Managing public–private megaprojects: Paradoxes, complexity, and project design
2008
391 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Abstract Recent studies show that despite their growing popularity, megaprojects – large-scale, complex projects delivered through various partnerships between public and private organisations – often fail to meet costs estimations, time schedules and project outcomes and are motivated by vested interests which operate against the public interest. This paper presents a more benign and theoretically-grounded view on what goes wrong by comparing the project designs, daily practices, project cultures and management approaches of two recent megaprojects in The Netherlands and Australia, showing how these projects made sense of uncertainty, ambiguity and risk. We conclude that project design and project cultures play a role in determining how managers and partners cooperate to achieve project objectives to a greater or lesser extent.
Subfields: Management Science and Operations Research, Strategy and Management
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a77d02c23972c1f557a291afcfc0f9eb2c12d678
Citations in the corpus
- Risk, uncertainty and governance in megaprojects: A critical discussion of alternative explanations (2012, neutral): “van Marrewijk et al., 2008 437 J. Sanderson / SciVerse ScienceDirect 30 (2012) 432–443”
- Managing global megaprojects: Complexity and risk management (2013, positive): “High levels of public attention and/or political interest are attracted due to the substantial cost, and direct and indirect impact these projects have on the community, environment, and budgets (Capka, 2004; van Marrewijk et al., 2008).”
- Resources and Governance in "Base of the Pyramid"-Partnerships: Assessing Collaborations between Businesses and Non-Business Actors (2014, positive): “…cooperation with private companies that differ significantly in terms of culture and organizational aims from nonbusiness partners (cf. van Marrewijk et al., 2008). b) Non-business partners’ limited budgets favor a focus on non-tangible assets compared to physical assets. c) These types…”