By Prof Dr André Nijhof and Nika Salvetti.
About two years ago we were involved in a trade mission to a developing country. This trade mission focused on cooperation in the field of ICT, so a visit to a local High-Tec was part of the program. Arriving at this High Tec Campus we noticed that it was ‘in the middle of nowhere’ and there were no offices of companies. The only building was from the park management and they assured us that all infrastructure for the companies was there for already a couple of years. When we asked what their current priority was, they answered initiating new high-tech campuses somewhere else around the capital of this country.
One way how to look at this story is to see it as a symptom of a failing and corrupt system. More than 10 million dollars paid for by a governmental institute with almost no added value. And these excesses of spending money linked to personal gain are visible in any sector, whether it is the FIFA or Alpe D’huzes as NGOs, Enron or Bernie Madoff in the corporate sector or the politicians mentioned in the Panama Papers from the governmental sector. These are just the visible cases. Probably there are many more that are just waiting to be revealed.
What’s going wrong? Maybe an important part of it is our focus on actions and results. In case of the High-Tec Campus all actions and results that were agreed upon were delivered, but still it could be considered a wasted effort. This is not something that can be solved by an input-output-outcome-impact-model. Instead we should acknowledge that intentions matter! What is your intentions when you engage in development projects? Is it just to serve your organizational or personal interest? Or is it to make a significant contribution to a bigger purpose? Conditions can always change, but if the intention is there people can adapt and still create positive impact. So for the High-Tec Campus the situation could be completely different if the people involved would have worked on it from a different intention.
In projects linked to international diplomacy there is often so much effort going into drafting clear project plans, assessing objective criteria in tender processes and auditing the delivery of actions and results. Of course this should be there to some extent as a backup option. But the difference between successful and non-successful project is often much more linked to the intentions of the people involved. But how much room is there to include perceptions about the intentions of people in international diplomacy? According to us, not enough!
About the authors:
Prof Dr André Nijhof is full professor in Sustainable Business and Stewardship and is visiting professor at Chang Gung University in Taiwan and the University for Peace in Costa Rica.
Nika Salvetti is a PhD candidate and practitioner in the field of CSR, Sustainability, Social Responsibility where she worked on in different developing countries such as Bangladesh, Uganda, Guatemala, as well as in Costa Rica, the overall Balkans and Middle East.
About Nyenrode Business Universiteit
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