Reimagining Infrastructure Megaproject Delivery: An Australia—New Zealand Perspective

Infrastructure megaprojects are increasing in size and number worldwide. Widespread shortcomings such as cost overruns, delays, litigious threats, and community opposition are now so pervasive there is a clear mandate to rethink the way we plan, deliver, and operate our infrastructure. In this context, we situate this research to understand how...

Governance Through Trust: Community Engagement in an Australian City Rebuilding Precinct

City rebuilding precincts are embedded in, surrounded by, and sometimes resisted or celebrated by stakeholders they impact. These projects require long-lasting relationships and loyalty from the community they serve, making trust a crucial factor. This article employs a case study approach and draws from both social exchange and circuit of power...

Moving goals and governance in megaprojects

Project management is known for its tools and techniques that are used to plan and deliver projects in a controlled context. Megaprojects don't always fit well into this paradigm due to their size, complexity and longevity. Megaprojects often start without precisely defined goals and without a detailed knowledge of how the project will...

Megaproject and the city: Theorizing social media discourses across the lifecycle of an infrastructure project

Managing the perception of project communities is critical to the success of infrastructure megaprojects. This study focuses on the Nagpur metro rail project in India to understand people's experiences and discourses in the pre-construction, construction, and operation phases. We use qualitative content analysis and open coding of the tweets...

Comparisons as a discursive tool: shaping megaproject narratives in the United Kingdom

The mobilization of narratives is essential in integrating people and constructing identities that help in navigating complexity, uncertainty, and conflictuality. This paper explores how comparisons are used as a discursive tool to shape narratives and bring about changes in policy and society, using the High Speed Two megaproject in the UK as a...

Deconstructing Organizational Capabilities of Megaproject Owners: Dimensions and Levels

Given that a strong owner has been identified as an important factor in the success of megaprojects, there has been a growing recognition of the importance of megaproject owner organizational capabilities. However, the questions of what organizational capabilities do owners need to foster successful megaprojects, and whether these...

Neglecting exit doors: How does regret cost shape the irreversible execution of renewable energy megaprojects?

The energy transition process nowadays is characterized by the replacement of fossil fuels-based means of production with renewable energy (RE). Alongside the diffusion of decentralized RE, this process is associated with the increased promotion of RE megaprojects. Such megaprojects, however, are often shaped by path-dependent lock-ins and thus...

Battle of narratives: Interaction between narratives and counter-narratives in megaprojects

Megaprojects along with creating value to the economy, create environmental, social and political disruptions in its local environment. Narratives guide social action and hence both the promoters and the protesters of a project mobilize narratives to advance their interest. In this process, narratives and counter-narratives are (re)created and...

Explorative Learning in Infrastructure Development Megaprojects: The Case of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge

Research on explorative learning has primarily focused on the organizational level. Not much research has been done at the megaproject level, which is a more complex form of organizing. Therefore, it is advisable to analyze how the pursuit of explorative learning is enabled at the megaproject level. This research draws upon the case study of...

Mobilizing Megaproject Narratives for External Stakeholders: A Study of Narrative Instruments and Processes

Megaprojects combine multiple external stakeholders, and a common narrative is essential to drive the project among often conflicting objectives. Narratives help organize people toward an agenda and therefore have performative and strategic implications. In this research, we explore how narratives are mobilized through narrative instruments...

‘Filling the mattress’: Trust development in the governance of infrastructure megaprojects

The development of trust is a major challenge for the governance of public private infrastructure megaprojects. Contractual pre-arrangements should provide a blueprint for collaborative behavior and trust development but the characters of megaprojects challenge such arrangements. This longitudinal study explores practices of trust development...

What motivates stakeholders to engage in collaborative innovation in the infrastructure megaprojects?

Collaborative innovation has become an innovation paradigm to improve innovation performance and firms’ economic output. However, there is relatively little research investigating stakeholders’ drivers for engaging in collaborative innovation and the relative importance of drivers in infrastructure megaprojects. This research aims to address...

Shanghai’s Regenerated Industrial Waterfronts: Urban Lab for Sustainability Transitions?

In China, Shanghai often serves as a place to introduce and try out new ideas. This is certainly the case with experimental urban planning and design solutions and sustainability transitions. This article identifies and evaluates the role of pilot projects and demonstration zones along the Huangpu River. These clusters and zones are supposed to...

Spatial-temporal dynamics of social value: Lessons learnt from two UK nuclear decommissioning case studies

Recently, the concept of social value in construction has seen increasing policy, practice and research interest. In part, this interest stems from growing recognition that construction projects, and especially megaprojects, can create huge social impacts. Although many studies have focussed on defining and developing measures for quantifying...

Institutional fragmentation in megaprojects: Lessons from the Metro C project in Rome

A strategic infrastructure project in Rome, Italy, and namely the Metro C line, is presented here for scrutinising how institutional frameworks and governance arrangements shape megaproject implementation. On the one side, we look at legal endowments and institutional reforms related to a still incomplete territorial rescaling; on the other...

Adaptive Policies: A way to improve the cost-benefit performance of megaprojects?

Megaprojects are built as a result of a policy that tries to cope with an expected demand in the future. To assess the financial viability of a megaproject, a Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) is performed, which is very much dependent on the accuracy of predictive models that are used to forecast future demand. The outcomes of these models are very...

Success in major transport infrastructure projects

Major transport infrastructure projects have a calamitous history of cost overruns, delays, and overestimated travel demand forecasts. Costs and construction periods for major transport infrastructure projects are frequently underestimated, and benefits overestimated. This leads to suboptimal prosperity, decreased faith in governments and...