ANT-based accounts have been interpreted instrumentally as advocating a Machiavellian approach to
management (Whittle and Spicer, 2008). We prefer the alternative interpretation from this case study that planned
control of the networks is unrealistic. But a means to address project issues as they arise during implementation, to
take incremental action and to improvise as necessary is required. Project management hence needs to be ‘a
creative drifting process’ (Ciborra, 1999), implying that the administrative point of passage must be through a
culturally embedded and committed individual.
Operating within the global network, international donor and development agencies cannot cause their development
objectives to be achieved by act of stipulation. Instead, they must understand existing practices and how these
can be re-appropriated in a network of other actors in a particular local environment. There are often requirements
for development projects to be undertaken quickly and in conformity with claimed international best practice. But
the analysis here shows how this may result in inadequate and insufficient assessments of the risks posed, punitive
timelines, unrealistic demands and unmanageable complexities for the beneficiary organisation caused by the failure
of the project designers and implementers to consider the due process required to introduce a new actor—that is, a
development project innovation—into established networks.