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By involving the beneficiaries of a facility such as housing or an irrigation scheme, at the various stages of the project, it is possible to build their capacity in relation to the facility, which may contribute to the sustainability of the project beyond the disbursement period. A study carried out in Botswana found that the intensity of community participation at the various stages of facility development is influenced by the complexity of the technology adopted and the willingness of the facility managers to involve the community from the early stages of the project. Based on these findings, this paper proposes a framework which may be followed to achieve this end.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss and highlight the results of a study that identified critical risks involved in the procurement of community‐based infrastructure projects in Zambia.

Brainstorming was chosen as the method for identifying risks in the study. It was applied in the form of group discussions with project management committees at community level to identify potential risks affecting their particular projects.

The identified critical risks were classified into six categories: project initiation; community contribution and participation; budget and finance; skilled labour; materials procurement and technical supervision; and quality control. Several significant risk factors were identified in all these six categories in community‐based construction projects. The paper concludes that indeed there are critical risks in community‐based construction projects that require forward planning, assessment and mitigation.

The consequences of not assessing and managing construction risks in both conventional and community‐based procurement systems are that projects may experience time and cost overruns and lead to poor quality structures. It is therefore important to identify risks in community projects.

The case study in this chapter is the Joint Community-based Project (code: JCP), a compulsory macro undergraduate course that is offered by the Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. The course was introduced to teach students the soft skills they will need as graduates and make them aware of their social responsibility. More than 1,600 students register for the course annually. Generally, students work in 450 groups each year to help more than 250 community partners. The course, which has received recognition at institutional, national and international levels, requires students to work in a community for at least 40 hours, after which they reflect on their learning experience through a report, presentation and YouTube video. The identification and selection process of community partners is based on contextual criteria, while new cohorts of students can recommend new community partners each year. Community partners’ tasks include project coordination and student assessment based on the course’s assessment criteria. This chapter discusses how community partners are identified, coordinated and sustained within a macro community service course. It also provides a conceptual framework to highlight community partners’ roles and their impact on the students’ social development based on qualitative case study research.

The purpose of this paper is to provide the initial evidence of the relationship between the community and public-private partnership (PPP) projects by focusing on community engagement, trust and performance.

This study is cross sectional and correlational and it uses project level data that were collected by means of a questionnaire from a sample of 47 PPP projects in Uganda.

Results indicate that trust and community engagement are significantly associated with the performance of PPP projects.

This study was cross-sectional, and thus monitoring changes in behaviour over time was not possible. The study used a quantitative research approach and this limits respondents from expressing their feelings fully. The study was conducted in Uganda and it is possible that the results of this study can be generalized to developing countries with environments similar to that of Uganda.

The results are important for PPP projects to understand the role that trust and community engagement play in as far as the performance of PPP projects is concerned.

Whilst there have been a number of studies on the performance of PPP projects, this study provides initial empirical evidence on the influence of trust and community engagement on the performance of PPP projects using evidence from PPP projects of an African developing economy – Uganda.

The purpose of this paper is to show the adaptation of participatory concept: “from passive to active community” which is the key point to achieve successes of the case study project – a cultural village in Tam Thanh, Tam Ky, Quang Nam, Vietnam. Its achievements result from the employment of three principal steps including identifying core issues in the community, creating changes in human perceptions and living conditions, and demanding operation and maintenance of the community further. The project can seem to be an outstanding showcase for the applicability and possibility of other community projects around Vietnam.

The paper uses the previous community projects developed in Vietnam. However, they are less effective for the community in long-term due to ignoring/underestimating the role of local people. The case study is an impoverished residential neighbourhood in Tam Thanh, Quang Nam. The authors along with the colleagues observed and conducted the workshops on site to understand the problems, values and expectations of people and the land. The paper likes as a summary for achievements and lessons extracted from that field study. The comparison to the previous projects shows the efficiency of participatory design with the active involvement of the local community.

The practical experiences to find successes for the community projects in Vietnam: collaboration of experts, architects, volunteers and local people; classification of roles for groups of participants; the involvement of the local government. engagement of a collaborative relationship with the community under the patience, comprehension and sympathy of all members of the community; and role of the architects involving the projects should be supported for people’s participation to come up with the idea instead of proposing strict ideas.

The appropriate approaches on the right subjects and right time are the key of successes and sufficiency for the community projects, particularly to the impoverished neighbourhoods or places with sensitive issues. The Tam Thanh village is a typical example and its experiences can be disseminated for the other projects. It indicates the active and respectful involvement of like-minded people (experts, volunteers, sponsors, managers and in particular local people) is very important to achieve the final expected destination in the purpose for/by/with the community.

The huge effect of community projects is directly on the local people. The approaching and understanding them is challenging. An achievable community project is that the real needs of the people are provided; they are aware of their roles and benefits; and finally, the values are retained and developed sustainably in long term. The community projects are characterised by the participation of many people in many different stages: analysis, design and implementation. Therefore, for the experts, volunteers and managers, they learn to listen to the voice of the local people and to avoid the forced thoughts and underestimation of local people’s involvement.

The value of the study is that the nature of participatory design method is shown through activities and results of the community project in Tam Thanh. The delivery from theoretical features to practical works is not easy and needs observation and understanding of local culture and life. Depending on each specific location, the application of this design theory is flexible and adaptive. An idea for every project is initiation; however, the participation of local people is key to the project’s achievement.

Pandemics are a serious challenge for humanity, as their social and economic impacts can be tremendous. This study aims to understand how innovation based in the sharing economy (SE) business models can contribute to overcoming the challenges arising from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Following a netnographic approach, the authors studied the computer-mediated social interactions of internet-based virtual innovation communities.

This study found that the SE business models contribute to overcome the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic by redistributing idle resources to lessen the impacts of confinement. This was achieved through process innovations and an innovative use of the network, which enabled fast-open and decentralized innovation processes, and quick implementation of innovations. This innovation process is based on a decentralized decision-making approach, clear rules, informal relationship among community members and open communication channels, as well as in evasive strategies to avoid facing challenges, institutional restrictions and barriers in the adoption of innovations.

This study was limited to a virtual innovation community of highly specialized and educated experts and nine community projects focused on institutional contexts of a developed country. Future research should focus on the institutional contexts of less specialized communities and developing countries and study other community innovation projects in pandemics to understand the processes of fast-open, decentralized and evasive innovation and the importance of relational capabilities for innovation in digital contexts.

The findings can guide innovation managers and public policymakers in implementing effective strategies and policies to overcome pandemic challenges using SE business models. This research also provides important insights into the types and processes of innovation in organizations that create solutions to overcome social and business challenges during pandemics. In addition, this study highlights the contributions of netnographic approaches to conducting research on innovation and in pandemic periods when measures of confinement are in place.

This study uses an innovative framework to map the types of innovation and highlights two different types of innovation processes.

The purpose of this empirical research paper is to investigate the self-perceived role of the community partner of a higher education service-learning and community engagement module.

A qualitative approach was followed by distributing a questionnaire to the community partners of a community engagement module and coding the responses using ATLAS.ti. A total of 36 responses were received from community partners who work with students enrolled in a compulsory undergraduate community-based project module at the University of Pretoria's Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology.

The community partners share a common interest in the students' education. They are experts in their fields and can share their knowledge with the students and the university. Through these partnerships, long-term reciprocal relationships can develop. Community partners can become co-educators and partners in education. The pragmatist representations of community partners can be challenged when they understand their own stakes in service-learning or community engagement projects. This better aids higher education institutes in the management and evaluation of service-learning and community engagement pedagogies and curricula.

Two main limitations underlie this study. Firstly, this research is based on data from one community module at a single university. Although a large number of students are registered in the module, the study would be improved by conducting it at more than one university countrywide. Secondly, the study was performed during the first coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) lockdown the country experienced. This was a completely unexpected event for which everyone was totally unprepared. Many of the community partners lacked the resources to receive or respond to an online questionnaire. The nature of the lockdown prevented the researchers from reaching these community partners for a face-to-face interview. The voice of these community partners is, therefore, silent.

The community partners reiterated their need to be seen as equal partners in the module and appreciated being part of a group of non-profit enterprises working together with a university to pursue a set of common goals. However, their status as peers depends on their willingness and ability to contribute sufficiently to the structure and demands of the service-learning module. The community partners who were able and willing to orientate each group of students to their organisation's mission and objectives, and who executed their roles according to the course requirements, experienced the greatest success in terms of project effectiveness and efficiency, and also in terms of future benefits when students returned to volunteer or provide donations. Given time, these community partners grew into an equal partner with the university's stakeholders, where both their own needs and those of the students were met during the various service-learning projects.

Since all respondents in this study are non-profit organisations, the financial assistance and free labour afforded to them by the students are of paramount importance. The community partners also understand the longer-term value implications of successful student projects, as some students return of their free will to volunteer their services when gainfully employed after graduation.

Community engagement projects are rarely investigated from the community partner's point of view. This paper elicited their responses and examined them through the lens of Fraser's theory of social justice (Fraser, 2009).

This paper describes the development of an evaluation framework to document the process, impact and outcomes of a community‐based mental health promotion project. This initiative, the Rural Mental Health Project, is concerned with the promotion of positive mental health in rural communities in the Republic and Northern Ireland. As a community‐based initiative, this project involves multi‐component interventions that are implemented with diverse target groups across a range of community settings. Assessing the process of programme implementation is critical in order to capture and document the realities of programme planning and implementation. The evaluation approach adopted in this project is based on a logic model research paradigm (Scheirer et al, 1995). This model gives equal emphasis to process and outcome evaluation and seeks to relate the realities of programme implementation to intended programme outcomes. Project activity is tracked prospectively in order to examine the detail of actual programme delivery and its influence on expected project outcomes. This paper outlines the model as applied in this project and explores the methodological and practical challenges in evaluating complex community interventions.

This study aims to examine the association between community engagement, community commitment and sustainability of public–private partnership (PPP) projects in Uganda.

This study adopted a cross-sectional and quantitative approach. Data were collected using a questionnaire from 42 PPP projects in Uganda.

The study found that community engagement and commitment are all positively and significantly associated with the sustainability of PPP projects in Uganda. Results also show that community commitment mediates community engagement and project sustainability.

The study results imply that for sustainability to be achieved, communities must be engaged in project activities such as planning, design and implementation to boost their commitment to project sustainability.

The sustainability of PPP projects is an emerging phenomenon. This paper contributes to scanty literature on ensuring the sustainability of PPP projects from a developing country’s perspective.

Effective safety communication facilitates the sharing of relevant knowledge that helps to improve safety behaviours, such as superior hazard identification and compliance. This study aims to explore channels by which construction companies can effectively communicate health and safety (H&S) among communities of their operations.

Based on a quantitative research approach, this study addressed the knowledge gap through a cross-sectional survey of 250 contractors (comprising 155 building and 95 road contractors) involved in various projects in the Ghanaian construction industry. These contractors were selected by using a stratified simple random sampling technique. Data obtained from the survey was analysed through descriptive (i.e. frequencies, mean and standard deviation) and inferential (i.e. exploratory factor analysis) statistical analyses.

The findings from the mean scores revealed that all the 12 communication channels identified in the literature, confirmed through piloting and examined by the respondents, were important channels through which construction companies can effectively communicate H&S amongst communities of their operations. The exploratory factor analysis revealed a clustering of the 12 channels of communication into 5 components: “safety demonstration in the community”; “social media”; “mass media”; “community engagement”; and “opinion leaders”.

This study offers construction project managers the means of managing one of the major stakeholders of a construction project (the community). It provides an actionable opportunity that can be leveraged strategically to integrate community members into projects to promote synergy and local content inclusion while gaining a peaceful atmosphere to achieve their project goals.

Practically, this study provides construction project managers with a means of managing one of the major stakeholders of a construction project (the community) and also demonstrates the integration of community members into projects to promote synergy and local content inclusion. This would give construction organisations a peaceful atmosphere to accomplish their project objectives.

The social implication of this study is that the study offers society a means of creating safer Ghanaian communities by offering them the knowledge of identifying hazards and avoiding risky behaviours, creating a good safety atmosphere in these communities.

This study presents construction organisations with a unique opportunity to transfer and share novel external knowledge within a different social system (the community). It contributes to the state-of-the-art knowledge in H&S communication by providing channels through which H&S can be communicated in a developing country such as Ghana.