Abstract: This article advances theoretical, empirical, and practical understanding of Adaptive Project Management through a critical multi-stakeholder analysis grounded in Sierra Leone. The study addresses a significant gap in the literature: the predominance of donor-centric perspectives and the corresponding absence of voices from local partners and community beneficiaries who experience adaptive practice. While Adaptive Project Management has emerged as a dominant paradigm promising enhanced effectiveness in complex environments, evidence of its equitable implementation remains scarce. The research asks how institutional, contextual, and operational factors influence the perceived efficacy of Adaptive Project Management from the perspectives of an international NGO, its local partners, and community beneficiaries in Sierra Leone. The study introduces an integrated theoretical framework combining complexity theory, institutional theory, theories of power, and collective action theory. This framework reveals Adaptive Project Management as a fundamentally political phenomenon rather than a merely technical one. Complexity theory provides the rationale for adaptive approaches in unpredictable environments. Institutional theory warns of isomorphic mimicry, where organisations adopt the forms of adaptation for legitimacy while core practices remain unchanged. Theories of power expose the asymmetries that determine whose voice counts and who bears the risks of adaptation. Empirically, the study draws on qualitative data collected over six months in Sierra Leone using an instrumental case study design focused on Christian Aid and its partner network. Data collection comprised forty-two interviews, six focus group discussions, document analysis, and thirty days of participant observation. Findings reveal profound tension between adaptive rhetoric and practice. International staff frame adaptation as strategic, yet implementation reveals isomorphic tendencies where teams adapt in practice while maintaining the facade of original plans for donors. Power asymmetries are pronounced: partners can adapt implementation tactics but cannot reshape strategic objectives without lengthy approval processes, and the burden of adaptation falls disproportionately on local organisations through uncompensated labour. The study makes three contributions. Theoretically, it advances an integrated framework revealing Adaptive Project Management as a site of political struggle over authority and risk. Empirically, it provides rare multi-stakeholder evidence centring Southern voices typically absent from adaptive management discourse. Practically, it offers implications for reconfiguring funding mechanisms, partnership models, and accountability systems to foster more equitable adaptive practice. Realising the transformative potential of adaptive approaches requires confronting the power dynamics that underpin the development system itself.
Mattia Andrew Koi Dimoh (Thu,) studied this question.