The Formation of Public Private Partnerships - Dissertation Example

Because of the massive scale, investments, and a high number of stakeholders involved in these projects, they are often characterized as long-term, indeterminate, complicated, and politically sensitive. Even though there is an obvious need for such projects, extant literature suggests that that the majority of megaprojects exceed their anticipated costs, fall behind schedule, and fail to deliver in the terms used to justify the need for the project. Flyvbjerg (2007) points out “Cost overruns of 50% are common, overruns of 100% are not uncommon.

Stakeholders of mega-projects usually are International construction firms, private and public international financial institutions, and public-works bureaucracies, who form the multinational epistemic groups hence exercising significant influence in support of mega-projects, especially in developing nations (Goldman, 2001). This article talks about a few research queries that are centered around the concept of project management and its relevance with respect to mega projects. This article includes a section on a methodology that would act as a pathway to address research queries listed in this article.

Research Questions

Project management is an organized and structured plan to execute a project successfully. It may be highly challenging to context the statement that project management generates and add significant value to any project. The value added by project management is dependent on numerous factors and stakeholders’ perspective is one of those factors. Researchers (Zhai, Xin, & Cheng, 2009) studied the value of project management from stakeholders’ perspective and have proposed a value framework, the framework has also been certified with respect to its applicability through empirical study. The value framework proposed by (Zhai, Xin, & Cheng, 2009) is as shown in Figure 1. The research indicates that the implementation of project management in mega-projects can enhance the management capabilities of an organization. Still, the research has several limitations and as a result leads us to the following research queries (Zhai, Xin, & Cheng, 2009):

1. The applicability of the value framework of mega-project management is not fully displayed. In the case of aspects like “Technical Standards and Management Mechanisms” do not clearly indicate the value because of the applicability. The applicability of this value framework needs to be studied in an organization that operates at the national level and is a market leader.

Figure 1. Value Framework for Project Management in Mega-Projects.

2. Research needs to be carried out for each value dimension primarily to understand which value gets benefitted from the project management and for which stakeholder.
3. Since it is challenging to calculate ROI precisely, ROI was not included in the earlier research. Another reason for not including ROI has been that some part of investment in the type of project studied has intangible aspects like improving the project management system. Research needs to be carried out for exploring the specific value of project management in projects with varying levels of complexity and scales.

Methodology

Research methodology to address the first research query a large-sample survey at the national level needs to be carried out, the same query can also be addressed by analyzing a suitable case study that is relevant to Technical Standards and Management mechanisms. In the case of the second research query, empirical studies need to be carried out for analyzing four value dimensions. The final research query can be addressed by selecting appropriate projects with varied scales and complexity and these are analyzed with the help of empirical studies as indicated in the case of the second research query.