Participative Leadership and Success of Government Construction Projects in Uganda: Testing the participative leadership dimensions.

Abstract

This paper aimed at establishing whether all dimensions of Participative Leadership, namely consultation, delegation, and collective decision making, matter in the Success of Government Construction Projects in Uganda. The study employed a cross-sectional and quantitative approach utilising a self-administered questionnaire to gather data. Stratified random sampling was used to select a sample of 100 construction projects from a population of 120 from the five divisions of Kampala district (KCCA website). Later, purposive sampling was used to select a project manager, engineer, contractor and local council leader from each of the 100 projects arriving at a total of 400 respondents. Using SPSS, correlation analysis examined the association between variables, while linear regression analysis assessed each participative leadership dimension to project success. Results revealed stakeholder consultation and joint decision-making are the most significant participative leadership style dimensions of project success. Theoretically, this study provides maiden evidence of the insignificant contribution of delegation to the success of government construction projects, highlighting stakeholder consultation and joint decision-making as key components in project success based on findings from Uganda. In practice, while executing, managers should consult and jointly make project decisions with stakeholders to realise project success.