Managing stakeholders in engineering procurement construction management projects in Africa by Chinese project managers

Abstract

Africa is growing very fast in term of population and economy currently. To enable the productivity and sustainable economic growth across the African continent, the infrastructure development projects are needed. Recently Africa has become a destination of Chinese Engineering, Procurement, and Construction Management (EPCM) companies. The majority of these large Chinese EPCM companies find it difficult to manage projects in the way that satisfy all stakeholders in Africa due to a number of issues – political, social, historical, personal contexts, and technical. Chinese management approach is regarded as informal by nature generally referred as guanxi management. Literature review and media reports reveal that Chinese model of managing stakeholders in projects is characterized by the informal management approach (guanxi). The informal Chinese management is vital to projects success in China therefore, it is important to explore the informal (guanxi) management approach in EPCM projects in Africa. This paper investigates how Chinese Project Managers manage stakeholders in EPCM in Africa by adopting a mix research method to investigate the Chinese stakeholder management approach in West Africa. The research uses a field observation and survey questionnaires. It is found in practice that the Chinese only use guanxi management approach when certain stakeholders such as project owners and sponsors, in addition, the whole stakeholders’ group in EPCM projects are not all satisfied with the informal (guanxi) management approach of the Chinese PM.