differently according to their mean-

ing: visits by the task manager, even though theydid not have a significant effect on the MANAGE-

MENT variable, have a beneficial effect (it is worth

noting that TM VISITS CR explains communication

between both, see Section 6.3), while the coordinator

UN

999

1000

1001

10021003

1004

9 IMPACT is a function of SUSTAIN (the project built institu-

tional capacity), IMPACT (the project has a visible impact on the

beneficiaries) and BENSATIS (beneficiaries are satisfied). See [26].10 As in the previous section, we re-coded the dependent variables,

or SUCCESS and its criteria, on (1, 2, 3).

CTED

PROO

F

could be visiting the donor agency because the task

manager called a meeting to fix a management prob-

lem. Hence the phenomenon appears especially signif-

icant when it involves a critical management issue

(from 3 to 1) and not minor problems (from 3 to

2). Again, remember that CR VISITS TM does notimprove their communication, which is consistent with

this result, see Section 6.3.

2. The PROFILE criteria

Generally speaking, the analysis shows that visits by

the task manager (TM VISITS CR), the task manager�strust in the coordinator (TM TRUST) and the national

supervisor�s trust (NS TRUST) have positive effects on

the project PROFILE The significance of other varia-bles is weak.

More specifically, the task manager�s trust, frequent

visits to the project, and the national supervisor�s trustin the coordinator make poor visibility unlikely, i.e. they

play a fundamental role in explaining a project�s high

PROFILE. We found factors that explained successful

project management (see above). But it is interesting

to see the effect a national supervisor�s trust can haveon the ‘‘surface’’ of the project. Earlier we saw that

the national supervisor�s trust, like the coordinator�sautonomy, is indispensable in securing subsequent fund-

ing; multilateral institutions are not fond of dealing with

situations that are complicated or clouded with local

power struggles.

Cultural affinities between the coordinator and his or

her national supervisor appear to have a negative impacton project PROFILE, and very close cultural ties be-

tween these actors have an even more important effect

on the probability of the project�s relative visibility

(from 3 to 2). This result was not expected, and we have

not found a satisfactory explanation.

3. The IMPACT criteria

The IMPACT is explained by team cohesion, the na-

tional supervisor�s trust (local factors) and to a lesser ex-tent by the task manager�s trust. However, the influence

of interpersonal factors on IMPACT is not a direct one,

as IMPACT is not exactly an ‘‘operational construct’’.

Some caution is required therefore in interpreting poten-

tial meanings.

4. The project SUCCESS

The projects success factors are: the team cohesion,

the task manager�s trust (TM TRUST) and the make-up of the team (TE CHOICE), which has a negative ef-

fect. We did not expect that when coordinators partici-

pate in the selection of their collaborators and/or

project team, including the possibility to hire contrac-

tual employees (team members who are not civil serv-

ants), it would have a negative effect on project

success. This component affects project SUCCESS but

surprisingly is not a factor of any success criteria. Wetested for causality between TE COHESION and TM

CHOICE, thinking that differences in salary or behav-

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RRE

iour between the two groups might lead to tensions or

conflicts in the team, but no evidence was found. TM

CHOICE is not affecting the quality of communication

within the team, either. It is unlikely that the coordina-

tor would support hiring incompetent contractual

employees, even though we know that contractualemployees are sometimes not always hired only on the

basis of their competencies. This is therefore a phenom-

enon that cannot be explained at this time, given the

information in this database.

6.5. Summary

A number of results emerged as significant. They are

summarised here in the same order as our research ques-

tions and/or assertions were presented at the end of Sec-

tion 4:

(a) Trust, which in this case is a construct made up

of elements such as trust stricto sensu, delegated

autonomy, and reliable behaviour, constitutesthe overriding factor in the coordinator�s relation-

ships with the task manager and the national

supervisor. Team cohesion (which presumes a cli-

mate of trust) characterises relationships between

team members.

(b) Communication between the coordinator and his

or her task manager is closely linked to the trust

the task manager has in the coordinator, and tothe task manager�s visits to project members.

The minister�s or national supervisor�s trust of

the coordinator is indispensable for good commu-

nication, and good communication will in turn

reinforce social links. The link between team

cohesion and the communication between its

members is a decisive factor. The empirical results

confirm Assertion 1 (trust–communication–auton-omy are virtually interchangeable) but we were

unable to confirm Assertion 2 (see Section 4):

with this data it is in fact impossible to isolate

the building of trust over time in such a way that

the key role of communication as a factor of trust

between the coordinator and project stakeholders

can be confirmed.

(c) Project success factors are: good communicationbetween the coordinator and his or her task man-

ager and good communication among team mem-

bers. Communication between the coordinator

and the national supervisor does not appear to play

a significant role. The relationship between project

management and the quality of communication

between actors (no matter which actors) does not

appear to be significant in this regard. On the otherhand, the trust a task manager has in the coordina-

tor plays a larger role in project success, on the

CTED

PROO

F

quality of project management, and on project vis-

ibility than does cohesion within the team. We have

shown that project profile depends on the trust

established between the coordinator and the task

manager, but trust between the coordinator and

the national supervisor is a must for an eventualextension of a project. Task managers in the multi-

lateral agency appreciate a project that is running

smoothly. Too much intervention or local power

struggles in a project clearly result in the donor

pulling out. This confirms what can be observed

in actual international development projects. Cohe-

sion in the project team, which cannot occur with-

out relationships of trust among its members(established beforehand or over time), remains the

only ‘‘soft’’ factor that can make a contribution

(along with a trusting relationship with the task

manager) to the success of projects. Pre-existing

friendships established at college or shared cultural

backgrounds, phenomena that we would have con-

sidered significant, seem to have little effect.

It is therefore the coordinator–task manager relation-

ship that is decisive, and to a lesser extent, the interper-

sonal relationships within the project team. The authors

of this research, who have a fair amount of experience in

ID project management, welcome such confirmation.

The sheer strength of the statistical evidence is compel-

ling and confirms Assertions 3 and 4 (see Section 4).

This carries a number of ramifications. In fact, it isnot uncommon for a multilateral institution to transfer

a task manager to another region, interrupting the con-

tinuity of projects. Considerable damage can result if the

new task manager and the project coordinator are not

able to quickly establish an adequate level of trust.

The authors have seen that such transfers can quickly

terminate projects that were working smoothly. We have

also seen the opposite; a radical revival of a project, par-ticularly where the relationship with the former task

manager was difficult.

Appropriate measures are not taken to create, consol-

idate or improve social cohesion or trust in the project

team. This nevertheless appears to be instrumental to

a project�s success; nothing is possible without a well-in-

tegrated team. Some institutions hold launching semi-

nars, but it would be worthwhile for them to take thetime and set aside the funds (which would not be inordi-

nate, particularly at the beginning) to create a climate of

trust within each new project team. It is clear that the

team is important enough to deserve more attention;

at least this is one of the conclusions suggested by the

empirical analysis.

6.5.1. The limitations of the results

The study�s potential biases and limits were described

in Section 5. We do not believe that these issues affect

OOF

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Table 3

The components of stakeholder interpersonal relationships as factors of the project success and success criteria

Pseudo R2 (Cox and Snell) SUCCESS MANAGEMENT PROFILE IMPACT

n = 77 n = 85 N = 85 n = 85

0.279 0. 204 0.403 0.307

1 Global 2 1 Global 2 1 Global 2 1 Global 2

TM TRUST 0.006 0.007 0.608 0.007 0.010 0. 036 0.010 0.018 0.109 0.042 0.100 0.097

CR VISITS TM – – – (0.029) (0.075) (0.211) – – – – – –

TM VISITS CR – – – – – – 0.039 0.034 (0.998) – – –

NS TRUST 0.225 0.457 0.425 – – – 0.036 0.087 0.162 0.295 0.013 0.010

NS FRIENDSHIP – – – – – – – – – – – –

NS CULTURE – – – – – – (0.122) (0.083) (0.050) – – –

TE COHESION 0.053 0.069 0.078 0.280 0.052 (0.448) 0.150 0.308 0.228 0.058 0.068 (0.950)

TE BACKGROUND – – – – – – – – – – – –

TE LINKS – – – – – – – – – – – –

TE CHOICE (0.008) (0.023) (0.012) – – – – – – – – –

NB: Figures correspond to the probability of the null hypothesis. The lower the probability (particularly when under 0.05), the stronger the





generalisation of our results. However, there was a spec-

ification bias when estimating parameter significance in

our models. We limited the specification to interpersonal

relationships and communication variables, and we can-

not be certain that those factors explain close to 30% of

the success of ID projects, like the pseudo R2 might lead

one to believe (see Table 3). The specification of other

variables (such as the age of the coordinator, which isstrongly related to the success of ID projects) could af-

fect our estimates and therefore the importance of some

relational and communication variables. However, the

goal was not to build a good predictive model of ID pro-

ject success but to establish a hierarchy of significance

between variables. In this context, the specification bias

has little effect on our results. 11

11501151

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11581159

RRE7. Conclusion

We have tried to describe and assess the influence

of different aspects of interpersonal relations between

key actors in order to explain the success of interna-

tional development projects in sub-Saharan Africa.

The research did not provided answers to all the ques-tions we raised, but our analysis has lead to some

UNCO

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11 Furthermore, independent of the fact that the models are

incomplete, the limited number of cases by group (once recoded with

1, 2, 3) and the unequal distribution of cases among the three groups

could have had an impact on the accuracy of the estimates when three

or more variables were introduced. We therefore recalculated the

estimates in Table 3 with ten random sub-samples each representing

two-thirds of the total population. Even though there was some

instability among the less important variables, the overall estimates

regularly reproduced the hierarchy of significance shown in Table 3.

This makes us believe that what we have learned would appear to be

valid for the entire population of development projects funded by the

multilateral system in sub-Saharan Africa.

CTED

PRconclusions that are well supported by the statistical

evidence. The findings pertaining to the ‘‘interpersonal

relationship-communication-success’’ causality are in

complete accordance with what is known from the

body of research on work groups or project teams.

Projects are dynamic systems in which perceptions be-

come ‘‘reality’’. They cannot be carried out efficiently

without trust between key stakeholders. This is alsoconsistent with the legacy of the literature on group

dynamics. Trust and communication are inseparable,

and in international development, they are critical fac-

tors of project success. Research also shows that the

climate (atmosphere) within the project team is deci-

sive, and therefore, that making more efforts in team

building during the first months of the project is rec-

ommended. The launching seminars organized by thedonor agencies focus more on ‘‘selling’’ the new pro-

jects to the local stakeholders rather than creating a

good working climate within the team. The specific

project team management and project team building

seminars should be organized as soon as the project

team is set up. The relationship coordinator–task

manager becomes fundamental (even more than the

relationship coordinator–national supervisor or taskmanager–national supervisor) and the quality of this

relationship is directly linked to the numerous on-site

work related visits made by the task manager to the

coordinator. Despite the progress of electronic com-

munication, the semi-virtual ID project management

teams cannot avoid the ‘‘physical’’ contact and face-

to-face communication. The on-site meetings are espe-

cially the ones that help establish trust. Multilateraldonor agencies should assess regularly the trust cli-

mate, project by project, between the task manager

and the coordinator. Because it would be a loss to

break a ‘‘winning team’’, one must avoid transferring

the task managers who have already established a

CED

PROO

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11921193

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Appendix A Sample description: projects and project coordinators

Sectors: (n = 89)

% % %

Education 12.4 Rural

development

19.1 Reform, governance 11.2

Energy 3.4 Urban

development

3.4 Pop., health and nutr. 5.6

Environment 9.0 Public works 6.7 Comm. And telecomm. 2.2

Mining 2.2 Social

development

9.0 Agetipea 15.7

Contributions by donors: (n = 83), (millions of US$)

Total per

project

World Bank ABD European Union UNDP Other Gov�t

n 86 61 23 17 23 36 63

Mean 36.08 25.94 9.50 9.78 1.82 15.60 7.75

Median 16.70 19.00 2.00 2.50 0.30 5.50 2.00

Mode 5.00 4.10 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 2.00

Minimum 0.06 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

Maximum 600.00 120.00 60.00 90.00 15.00 250.00 100.00

Project coordinators:

Sex (n = 91) Male: 89% Female: 11%

Country (n = 92) Francophone: 65% Anglophone: 35%

Education (n = 91) Undergraduate: 13% Graduate: 87%

Professional status

(n = 91)

Civil servant: 33% Seconded civil

servant:

27%

Contractual.: 34% Other: 6%

Salary and benefits (n = 89):

(US$ equivalent) <2500 2500–5000 5000–7500 7500–10,000 >10,000

% 26.1 17.4 10.9 8.7 33.7

aAgency managing mostly construction projects (Agence d� Execution des Travaux d� Interet Public).

Relationship Abbreviation

Coordinator–task manager

My task manager came to visit me

frequently.

TM VISITS CR

I visited my task manager frequently. CR VISITS TM

My task manager gave me autonomy. TM AUTONOMY

My task manager had confidence in me. TM TRUST

We have common values. TM VALUES

We are approximately the same age. TM AGE

My task manager understands my local

constraints.

TM

UNDERSTANDING

I obtained rapid approval from my

task manager on important matters.

TM RELIABLE

We have a relationship of mutual respect. TM RESPECT




ORRE

relationship based on mutual trust with their

coordinators.

The study does not come to any conclusions of a

comparative nature, and does not reveal behaviours spe-

cific to African managers as compared to Europeans or

North Americans. This was not our goal. This research

could be extended to Central and Latin America, Cen-

tral Europe, Asia and Indonesia, where multilateraldevelopment agencies and bilateral organisations fund

numerous development projects. We plan on pursuing

this further, since databases are currently being assem-

bled on these projects. A transcultural analysis of the

empirical results from a larger survey would allow us

to confirm the results from the African data and perhaps

even to discover cultural differences in the importance of

interpersonal and communication factors.

My task manager visited my home on

occasion.

TM IN MY HOME

I know the family of my task manager. TM FAMILY

We communicate well TM COMM

Coordinator–national supervisor

My national supervisor came to visit me

frequently.

NS VISITS CR

I visited my national supervisor frequently at

the Ministry.

CR VISITS NS
UNC
Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the company SE-

TYM International Inc. (Montreal, Quebec, Canada)

for offering the use of its database of project managers,

coordinators and directors of projects financed by inter-national organizations in Africa.

TAppendix B. Statements describing relationships between

stakeholders

(Continued on next page)

1197

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12111212

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122012

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128312

Appendix B (Continued)

Relationship Abbreviation

I regularly informed my national supervisor

about the project

NS INFORMED

My national supervisor gave me autonomy. NS AUTONOMY

My national supervisor had confidence in me. NS TRUST

We did part of our studies together. STUDIES

We are approximately the same age. NS AGE

We share a common language apart from

French or English.

LANGUAGE

We have common values NS VALUES

I get rapid approval from my national

supervisor on important matters.

NS RELIABLE

We have a relation of mutual respect. NS RESPECT

My national supervisor came to my home on

occasion.

NS IN MY HOME

I know my national supervisor�s family. NS FAMILY

My national supervisor helped when I

experienced problems.

NS SUPPORT

We communicate well. NS COMM

Within the project team

The team members knew each other for

several years.

KNOW EACH

OTHER

I have known them for several years. CR KNOWS THEM

I participated in the choice of my team

members.

CHOICE

On the team there were one or more private

contractors.

CONTRACTUAL

My team bonded. MUTUAL AID

There was no rivalries among them. NO RIVALRIES

There was little absenteeism in the team. NO ABSENTEEISM

The working ambance was excellent. ATMOSPHERE

The team functionned well without me. TE AUTONOMY

Team members participed in social events

together.

TE SOLIDARITY

They met at their home. TE FAMILY

Everyone was concerned about the success of

the project.

MOTIVATION

Information circulated well within the team. TE COMM




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the success of international development projects, trust and communication: an african perspective

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