Stakeholder management through empowerment: modelling project success

Stakeholder management is part of the project management process and this ongoing research builds on previous studies in the field of relationship management in Hong Kong and Australia and presents a testable stakeholder management process model in which the concepts of empowerment, organizational culture, trust and commitment are used as a basis for exploring the process. This may appear somewhat paradoxical to the reader as project managers, traditionally, have been seen to attempt to mollify stakeholders while focusing their attention on the details of project management rather than to empower stakeholders to have a significant input to the project—empowerment being seen to encourage ‘interference’ from non‐specialists into the managers' domain. This change in attitude to stakeholders marks a culture change in the real estate and construction industry, brought about by an increased emphasis on relationship management. The research reported in this paper looks at the issues of stakeholder management via a research model that has identified project contextual factors which, through perceptual processes, influence empowerment and so the outcomes of the project. Hence, the problem addressed is how and why relationship management and stakeholder management are different in two unique cultures and what elements can be considered common and what elements are different.