The effect of megaproject external social responsibility on community acceptance: the mediating role of public trust

Purpose By extending corporate social responsibility research to a megaproject context, the purpose of this study is to examine the effect of megaproject external social responsibility (SR) on community acceptance through the mediating role of public trust. Design/methodology/approach Drawing from legitimacy theory as well as corporate social responsibility literature, this study developed hypotheses linking the constructs of SR, (public) trust and community acceptance of a megaproject. Thereby, a household survey questionnaire was administered to collect data from randomly selected 328 households in the local community who reside near the construction site of a mega hydropower project in Ethiopia. Guided by structural equation modelling, Smart Partial Least Squares4 (SmartPLS4) was utilized to analyze the data. Findings The empirical findings show that community-targeted SR has a significant positive effect on community acceptance of a megaproject, whereas the direct effect of natural environment-targeted SR on community acceptance was found to be non-significant. More importantly, the study reveals that trust in the contractor of the megaproject mediates the relationships between a megaproject SR (fully in the case of the natural environment and partially for community-targeted responsibility) and community acceptance. Originality/value The present study contributes to legitimacy theory by illustrating the consequences of megaproject external SR in terms of trust and community acceptance, an issue which has not received adequate attention in the project management literature.