Stakeholder Engagement and Performance of Aerospace Safety Automation Projects: a Case of Kenya Civil Aviation Authority

Abstract

Projects are usually considered successful regardless of the outcome of the project so long as the expectations and needs of the stakeholders are met during the project’s lifetime. Under the guidance of its corporate strategic plan, Kenya Civil Aviation Authority has been implementing various ICT projects to realize its strategic objectives and align most of its functions to its broader corporate strategy. However, despite the automation of its systems and structures challenges have emerged regarding the use of the automation systems thereby preventing prevent the delivery of service and mandate to help achieve a vibrant aviation industry. The authority has sought to include various stakeholders both internal and external to get their inputs and consequently build an effective automated safety and security oversight system. The study examined how stakeholder engagement influenced the performance of safety automation projects at the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority. The objectives were to examine in what way engaging stakeholders in the project initiation, planning, execution, and monitoring and evaluation have influenced the performance of the civil aviation safety automation project. The study relied on both stakeholder theory and institutional theories that argue that everyone who has a genuine interest in participating in a project does so because of the interest and benefits they will obtain from participating in the project and by managing their interest in a strategic manner they generate maximum benefits for the project as well as improving project performance and success. The study relied on a case study research design of the explanatory type in this endeavor sampling 220 respondents from a target of 870 staff and affiliates of KCAA composed of steering committee members, project managers, airworthiness inspectors, personnel licensing inspectors, flight operation inspectors, air traffic controllers and flight dispatchers using random stratified sampling techniques. Questionnaires and key informant interview were used in the study and the collected data cleaned and formatted before conducting analysis using SPSS software. Inferential and descriptive statistics including a multivariate regression to check how stakeholders engagement influence the performance of the civil safety automation project. The study results show that engaging stakeholders in project initiation positively influences the performance of the safety automation project even though the influence was not significant (β=0.13, p-value > 0.05). Stakeholder engagement in project monitoring and evaluation positively affects (β= 0.081, p-value > 0.05) the performance of safety automation project even though, the effect is not significant. In addition, having stakeholders in project execution has a significant negative effect (β=-0.103, p-value < 0.05) on the performance of the safety automation project. Similarly, having stakeholders engaged in project planning negatively impacts the performance of the project (β= -0.079, p-value > 0.05) even though the effect is insignificant. The study concludes that, engagement of stakeholders in initiation, planning, execution and monitoring and evaluation of the safety automation project at KCAA influences its performance. Recommendations from the study are that it is essential to involve stakeholders in project initiation and project monitoring and evaluation of automation projects due to the positive relationship with the performance of safety automation projects. The study also recommends that measures and guidelines aimed at reducing or eliminating the negative impacts associated with engagement of stakeholders in project execution and project planning of automation projects be implemented at KCAA.