The past and Present of Megaprojects

Söderlund, Jonas; Sankaran, Shankar; Biesenthal, Christopher

doi:10.1177/875697281704800602

Cited by 109 publications

(103 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…A recently published special issue on megaprojects in the Project Management Journal (PMJ) stresses that megaproject success is often driven by power related factors (Söderlund et al 2017).…”

Section: Organizational Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

External Stakeholder Management Strategies and Resources in Megaprojects: An Organizational Power Perspective

Sergeeva

Mahalingam

Clegg

2019

Project Management Journal

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Megaprojects involve managing external stakeholders with diverse interests. Using an Indian megaproject case study, we discuss how the project managed external stakeholders through strategies such as: persuasion, deputation, give and take, extra work for stakeholders, and flexibility. Drawing from theories and frameworks of power, we explain how these strategies emerge through a process of tactical clustering. We also analyze the resources available to the project team—such as recruitment discretion, government backing, and fund discretion—that influence these power dynamics and enable these strategies. We posit that changes in the resource base can significantly affect strategic action and, in turn, megaproject outcomes.

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Section: Organizational Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

External Stakeholder Management Strategies and Resources in Megaprojects: An Organizational Power Perspective

Sergeeva

Mahalingam

Clegg

2019

Project Management Journal

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“…A recent example of this was the Melbourne east west link project which was cancelled after spending 1 billion AUD of taxpayers' money due to public protest and a change of state government. On other occasions, communities may well be proactive in proud support of the infrastructure (Söderlund et al, 2017) expressing sentiments (Ninan et al, 2019a) celebrating its achievements.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Power and Strategies in the External Stakeholder Management of Megaprojects: A Circuitry Framework

Sergeeva¹,

Mahalingam²,

Clegg³

2020

EPOJ

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Infrastructure megaprojects can cause considerable inconvenience to external stakeholders such as project communities, stakeholders in lands and stakeholders in existing services. Managing these external stakeholders is difficult as they interact with the project across permeable boundaries, are unaccountable to the requirements of the project and cannot be governed with contractual instruments or conformance to standards, as is the case with internal stakeholders. Hence the project team must resort to other strategies to manage these stakeholders. There is at present little other than scattered accounts of the use of these strategies in the literature. What is missing is a framework to explain how such strategies work to manage external stakeholders. We use organizational power theories drawn from frameworks stressing both the dimensions and the circuits of power to understand how strategy and power interact in the process of managing external stakeholders. This research uses the case study of a metro rail project in India compiled from 30 semi-structured interviews, 168 news media articles along with their 446 user comments, and 640 social media tweets along with 435 community comments. Using a qualitative research methodology, we highlight relations of persuading, framing and hegemonizing strategies employed for managing the external stakeholders in the project. Covert power-based framing and hegemonizing strategies shape the visible overt power-based persuading strategies employed to manage external stakeholders.

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“…It provides a seemingly rational process for the selection of candidates for a research organisation, especially as the needs of the project changes during its lifecycle. There is some research examining megaprojects using a contingency theory perspective (Shenhar and Holzmann, 2017;Söderlund et al, 2017;Gil and Pinto, 2018);however the literature review did not identify any work examining the specific topics of senior leadership or LSRIs using this perspective.…”

Section: Contingency Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Tailoring Leadership to the Phase-Specific Needs of Large Scale Research Infrastructures

Eggleton

2020

SSRN Journal

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'Large Scale Research Infrastructures' (LSRIs), a subcategory of megaprojects which incorporate a characteristic of a high or 'super high' level of technological uncertainty, are often undertaken as cooperative projects with long lead times by one or more national governments. A lack of research into the effect of the LSRI project's lifecycle on the research organisation is apparent, particularly when scientists and engineers exercise freedom to organise the project directly. Two case studies used senior leadership selection as proxy for the LSRI project lifecycle using a contingency theory framework. These were the Tevatron (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, USA) and the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN). This LSRI lifecycle is mapped onto lifecycles used in theory and in policy. Previous research did not detect that these projects become institutionalised, so influencing the selection of new research organisation senior leadership according to its needs at that stage of its lifecycle. This represents something of a novelty as most contingency theory work is theoretical with few attempts to use it as a conceptual framework for empirical evidence. The findings indicate a second new understanding, that while the literature characterises a leadership style transition from democratic to authoritarian as the project progresses, LSRIs exhibit a reverse transformation, probably as a product of the characteristically high level of organisational technical competence. The construction of LSRIs maps better onto the traditional project lifecycle and the National Science Foundation's large facility lifecycle than onto other lifecycles. There is a policy opportunity to commission a 'generational survey' upon the completion of an LSRI, to understand the characteristics of the 'next big machine'. The author would like to thank the CERN Archives Service (Geneva, Switzerland) for granting access to restricted sections of the CERN Archives, and also the Fermilab History and Archives Project (Batavia, IL, USA) for access to the Fermilab Archives, and both for assisting with the creation of interviewee pools. This version of the paper benefitted from the advice and comments of the SPRU Working Papers Series (SWPS) Editors and Reviewers including Katherine Lovell. The original research could not have been possible without the advice and support of my PhD supervisors: Ben Martin, the late Puay Tang, and Martin Meyer. Thanks also to my PhD viva examiners, Josh Siepel and Andy Davies, for their valuable comments and advice. This research was supported by a Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) grant from the University of Sussex.

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The past and Present of Megaprojects

Cited by 109 publications

References 28 publications

External Stakeholder Management Strategies and Resources in Megaprojects: An Organizational Power Perspective

External Stakeholder Management Strategies and Resources in Megaprojects: An Organizational Power Perspective

Power and Strategies in the External Stakeholder Management of Megaprojects: A Circuitry Framework

Tailoring Leadership to the Phase-Specific Needs of Large Scale Research Infrastructures

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