Local community engagement as a practice: an investigation of local community engagement issues and their impact on transport megaprojects' social value
International Journal of Managing Projects in Business
ISSN: 1753-8378
Article publication date: 25 April 2023
Issue publication date: 9 May 2023
Abstract
Purpose
Transport megaprojects often struggle to offer social value (SV) that meets local communities' needs. This problem is embedded in how local communities' views are captured and incorporated into SV plans through local community engagement (LCE). By problematising the literature, this article aims to identify LCE issues and their impacts on SV plans at the front-end of transport megaprojects.
Design/methodology/approach
The theoretical lens of the study is the practice theory developed by Schatzki (2016, 2005). The authors conceptualised LCE as a practice and conducted 32 semi-structured interviews with UK practitioners. The authors collected data in three steps from three types of practitioners involved in LCE practice and SV planning: project managers, LCE experts and SV experts.
Findings
The authors identified 18 LCE issues with thematic analysis and clustered them into five themes. These issues impact LCE with five mechanisms. Findings show that a weak link between LCE and SV plans due to the issues reduces LCE to a tick-box exercise and presents a distorted view of local communities. This reduces SV plans to the bare minimum for project approval instead of offering relevant SV to local communities. Addressing the issues goes beyond changing the approach of project teams to engagement (from instrumental to normative) and requires changing the practices.
Originality/value
For the first time, the study uses practice theory to conceptualise LCE as a practice, following the notion of project as practice. The study problematises the literature to address the under-represented link between LCE and SV plans.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors are very grateful to Dr Maude Brunet for providing valuable suggestions. The authors are also thankful to Mrs Joanne Burgess for proofreading the paper. The authors remain the only persons accountable for any omissions or mistakes.
Citation
Babaei, A., Locatelli, G. and Sainati, T. (2023), "Local community engagement as a practice: an investigation of local community engagement issues and their impact on transport megaprojects' social value", International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, Vol. 16 No. 3, pp. 448-474. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMPB-10-2022-0224
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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