Organizationalaspects and Implementation of Community-Based Projects in Kwale County, Kenya

Abstract

Thirty-threeper cent of the Community-Based Projects in Kwale County in the year 2016 had delayed their completion due to controversies occasioned byfailure to adhere to clients’ requirements. Fifty percent of the projects registered between 2016 and 2017 did not meet the quality tests as it is believed there were involvement of less informed individual in organizations with little knowhow of project management practices. Sixtyper cent of the projects in 2018 had problems at implementation stage as they lacked resources for their completion. This unending failure witnessed by escalating percentages pause a bleak future in projects’ proper completion. Project implementation in projects is a function of various characteristics including organizational aspects like organization culture, management capabilities, staff involvement and resources availability. The individual and collective influence of these factors on project implementation however remains unknown.Thestudy focused toexamineeffect of organizational aspectson implementation of CBPs.The specific objectives were: To determineeffect of organization culture, management capabilities and resource availability onimplementation of CBPs.The study was grounded in theories of stakeholder theory, theory of planned behaviour and resource-basedview theory and adopted descriptive and explanatoryresearch design. The target population was 35 CBPs comprising 35 project managers and 265 project team members.The unit of analysis was 35 community-based projects and unit of observations; stakeholders.A sample of 59 respondents was selected through stratified random method. Collecting data practised bysemi-structured questionnaires and analysed bydescriptive statistics and multiple linear regression model. Findings of the studyinformed decisions and policies on selection of implementation committees for local community-based projects and contributed to theory on marginal influences of various organizational aspects on implementation of a project. It was evident that the sources of project implementation were not dependent on a singular independent variable as a multifaceted approach is therefore recommended to attain a proper project implementation process.The study furtherrecommendedconcern of a strong organization culture responsive to accountability, costs and right use of employees. Theorganizations should adapt to have the correct project management skill for a proper command of resource and time management. The organizations should keep recruiting the personnel with high level of professionalism and academic background.In addition, the organization should at all-time be ready to mobilise funds for the project implementation. The study also did make recommendations for policy making in project management, management practices and further studies for management scholars.