Sense of community affects community satisfaction: Mediating role of community participation

Abstract Community satisfaction is a central component of community development because it indicates the overall contentment of residents with their community. As such, it can indicate the directions for community development. This study is aimed at examining a sense of community and community participation as factors influencing community satisfaction in the Yirgachefe district of Ethiopia. We collected data from 360 randomly selected household heads (male = 80.2%, female = 19.2%) residing in 12 rural communities. We used structural equation modeling to analyze the data. Results revealed that residents with a higher sense of community were more likely to have participated in their community and to be satisfied with their community. However, sense of community only indirectly influenced community satisfaction and had an insignificant direct effect on community satisfaction. There is a fully mediating effect of community participation between sense of community and community satisfaction. We propose policy implications based on the study.