Moderating Effect of Enterprise Environmental Factors on the Relationship Between Project Management Practices and Sustainability of Food Security Projects in Arid Lands, Kenya

Although inclination with execution related to food projects in many regions has displayed substantial improvements, the tendency with sustainability is relatively unsatisfactory, as less projects shows continuity. Government has put measures by creating partnership to implement food security projects towards improving food access and security among communities in arid lands. However, some projects remain partially operational after the withdrawal of the main donor while others become defunct and variations from one county to another is noticeable. The difference in the levels of sustainability had been hypothesized to be attributed to enterprise environmental factors (EFFs). This study thus sought to examine the moderating effect of EEFs on the relationship between project management practices and the sustainability of food security projects in arid lands in Kenya. The study is anchored on contingency theory. Positivist philosophy is deemed appropriate for this study. Explanatory research design was adopted. The study targeted 413 food security projects implemented between the year 2014 and 2017 and within eight Counties in arid lands in Kenya with a sample of 203 food security projects. The respondents were 243, consisting of project group leaders, UN agencies representative and County government representatives. Stratified random sampling was used to obtain proportionate (obtained suing Slovin’s Formula) samples from each of the eight Counties. Primary data was collected using self-administered questionnaire. Characteristics of the data was explained using means and standard deviation. Various diagnostic tests were carried out after which step-wise regression was applied to test the moderating effects. The results indicated that EEFs moderated the relationship between the project management practices and sustainability of food security projects. The study recommends that project leaders embrace various EEFs such as policies to improve the effects of project management practices on the performance of the food security projects.