To read this content please select one of the options below:

The effect of megaproject external social responsibility on community acceptance: the mediating role of public trust

Deribe Assefa Aga (Department of Public Management, Ethiopian Civil Service University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia)
Berhanu Belayneh Beyene (College of Leadership and Governance, Ethiopian Civil Service University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia)

International Journal of Managing Projects in Business

ISSN: 1753-8378

Article publication date: 1 October 2024

79

Abstract

Purpose

By extending corporate social responsibility research to a megaproject context, the purpose of this study is to examine the effect of megaproject external social responsibility (SR) on community acceptance through the mediating role of public trust.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing from legitimacy theory as well as corporate social responsibility literature, this study developed hypotheses linking the constructs of SR, (public) trust and community acceptance of a megaproject. Thereby, a household survey questionnaire was administered to collect data from randomly selected 328 households in the local community who reside near the construction site of a mega hydropower project in Ethiopia. Guided by structural equation modelling, Smart Partial Least Squares4 (SmartPLS4) was utilized to analyze the data.

Findings

The empirical findings show that community-targeted SR has a significant positive effect on community acceptance of a megaproject, whereas the direct effect of natural environment-targeted SR on community acceptance was found to be non-significant. More importantly, the study reveals that trust in the contractor of the megaproject mediates the relationships between a megaproject SR (fully in the case of the natural environment and partially for community-targeted responsibility) and community acceptance.

Originality/value

The present study contributes to legitimacy theory by illustrating the consequences of megaproject external SR in terms of trust and community acceptance, an issue which has not received adequate attention in the project management literature.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This research was financed by the Ethiopian Civil Service University. The authors would like to thank the three anonymous referees for their constructive comments and very helpful suggestions that substantially improved this paper.

Citation

Aga, D.A. and Beyene, B.B. (2024), "The effect of megaproject external social responsibility on community acceptance: the mediating role of public trust", International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMPB-05-2024-0111

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2024, Emerald Publishing Limited

Related articles