The trickle-down effect of psycho-social constructs and knowledge deficiencies as organizational barriers to cost performance on highway projects

Abstract

The study aims to proffers a theoretical narrative explaining the poor financial performance of public highway agencies in Nigeria. This study critically spotlights seminal works in the literature offering theoretical narratives on the poor financial performance of public infrastructure projects, as to discuss whether they adequately capture the relationship between the psychological factors, project governance/leadership issues, ands well as knowledge/skill deficiencies related to the cost performance of infrastructure projects in the developing world. The evaluation reveals the predominant contextual exclusivity of these theoretical narratives to the developed world, which tend to under-representis mostly not reflective developing countries, such as those on the African continent. Design/methodology/approach Using athe case study research strategy, longitudinal dDocumentary/aArchival data for 61 highway projects were analyzedas carried. Sixteen16 interviews were also conducted with highway officials from the three highway agencies responsible for the execution of the projects. A two2-stage deductive-inductive thematic analysis of the collated data wais carried out to identify barriers to the financial management of public highway projects, the result of which is cognitively mapped out. Findings The study showcases empirical insight on cost overruns experienced in Nigerian public projects, due toas the trickle-down effect of the human and organizational environment, as well as due to workers' knowledge/skill deficiencies. Research limitations/implications The developed theory is contextual to Nigeria, as such there is scope for testing its generalisability to other developing nations.

Key driving factors of cost overrun in highway infrastructure projects in Nigeria: a context-based perspective

“…suitable data source and collection technique (Bryman and Bell, 2015). This is also in line with the recommendation of Amadi and Higham (2018) that, it is very vital to take a more contextually embedded view to have a broader understanding of the complex web of issues that are responsible for cost overrun in highway infrastructure projects. From the aforementioned, the study adopted a qualitative case study approach.…”

“…In all, 16 stakeholders across the 3 key organisations were interviewed for the study with experiences ranging from 10 years to more than 20 years. Though the issue of representation in field-oriented research is still debated Steinberg (2010) and Baker and Edwards (2012), this sample is, thus, considered a fair representation considering other studies from similar context Amadi and Higham (2018) and Amadi and Higham (2017) and also by considering the experience, knowledge of the contextual issues and geographical location of the participants (Kolb, 2008). Furthermore, in line with the recommendation of Guest et al (2006), data saturation can occur within the first 12 interviews after which few new phenomena are likely to emerge.…”

Integration in a mixed-method case study of construction phenomena: from data to theory

“…Like Curry et al (2011), the answers to these research questions were found to be rooted in political/project governance issues, that trickled down to the individual organizational practices of the highway agencies (Figure 8). Whereby psycho-social constructs and knowledge deficiencies acted as organizational barriers to cost performance on the highway projects (Amadi and Higham, 2018b).…”

Understanding the dynamics of cost overrun triggers in highway infrastructure projects in Nigeria: a systems thinking modelling approach

“…The purpose of the interview was to explore vital and useful information from project stakeholders involved in highway construction projects on their perception and understanding of problematic issues related to cost overrun that is specific to the context of the study. Though the issue of representation in field oriented research is still debated Steinberg (2010) and Baker and Edwards (2012), this sample is thus considered a fair representation considering other studies from similar context Amadi and Higham (2018) and Amadi and Higham (2017) and also by considering the experience, knowledge of the contextual issues and geographical location of the participants (Kolb, 2008). In the second stage, 9 interviews with some stakeholders, as illustrated in Table 2, who participated in the first stage interview were conducted to validate the CLDs and the underlying conceptual thinking as suggested by Rwashana et al (2014).…”