Project beneficiary participation and behavioural intentions promoting project sustainability: The mediating role of psychological ownership

Abstract

It is of great importance that development projects (especially those projects that target improving the livelihood of rural communities) continue to deliver their intended benefits over their intended economic life—we call this “project sustainability.” Applying an experimental design, our study reveals that active involvement of project beneficiaries during the needs assessment and planning stages has a significant positive influence on the behavioural intentions of the project beneficiaries toward project sustainability. Our study also finds that psychological ownership plays a mediating role in the relationship between project beneficiary participation and project sustainability. Implications for project sustainability and directions for future research are discussed.

Community participation and sustainability of the community and social development projects in Kwara State, Nigeria

“…This is similar to the findings of Monaledi (2016) who reported no beneficiary participation in project identification in their study; with the projects characterized by top-down approach to decision making during the planning phase whereby the interventionists solely determined what to be done. During implementation, however, beneficiaries were primary decision makers and capacitated to make those decisions Participation in decision making by intended beneficiaries has been linked to enhanced project outcomes/sustainability which could produce projects that are not only better aligned with the preferences and needs of the beneficiaries, but are also of higher quality and more likely to be sustainable (Mansuri and Rao 2012;Aga et al, 2017) Furthermore, participation in the project evaluation and volunteering of skill and expertise recorded lowest mean score of 1.21 each indicating lowest degree of community participation. The findings imply low degree of community participation in the most areas of the CSDPs.…”

“…Community participation, wherein beneficiaries are involved in critical stages of the development interventions is increasingly gaining attention in global development discourse. Aga, Noorderhaven & Vallejo (2017) described community participation as a process which entails active involvement in development projects of a specific groups, with shared needs living in a defined geographic area. Community participation enables the intended beneficiaries to partake in key decision-making for the project and gives opportunity for local people to have control of the project (Madajewicz, Tompsett, & Habib, 2014;Riddell, 2013).…”

“…Project sustainability relate to both the behaviours of end users towards sustaining the operations of the project and the continuation of the project services after its completion; thus, very critical for the long term success of development projects (Oakland, 2015;Aga et al, 2017). Sustainability of development projects is often a big problem in developing countries including Nigeria, where several pockets of abandoned interventions abound in rural communities, which may be linked to poor community participation.…”

“…However, there exist few empirical studies (Adesida & Okunlola, 2015;Monaledi, 2016;Obar et al, 2017;Aga et al, 2017) that investigated the association between community participation and sustainability of development projects. Specifically, none of such studies were found by these authors with respect to the CSDPs in Kwara State.…”

Motivation for and Effect of Cooking Class Participation: A Cross-Sectional Study Following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami

“…However, the intentions of volunteers and aids do not always match the needs of beneficiaries [ 20 ]. Limited studies have examined the kinds of post-disaster dining activities or eating supports that have motivated the survivors in the past, including the results of current eating support interventions [ 21 , 22 , 23 ]. Furthermore, there is currently no existing research on the effectiveness of a free cooking class to train, encourage, and motivate disaster victims negatively affected nutritionally after a crisis.…”