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The aim of this study is to evaluate to what extent the project team size influence the relation between transformational leadership and success of international development projects (IDPs). The paper draws on leader-member-exchange (LMX) theory and contextualizes transformational leadership style to temporary project environment particularly that of an official development assistance project in an African context.

The research is based on the processing of a primary database collected by questionnaire from 111 coordinators of IDPs in Benin. The structural equation method based on the PLS approach was used to test our hypotheses.

First, the preliminary results reveal that, in the context of IDP, projects managers are much more sensitive to the “management” and “visibility” dimensions than to the “impact” dimension of project success. Then, following the hypothesis test, the results show that transformational leadership has a direct positive influence on the success of IDP. Project team size does not play a moderating role in the relationship between transformational leadership and project success. Also, considering the effect of the specific dimensions of transformational leadership on IDP success, only the “idealized influence” dimension influences directly and positively on the latter.

Research calls for examining the role of team size vis-à-vis transformational leadership style and project success and calls in general for studying project manager's leadership styles. This study contributes to literature by answering such calls. In addition, the originality of this study lies in the evaluation of the influence of the specific dimensions because the exclusive use of leadership forms provides an imperfect and oversimplified picture of reality.

The effects of opportunism have been examined before, but not in specific contexts dominated by a collectivist culture. Thus, this research aims to examine the influence of opportunism on the success of International Development (ID) projects by incorporating a moderating factor – the collectivist dimension of national culture.

The research is based on a primary database collected by questionnaire from 76 ID project coordinators in Burkina Faso (West Africa). The Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Method (PLS-SEM) was used to test our hypotheses.

Our results show that opportunism has a direct negative impact on the success of ID projects. Similarly, the collectivist cultural context is to be considered as an independent variable and not a moderating factor. Indeed, the collectivist cultural context has an important positive influence on the project success. Our results call for the implementation of governance mechanisms (especially relational) to prevent opportunistic behaviour.

Until now, the study of the role of culture in the relationship between opportunism and project success has been neglected. Syntheses of the scientific literature on this topic do not mention any studies that have explored the moderating role of collectivist culture on the relationship between opportunism and project success. This is, to our knowledge, the first study conducted in Africa to examine these relationships in the context of ID projects.

The objectives of this study are twofold: first, to identify the effect of sustainability management on the success of international development projects, and second, to investigate the moderating role of political and social skills on this relationship.

This study adopted a quantitative research methodology based on questionnaire data collected from 43 international development project managers from various fields in Burkina Faso (West Africa). Descriptive statistics and exploratory and confirmatory analyses using principal component analysis were used to assess the quality of the measurement model. A multiple regression analysis based on the partial least squares approach was used to test the hypotheses.

The results show that sustainability management positively contributes to the success of international development projects. However, given the specificities of these projects and their perception of success, the project coordinator's political and social skills do not predict a greater impact of sustainability management on the success of international development projects. The study also found that project coordinators prioritize their technical skills over behavioral ones.

This study fills a gap in the literature, given that little is known about the moderating role of political and social skills in the effect of sustainability management on the success of specific projects such as international development projects.