Characteristics of external activators in third world village development

Civil engineers as managers of development projects need social and psychological insights for better understanding of the issues surrounding the development projects. Today, managers of development projects can not afford risking the failure of development projects by focusing only on the technical aspects and ignoring the human aspects which are integral parts of development projects. This study is focused on the human aspects of development projects, and hopes to help civil engineers realize that if they want to have successful development projects, they must pay more attention to the social and human aspects of the development projects. Four hypotheses were developed about the effects of different characteristics of external activators (E.A.s) on the success of the development projects. These characteristics are: equal emphasis on achieving both technical and social goals, villagers' greater role in different phases of the projects, conversion of villagers' latent needs into expressed needs, and E.A.s' preparation in education, experience, orientation to type of work and orientation to the area. A questionnaire was developed to test the hypotheses and was sent to different E.A.s for response. The sample in this study was a convenience sample and the intention of the study was not to generalize the results of the hypotheses, but to determine relationships between variables for the purpose of generating hypotheses for future testing. Statistical analysis was conducted on the data that was gathered from the returned questionnaires. Data analysis does not support that equal emphasis on achieving both technical and social goals by E.A.s results in more overall success, but it does suggest that: (1) Greater villagers' role in different phases of the projects results in more overall success in the projects. (2) There is more success in the projects, if villagers recognize their needs and ask the E.A.s for their help. (3) E.A.s with more preparation in the type of work that they will be performing in the projects have more overall success in the projects.