Project governance framework for public poverty alleviation projects in Malaysia / Abdul Muhaimin Abdul Latiff

The successful planning, implementation, and operation of poverty alleviation projects are crucial for establishing optimum benefits to its intended target groups. Project governance is identified as a management system that comprises a set of values and structure that could be practiced by the public officials in managing poverty alleviation projects with the ultimate aim to improve the quality of life of poor people. Although numerous programs and projects that have been implemented by the government have contributed to the reduction in poverty incident, there are pressing needs to address the better understanding of project governance at both strategic and operational levels of project organization, particularly from the perspective of public officials through the stewardship theoretical lens. The aim of the research is to explore the governance practices of poverty alleviation projects in Malaysia which subsequently lead to the development of a project governance framework. This research first determined the current state of project governance practices, elements, and issues in Malaysia's poverty alleviation programs through the exploratory study. A qualitative approach through multiple case studies was then utilized as the main data collection method, including interview, document analysis, observation, field notes, and research journal. Five (5) public poverty alleviation projects have been selected, with a total of 31 interviews conducted to investigate the practices of project governance in poverty alleviation projects and its embedded elements. Thematic analysis was adopted to analyze the interview transcripts and documents with NVivo 12 Plus used to manage the coding process. The cross-case and pattern matching discovered eight (8) project governance practices in three (3) project management phases and eight (8) project governance elements in the poverty alleviation projects. From the governance practices and elements, this research proposed a project governance framework that was validated by the public officials expert through the focus group discussion. This research found two (2) main elements, namely altruistic empathy and intrinsic motivation, that drive project governance practices and positively interplayed with six (6) other project governance elements throughout project planning, implementation, and operation. However, political interventions, weak project leadership, transparency issues, and lack of competency significantly influence poverty alleviation projects' governance. This research demonstrates the flexibility of stewardship theory in portraying project governance insights in the poverty alleviation projects towards its successful outcome. A newly constructed framework added depth to the project governance, particularly the elements of altruistic empathy and intrinsic motivation, signifying the unique setup and motivation that drive project governance practices. Besides, the findings offer further integration of project governance within public governance policy substance as the poverty alleviation projects are part of the national development initiatives. Also, exploring public officials’ motivation and their subjective meanings demonstrates that empirical findings could be generated from the combination of these research methods and research paradigm. The outcome of the research should enable the adoption of a project governance framework that is ready to be incorporated into the current system and a better understanding of how they are practiced, which could improve the public organizations involved in the poverty alleviation projects in Malaysia.