Managing stakeholders for implementing innovations: The case of a flood protection project in Kenya

This research seeks to understand how innovative projects can be implemented in weak institutional contexts by focusing on managing stakeholders in the single in-depth case study of the implementation of the WaveDam (previously called SLAMDAM) innovative project in the Isiolo County in Kenya. Following the analysis of 12 semi-structured interviews with 27 different stakeholders and 7 observations of stakeholder interactions, the authors answer the following questions: 1) what are the challenges during implementation of the innovation projects in weak-institutional contexts? 2) how are these challenges addressed through strategies? 3) how can we theorize the relationship between challenges and strategies in weak institutional contexts?

The challenges include community resistance, information fragmentation, disjoined efforts, and governance inefficiency. Theoretically, we highlight how ad-hoc workarounds are operationalized in weak-institutional contexts and how they can lead to lasting changes by building governance frameworks in the long term. Practically, this research offer valuable guidance for practitioners involved in innovative projects, particularly in developing countries with weak institutional frameworks.