Investigating the Practices of Project Governance in Public Sector Infrastructure Program in Pakistan

Abstract

The governance of public sector infrastructure projects became an important area of interest in the literature on project management. Today, it is a focal point for policymakers to ensure successful appraisal and implementation of government-sponsored programs. This paper aims to investigate the current practices of project governance (PG) for steering the public sector infrastructure program in Pakistan. An empirical investigation was carried out among professionals of public sector organizations involved in different infrastructure development projects. Latent construct of PG was validated through second-order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and quantified the three dimensions of PG, i.e., portfolio direction (PD), sponsorship, effectiveness, and efficiency (SEE), and disclosure and reporting (DR) through the relative importance index (RII) method. The result showed that DR is among the least practicing dimension having RII = 0.55, while PD and SEE have shown similar prevalence with RII = 0.70 and 0.69, respectively. Overall, the most practicing item in the PG was “the alignment of portfolios with objectives and strategy” whereas the lowest practicing item relates to the “completeness of project information distribution due to the multi-layered bureaucratic system.” The findings of this study will guide the decision makers to take appropriate measures for enhancing the effectiveness of PG in Pakistan.

The impact of perceived organizational politics and political risk on project success through ethical leadership and the psychological contract

“…Contextual research findings suggest that organizations, corporations and portfolios invest in settings that perceive better political stability with an above-average return (Chepkoech and Rotich, 2017;Shakhov and Piterska, 2018). It is very rational and logical that individuals and organizations avoid investing in locations where their physical and financial safety and security are threatened (Embrechts et al, 2003;Khan et al, 2018). High levels of crime, terrorism, nationalization of property, armed conflicts, foreign invasion and corruption add to investment uncertainty and the perception of PR (Hassan et al, 2017;Islam et al, 2018;Millhollan and Kaarst-Brown, 2016).…”

“…The PC is based on mutual respect, beliefs, perceptions and informal obligations among employees and employers (Khan et al, 2018;Rani et al, 2018). It involves principles and transactional long-term social exchange and development among employees and employers (Kalkman and de Waard, 2017).…”

Visualizing the Knowledge Domain of Project Governance: A Scientometric Review

“…Objectives of public projects should be aligned with policies, and the top-down policy implementation affects the effectiveness of the project governance system [59,60]. As public projects are policy implementation tools for accomplishing government's programs, linking policies is the key governance practice in this kind of projects that needs to be followed [61].…”

Stakeholder Management in Public Sector Infrastructure Projects

“…In this regard, public sector project management is gradually becoming an imperative subject due to the demands for improvement in accountability and organizational effectiveness in government organizations. Despite the economic significance of infrastructure projects in developing countries, it has been generally observed that government officials are not well equipped with contemporary project management skills deemed necessary for attaining the desired outcomes (Khan et al, 2019a). In such countries, these high valued projects have to deal with issues that are distinctive to multiple layers of overdemanding stakeholders, weak procurement systems, and administrative approvals (Ahsan and Gunawan, 2010).…”

“…In recent years, scholars have addressed the issues in the performance of the public sector infrastructure of Pakistan (Gazder and Khan, 2018;Irfan and Hassan, 2017;Khan et al, 2019a;Khan et al, 2021a;Khan et al, 2021b;Khattak et al, 2016). The review of the aforementioned studies shows that the researchers have not addressed the theme of external SM in public sector infrastructure projects of Pakistan.…”