FRAMEWORK FOR MEASURING THE SUCCESS OF RURAL INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS IN VIETNAM

Xuan Hung Pham

PhD Student – School of Global, Urban and Social Studies - RMIT University - Australia

International Conference on Global Studies 2015Colombo, Sri Lanka – November 2015

CONTENT

1. INTRODUCTION

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

4. RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

5. CONCLUSIONS

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(Rural Infrastructure Development Projects = RID Projects)

1. INTRODUCTION

Significant spending on RID projects

High percentage of population living

in rural areas

Poor performance of many RID

projects

Interest by both governments and

international agencies

Limited research on RID projects in

Vietnam

3

Why focus on RID projects?

Project success is multi-

dimensional concept

4

Challenges in investigating project success

Challenges in identifying project success criteria

Different interest groups have

different perspectives on

project success

This research aims to develop a framework for measuring the success of RID projects in the context of Vietnam

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2. LITERATURE REVIEW

Definition of RID projects

Project success criteria

Hard infrastructure

refers to physical facilities

such as transport, energy,

drinking water supply,

hospitals, schools; irrigation,

etc.

Infrastructure

Soft infrastructure

refers to non-tangibles

supporting development such

as policy, regulatory &

institutional frameworks.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW – Definition of RID projects

RID projects in this study refer to physical work/facilities

that support social and economic development in rural areas

2. LITERATURE REVIEW - Project success criteria

Criteria to measure project success have changed over time

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• Completed on time

• Completed within budget

• Meet quality standards• Stakeholders’ satisfaction

• Relevance

• Project impacts

• Project sustainability

Traditional Later research Recent research

• Completed on time

• Completed within budget

• Meet quality standards

• Stakeholders’ satisfaction

• Completed on time

• Completed within budget

• Meet quality standards

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Traditional

RID project success items Adopted from

Literature review Case studies The project addressed relevant needs of local communities

Do and Tun (2008)

X

The project contributed to the local development strategies

X

The project met sponsor priorities Do and Tun (2008) Chianca (2008)

X

Project activities were finished on time (Al-Tmeemy, Abdul-Rahman, and Harun (2011); Shenhar et al. (2001))

X

Project resource was used as planned (on budget) (Al-Tmeemy et al. (2011); Shenhar et al. (2001))

X

Achieving its fundamental functions X Project end outputs are accepted by target beneficiaries

Do and Tun (2008) X

Local beneficiaries/users were satisfied with service quality supplied

(Baccarini (1999); Do and Tun (2008)); Wenjuan and Lei (2011)

X

Government/Sponsors’ satisfaction with the project results

Wenjuan and Lei (2011) X

Impacts on household cost; local security and expanding opportunities for local people

X

Improving local capacity in managing RID projects

Do and Tun (2008); Diallo and Thuillier (2004)

X

List of success criteria for RID project

3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY – An overview

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Literature review Case studies

Survey

Conceptual framework

Discussion and implications

10

Survey instrument development Questionnaire

Pilot test and expert review

Sampling and data collection(Direct interview and web-based survey)

Data analysisExploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

Questionnaire was validated and revised

Data were collected

Framework for measuring the success of RID projects

Discussion

Survey process

The target respondents for the survey were drawn randomly from the list of

project managers, contractors, consultants and community members who

were directly involved in RID projects.

Due to the limitation of internet access in rural areas, both face-to-face

interviews and web-based survey were adopted in this study

A total of 302 valid questionnaires were returned

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was employed to identify success

criterion dimensions of RID projects.

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Survey process

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Key characteristics of RID project in the sample

Project implementation durationProject location

Distribution of RID projects by fundingDistribution of RID projects

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4.1. Assessment of the suitability of the data for Exploratory Factor Analysis - EFA)

The sample size: > 300 cases, and the ratio of subject to item: 12:1

The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value > recommended value of 0.7

The Bartlett’s test of Sphericity was significant (p < .05)

The correlation among variables exceeds the threshold: 0.3

The dataset is suitable for factor analysis

4. RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

Component 1 2 3 Funder’s satisfaction      SC5-Completing within budget .853    SC9-Government/Sponsors’ satisfaction with the project results .833    SC3-Meeting sponsor priorities .791    SC2-Contributing to the local development strategies .758     Impacts on community      SC11-Increasing local security   .850  SC13-Improving local capacity in implementation of similar RID projects   .816  SC12-Increasing opportunities for local people   .762  SC14-Enhancing the local ownership of infrastructure facilities   .646  SC8-Local beneficiaries/users’ satisfaction with service supplied   .599   Meeting users’ needs      

SC7-The acceptance of infrastructure service quality by target users     .808

SC1-Addressing relevant needs of local communities     .792

SC6-Achieving its fundamental functions     .766

SC4-Completing on schedule     .739

Eigenvalues 5.107 20212 1.269

% of variance explained 39.28 17.02 9.76

Cum.% of variance explained 39.28 56.30 66.06

4.2. Success criteria of RID projects (EFA result)

Component 1: Funder’s satisfaction (four items)

Government and international sponsors are two key funders in the public

sector investment such as RID projects. Therefore, the satisfaction of this

stakeholder is critical criterion for evaluating the success of an RID project

(Wenjuan and Lei, 2011).

Component 2: Community impacts (five items)

The nature of RID projects is to serve the public infrastructure demands in

the rural areas and local people are the final users of RID project outputs.

Therefore, the satisfaction of local beneficiaries was important for the RID

project. This finding was supported by Shao and Müller (2011).

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4.3. Discussion

Component 3: Meeting users’ needs (four items)

This factor consist of factors related to the capacity of infrastructure facilities

to fulfil the primary needs of target users.

In public infrastructure sector, project completion time is perceived as the

most important criterion for measuring the performance of a project (Ahsan

and Gunawan, 2010, Ahsan, 2012).

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4.3. Discussion (cont)

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RID project success dimensions

Impacts on community  

Meeting users’ needs   Funders’ satisfaction  

RID PROJECT SUCCESS

5. CONCLUSION

Key findings

The findings of this research indicated that RID project success is a multi-

dimensional concept.

A RID project is considered as successful when it is capable in integrating the

three success dimensions - fulfil the primary requirements of target users; fulfilling

the requirements of project funders and contribute to community’s success in long

term.

Research contribution

Developing knowledge about the success of RID projects in the context of

Vietnam

The proposed framework will provide an essential judgment for measuring RID

project success in the short-term as well as the long-term objectives.18