Stakeholder power dynamics and Sensemaking in mega-projects in

Senegal
 I. The research problem
The use of large-scale projects as drivers of economic development is on the rise around the world.
According to (Frey, 2016), these projects could account for up to 24% of global GDP over the next decade
due to population growth, ageing infrastructure and increasing urbanization. In Africa, according to new
estimates from the African Development Bank, US$130-170 billion per year would be needed for
infrastructure development. Specifically, in Senegal, 50% of the budget of the first phase (2014-2018) of
the Plan Senegal emergent (PSE) was devoted to infrastructure projects. The growth in project size, close
monitoring by shareholders and pressure from governments for political purposes put pressure on
coordinators to deliver projects on time, according to agreed costs and technical specifications. However,
meeting these three criteria alone does not guarantee project success. In fact, the multiple stakeholders
with divergent and often conflicting interests involved in infrastructure projects have different assessments
of success (Diallo and Thuillier, 2005). These stakeholders also have different levels of power that
influence certain decisions and sometimes control actions (Nash et al., 2010). As a result, most of these
projects are subject to various criticisms, especially with regard to their perceived success. Thus, Silvius
and Schipper, 2015 show that project success is a subjective assessment that reflects the needs of the
evaluator and can be measured and interpreted in several ways. Beneficiaries perceive project success
from an impact perspective, managers from a management perspective (Elmezain et al, 2021) and
politicians from a visibility perspective (Diallo and Thuillier, 2005). Consequently, the same project can
be judged as a failure for one party and considered a success for the other.
For example, the Regional Express Train project has been confronted with a dichotomy of opinion among
stakeholders. For the executive, the TER is a success of the Emerging Senegal Plan (PSE). "It is not
expensive. Better still, it will bring in money for the state since, according to a World Bank study, our
economy loses about a hundred billion CFA francs a year due to poor mobility in Dakar," stresses Abdou
Ndéné Sall, Minister Delegate for the Development of the Railway Network. Moreover, for the anti-
Terrain project camp, the project is scandalous because of its cost, which they consider exorbitant (656
billion CFA francs, or about 1 billion euros, for the first 36 km section) and they consider that such an
investment was not a priority, arguing that it would have been more judicious to build lines to open up the
interior regions. For some, such an amount should have been used in particular to rehabilitate the Dakar-
Thiès-Kidira portion (at the Malian border) of the moribund railway line to Bamako. This illustration
shows how infrastructure projects are subject to different interpretations by different stakeholders.
However, one particular category of infrastructure projects are mega-projects. Conventionally,
megaprojects are large-scale, complex investments that typically cost $1 billion or more and take many
years to develop. They involve multiple public and private actors, are transformational, have an impact on
many people, and represent a strong geographical and financial commitment (Flyvbjerg, 2014; Hassan et
al. 1999). However, according to Warrack (1985), there is no consensus on this definition based on cost.
In some contexts, such as those of developing countries including Senegal, a much smaller project (with a
project budget of US$100 million) could constitute a mega-project. Fundamentally, a relative GDP
threshold, for example, should be used as a key criterion instead of a single cost threshold arbitrarily set
for all countries (Hu et al. 2013).
In sub-Saharan Africa, in the context of promoting socio-economic development, major development
projects and programs have been designed and launched by the public authorities with the assistance of
the World Bank, USAID, the IMF, French Development Agency, etc. The assessment of the management
of these various development projects and programs and their actual effects/impacts reveals undeniable
successes, but also shortcomings and even failures. According to Flyvberg et al (2005), the latter are
related to technological and social complexity, strategic behavior, contested information and cost
overruns.
Thus, megaprojects are complex undertakings, meaning-making and management of power relations. One
possible explanation for the difficulties encountered in the realization of megaprojects is that they are
sometimes seen as scaled-up versions of small projects (Flyvbjerg, 2014), although they differ markedly
from the latter in terms of their impact and the amount of resources devoted to their realization. Moreover,
they have completely different power dynamics and structures from which dysfunction often arises. Their
size, duration and complexity make them not only costly and complex processes and sites of Sensemaking
and power relations.
Furthermore, according to Bourne & Walker, (2008), the success or failure of a project is directly related
to the stakeholders' perception of the value created by the project, as well as their relationship with the
project team. In the study of three transport infrastructure projects, Vuorinen & Martinsuo, (2019) point
out that stakeholders influence the project through communications, complaints and disputes, decision-
making power, rules and supervision. Similarly, it is clearly established that ignoring the needs and
expectations of external stakeholders such as the general public or the local community can generate
social unrest or community resistance through collective action against the project (van den Ende & van
Marrewijk, 2014). In other words, in a multi-stakeholder context, mega-projects face major social,
political and cultural challenges (Flyvbjerg, B., 2014). Power differentials over projects lead stakeholders
to employ various strategies or tactics to place them at an advantage (CBI, 2000). The organizational
interest of the different contracted parties brings into play many power agendas.
To meet all the challenges, they pose, mega-projects are usually designed, organized and delivered as
primarily engineering-based (Giezen, 2012). In this, rational, linear, quantitative and value-neutral aspects
of project management are generally favored (Ciçmil et al., 2006). As a result, the dominant scientific,
normative and dualistic assumptions of traditional project management as laid down by PMBOK (Project
Management Body of Knowledge), PRINCE2 (Project IN Controlled Environments), ICB (International
project management association Competence Baseline), and the international standard ISO 21500 are used
to plan and develop these projects, especially in terms of structure and prescriptive processes. Such
assumptions, however, ignore the underlying power dynamics both in the start-up phase and in the
subsequent actions characterizing project practice (Clarke, 1999; Clegg et al., 2017). Despite a growing
awareness of the limitations of traditional project management approaches to megaprojects, there is still a
lack of theoretical knowledge on which to base the study of power dynamics in megaprojects (Flyvbjerg,
2007; Brunet, 2021). To this end, a recently published special issue on megaprojects in the Project
Management Journal (PMJ) highlights that the success of megaprojects is often driven by power-related
factors (Söderlund et al., 2017). Megaprojects are delivered by socially constructed organizational entities
through both inter- and intra-organizational power relations (Clegg & Kreiner, 2013).
Beyond this, power relations are integral to the meaning-making that socially constitutes material reality
(Clegg et al., 2017). Again, it can be seen that mega-projects are often approached through prisms that do
not always take this stakeholder involvement into account. Kolk & Pinkse, (2007) alluded to the numerous
corporate social responsibility scandals (Enron, Worldcom, Vivendi Volkswagen, etc.) that were caused
by the failure of companies to take into account the various interests of stakeholders. These companies
have mostly shown a lack of accountability to their stakeholders, focusing mainly on the interest of
shareholders. By ignoring this consideration, mega-projects are likely to repeat the same drift.
Yet, despite the strong evidence accrediting this, there is a marked reluctance on the part of Classical
Project Management (Winter et al., 2006)) to acknowledge the pervasive reality of stakeholder power
relations in the meaning-making process. Yet it is formally established that mega-projects have particular
characteristics that highlight the need to incorporate power relations into the meaning-making process
(Clegg et al., 2017). For this reason, project leaders need to be particularly adept at successfully making
sense of what they do. This has become a key competence known as meaning-making, defined by Weick,
(1993) 'as the process by which individuals or groups of individuals interpret lived situations' (P. 635).
Furthermore, the effects of power on sensemaking processes remain poorly understood, as indicated by a
range of studies (Brown, Colville, & Pye, 2015; Maitlis & Christianson, 2014; Maitlis & Sonenshein,
2010; Weick, Sutcliffe, & Obstfeld, 2005). The absence of power in sensemaking theories can be
attributed to the tendencies in the literature to focus primarily on the outcomes of sensemaking rather than
the process (Sandberg & Tsoukas, 2015) and to ignore or downplay the relevance of actors' long-term
interests and goals. However, several empirical studies illustrate the episodic power of sensemaking.
Studies on organizational change tend to conceptualize covert and overt efforts to influence and
manipulate as sensegiving (Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991; Gioia, Thomas, Clark, & Chittipeddi, 1994).
Typical interventions documented in the literature involve senior managers imposing salient observations,
beliefs, and goals for their subordinates to consider in their sense-making process (Gioia & Chittipeddi,
1991; Gioia et al., 1994; Sonenshein, 2010).
Furthermore, megaprojects consist of many documents produced by many people in different places, all of
them saturated with meaning. When these documents are used in context, their meaning is always subject
to indexical interpretation (Garfinkel, 1967). Project actors will have different interests in different
aspects of meaning-making associated with the project. The meaning-making process is useful for
studying how a working group produces 'relevance' in a situation (Gherardi, 2012).
However, there is still little research mobilizing the perspective of meaning-making in megaprojects,
except for some recent studies that adopt a theoretical perspective. This is the case of, (Lehtinen &
Aaltonen, 2020) who conducted studies to understand "how actors in a project network make sense of a
safety-related innovation process introduced during the design phase, and their empirical analysis
produces nine distinct narratives, each advancing a different underlying logic". Brunet, (2021) who drew
on the conceptual work of Brunet and Aubry (2016) to explore how project actors make sense of the
governance framework in megaprojects. Dyer, (2017) argues that understanding the socio-cultural context
of stakeholders through meaning-making can act as a lever to improve the management of risks associated
with a successful megaproject. Finally, Brunet & Forgues, (2019) investigate the collective perception of
success of a major project through the shared understanding of key project stakeholders and material
artefacts.
It is in this context that the present research aims to understand the relationship between power and the
Sensemaking process in mega-projects. In the light of the above findings we can pose the following
research question: RQ: What is the place of power in the Sensemaking process in megaprojects in
Senegal? From all the debates we have mentioned, the specific questions of our research follow: How is
power created, maintained and used in megaprojects? What are the mechanisms that generate
collective meaning-making in the face of power dynamics? In the face of different power practices,
how do project actors manage to implement their sensemaking process in mega-projects?
Thus, our research will have different theoretical and managerial contributions:
On the theoretical level, the main ambition of our work will be to shed light on an aspect that is little dealt
with in the literature: the place of stakeholder power in the Sensemaking process in a megaproject context.
It allows us to identify the elements that are conducive to Sensemaking and the mechanisms that generate
Sensemaking in the face of the power of the various stakeholders in the megaproject. In managerial terms,
our work will enable megaproject managers to review their decision-making processes by giving
importance to all project stakeholders. This is done by giving autonomy, cooperation based on a shared
commitment, trust and above all by encouraging communication and dialogue before decisions are made.
In addition, this grant will allow me to travel back and forth to carry out my fieldwork because access to
the field will be our main concern, due to the sensitivity of the subject and the unavailability of project
coordinators. It will also allow us to attend international conferences to better refine our research problem
and finally it will allow us to download scientific articles online.
II. Conceptual and theoretical framework of the research
a. Definition of megaprojects
Looking at most of the definitions given to megaprojects, it can be seen that they vary from one author to
another. Moreover, the label megaproject is not used by all authors and the characteristics always differ
from one definition to another. Grun (2004) calls them the "giants" among projects; he emphasizes the
aspect of multi-organizational undertakings and characterizes them by singularity, complexity, goal
orientation (technical, financial, temporal) and the nature and number of project owners. Also called large-
scale engineering projects as described by Hassan et al (1999) based on five attributes: "high" capital cost,
"long" duration but urgency of the programme, technologically and logistically demanding, requiring
multidisciplinary inputs from many organizations, and leading to a "virtual enterprise" for project
execution.
b. Stakeholder power in mega-projects
Individuals use a variety of ways to exercise power over others and to negotiate political interactions
within organizations. The workplace is a political arena in which employees are often confronted with
situations in which they have to choose how to react to others who use power in ways they do not prefer,
adopt or support. For example, in their study of an infrastructure mega-project, Ninan et al. (2019) observe
overt power strategies in use, such as the use of persuasion, delegation, give and take, flexibility and doing
extra work for stakeholders. For Clegg et al.2016, there is always an explicitly overt power function in
megaprojects.
c. The sensemaking perspective in megaprojects
Weick's sensemaking is part of the constructivist paradigm, which some also describe as interpretativist,
since from the diversity of interpretations given by different organizational actors emerges a shared
perception of reality and the environment in which they operate (Laramée,2010). Communication between
organizational actors is seen as a process of interaction and shared meanings. For Weick (1995), the
organization represents a reality that organizational actors perceive according to their own thought
patterns. Meaning-making plays a key role in megaprojects and more importantly its stakeholders as it
underpins two important factors: (1) the role people play in constructing the situations they are trying to
understand (Stucliffe, 2013) and (2) the impact on organizational processes, strategic change, decision
making, innovation and creativity and organizational learning (Maitlis and Christianson, 2014).
III. Research field
Our research field will be Senegal. The choice of Senegal is justified by the fact that it is a traditional host
country for a wide variety of mega-projects. It is also justified by Senegal's willingness to implement
mega-infrastructures in the framework of the Emerging Senegal Plan (PSE).
IV. Research Methodology
In this doctoral thesis, we will adopt an exploratory qualitative methodological approach with a critical
realist posture of Roy Bhaskar.
V. Expected results
At the end of this doctoral research, we expect to gain a general understanding of the relationship between
power and the Sensemaking process through the perceptions of megaproject actors. Subsequently, at the
end of this research, we expect to identify the ways in which power practices influence the proper
functioning of this process. Finally, this work will allow us to understand the capacity of megaproject
actors to implement the Sensemaking process in the face of these practices.
VI. Analysis plan
Chapter 1: the state of play of mega infrastructure in africa
Section 1: African infrastructure: impact, financing and governance
 Section 2: Senegalese infrastructure
Chapter 2: Conceptual and theoretical framework of the research
Section 1: The essential notions of megaproject, power and Sensemaking
Section 2: The relationship between stakeholder power and sensemaking in megaprojects
Chapter 3: research methodology
Section 1: Research Epistemology
Section 2: Data collection and processing
Chapter 4: results and discussion
Section 1: Results
Section 2: Discussion
VII. Schedule of activities
Date Activities
2021-2022 Finalization of the problem researcher

2022-2023 Interview and data processing

2023-2024 Finalise thesis and send draft

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