Megaprojects' success perception by stakeholders in local communities: A study of Silk Road Economic Belt

Megaprojects are commonly known as large-scale projects which costs at least 1 billion USD. Megaprojects are implemented internationally, they impact millions of people, and take many years to be completed. Generally, megaprojects are infrastructural projects and they, for instance, can contribute to the country’s development, boost some infrastructural sectors, connect different regions by construction of roads, provide the opportunity for new businesses.Due to their scale and scope, megaprojects involve both primary and secondary stakeholders which have different interests, and therefore, different perception of success. Hence, project manager should identify each stakeholder and consider their interests from the very beginning of the project.As a case study for the current research it was decided to explore the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB), which is a part of One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative by China. SREB road has a very significant meaning than the previous historic Silk Way, and it will connect Asia with Europe. The old trade Silk way will be updated till huge international infrastructural megaproject. This research focuses on Kazakhstan, which one of the key actors in that project, and which is world 9th biggest country.The main purpose of the current research is to increase the understanding about how secondary stakeholders perceive the success of megaprojects. We limited the research by stakeholders in local communities, so we can explore that topic more comprehensively. In order to find the answer on research question, seven semi-structured interviews were conducted. It was decided to follow the Business-Government-Society (BGS) model (Steiner & Steiner, 1980) and focus on stakeholders from three different sectors (business, government, society). Furthermore, through analysis of secondary data we got more holistic picture about research area.The research findings show that depending on communities’ sector the success perception differs. Furthermore, it was concluded from the findings that different local communities have different techniques and tools to evaluate the success, and therefore some of them perceive and estimate success in qualitative way, but others in quantitative way. In addition, the research showed that it is important to consider local communities’ interests during the project planning phase because it influences the projects’ success.The theoretical contribution of the current research is realized during the analysis of empirical findings and during the review of existing literature. The practical implication of the work is to provide the guidance on local community management in megaprojects and on how these communities perceive the success of projects