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International Journal of Project Management 29 (2011) 795–796www.elsevier.com/locate/ijproman

Editorial

International Journal of Project Management special issue on “Complexitiesin managing mega construction projects”

Mega projects are huge undertakings that could cost up to$1 billion ormore, requiring resources that run intomillions ofmanhours, with numerous stakeholder with an extraordinary amount ofinterlinks, a time to complete of 5 years or more and generates highpublic attention. These introduce complexities into their execution.

Complexities in managing mega construction projects(MCP) can be spawned from three aspects: technical, socialand managerial aspects. Technical complexities of megaconstruction projects are determined by the design andtechnologies employed in the design and construction process-es; social aspects relate to complexities from the inadvertentimpact of megaprojects on the environment and social systemswithin their location of implementation; whilst managerialcomplexities are caused by the business and governance aspectsof projects including financial arrangement, scheduling, re-sources deployment and decision management.

Recently, many mega construction projects have been or arebeing built around the world, e.g. Dubai Tower, BeijingNational Stadium, the Pearl gas-to-liquid plant in Qatar, theGotthard Basistunnel, Crossrail, Hangzhou Bay Bridge, Taipei101 Tower, Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, etc. Managingthese mega projects requires understanding and addressing theassociated complexities with their implementation.

As research has shown, mega projects in infrastructure havemany times not produced favorable results. The disappointingresults are visible in budget and schedule overruns as well as ina general stakeholder dissatisfaction. Especially the socialcomplexity consisting of a combination of numerous, large andconflicting interests poses main challenges in the managementof mega infrastructure projects. These challenges need to beaddressed in order to successfully manage the expectedinvestment boom in infrastructure.

This special issue aims to provide a platform for practitionersand researchers in the area of construction management tocommunicate and discuss their experiences and researchoutcomes for understanding and managing the complexities ofmega construction projects. Specifically, Ding, Wu, Li and Luopresent a study on the safety control of metro construction ofWuhan Metro Line 2 (WML2). This study discusses howWML2 affects the safety of Wuhan Light Rail Line 1 (WLRL1)and its operation. It is identified that finite difference software

0263-7863/$ - see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. and IPMA. All rights reservedoi:10.1016/j.ijproman.2011.05.001

FLAC3D for geotechnical engineering can be adopted tosimulate the process of foundation pit excavation and to analyzethe impact of isolation pile construction, underground dia-phragm wall construction, foundation pit dewatering andexcavation on the bridge piers of WLRL1. The finite elementsoftware ANSYS is used to simulate the numerical model ofWLRL1. Moreover, the impact of construction scheme ofWML2 on the operation of WLRL1 is also presented in thepaper. According to the simulation results, the control standardsfor the operation safety of WLRL1 and the advices for the safetycontrol of the foundation pit construction are proposed.

Antoniadis, Edum-Fotwe and Thorpe provide the results offive case studies, with UK construction organisations, whichdemonstrate that the effects of socio-organo complexity ofinterconnections on project performance have similarities withthe behaviour of underdamped control systems. The resultshave implications for the way socio-organisational issues aremanaged but will also enable parallels to be drawn between thefields of project management and control systems.

Jia, Yang, Wang, Hong and You study the relationshipbetween mega projects and social conflicts by exploring megaprojects from the perspective of social conflict theory, anddevelops the conceptual model of mega projects, includingthree propositions: 1) mega projects are the outcomes of socialconflicts; 2) they function as safety valves in society; and 3)they have a close relationship with the level of politicalcentralization and economic development.

Sun and Zhang introduce an owner organization of a megaindustrial construction project and proposes that cross-func-tional and cross-professional coordination is critical to thecontinuous improvement and successful implementation of theorganization. Jia, Chen, Xue, Chen, Cao and Tang develop aframework of a program management maturity integratedmodel for mega construction programs, which consists of twosub-models: Organizational Management Sub-model andProcess Management Sub-model, by referring to SMCIs(Standardize, Measure, Control, and continuously Improve) ofOrganizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3).A case study indicates this model can improve the managementcapability of all three parties, i.e. owners, designers and maincontractors.

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796 Editorial

London and Siva develop a reflexive capability model fromthe social sciences theory of individual agent reflexivity toexplain the way in which firms as an entity can developawareness, responsiveness and adaptability for long-termsuccess in diverse international markets. This paper extends aprevious Australian study which developed the model groundedin empirical observations of internationalising design construc-tion firms by presenting the results of a second study ofMalaysian firms. Results indicate that the model of reflexivitycapability is a useful way to interpret practices that areundertaken in multi-partner relationships on larger and morecomplex projects.

Chen, Li, Xu and Hong present a multi-criteria decisionanalysis for environmental risk assessment (ERA) to avoid andeliminate damages and loss under natural disasters ininternational airport projects. An ANP model called ERA.

Airport is developed and tested through an experimental casestudy on three international hub airports in China. It is foundedthat ANP can be effectively used for risk assessment in thespecific utility mode.

Xue, Shen, Tan, Zhang and Fan establish the models formeasuring the value of information sharing (VIS) under (s, S)and Periodic Review (PR) inventory policies to help generalcontractor to improve materials and equipments management inconstruction supply chain at firm-level.

Guest EditorsHeng Li

H.L. Guo⁎Corresponding author at: Hong Kong Polytechnic University,

Hong Kong.E-mail address: bshengli@polyu.edu.hk