Stakeholder analysis in the dynamic and complex environment of megaprojects

Abstract

A megaproject is typically characterized as having a huge investment scale, a complicated organizational structure, high technical difficulty, and a profound impact on national and regional socioeconomic development. With greater project complexity compared to the traditional projects, the success of megaprojects depends on the active collaboration of the stakeholders. The stakeholder structure in megaprojects is dynamic and complex. On the one hand, megaprojects have long-term project duration, so stakeholder participation varies in such a dynamic environment. In particular, these stakeholders continuously join or withdraw at different stages of amegaproject. On the other hand, a large number of stakeholder interactions occur in this complex project environment as they are deeply involved in various associated issues in these megaprojects. Therefore, understanding the stakeholder interactions in the dynamic and complex environment of megaprojects is essential in achieving better stakeholder management. The primary aim of the current study is to develop robust approaches with which to analyze stakeholder interactions in the dynamic and complex environment of megaprojects. To achieve the research aim, this study breaks down the research objectives step by step as follows: (1) propose an analytical approach to evaluate stakeholder dynamics in the megaprojects; (2) propose an analytical approach to evaluate stakeholder complexities in the megaprojects; and (3) propose an analytical approach to evaluate stakeholder performance in the dynamic and complex environment of megaprojects. To achieve these research objectives, a comprehensive review of the development of stakeholder analysis and promising research techniques was conducted. A topic modelling approach, a classical text-mining based method, was further developed to address the dynamic stakeholder analysis in megaprojects. Then, a traditional network modelling approach was upgraded to analyze the longitudinal patterns of stakeholder complexity in various phases of megaprojects. Furthermore, an integration model was designed based on the NK organizational simulative model, along with a two-mode network model to evaluate the stakeholder performance while considering the dynamic and complex environment of megaprojects. The research findings can be grouped into three parts. First, the proposed dynamic stakeholder-associated topic model provides a text-mining based method, which can analyze the stakeholder dynamics by exploring the knowledge from large quantities of unstructured project documents. Second, the proposed longitudinal stakeholder-associated network model provides a systematic method, which can analyze the stakeholder complexities based on the classical two-mode network model. Third, the proposed Network-NK model provides a simulative method to evaluate the stakeholder performance under the dynamic and complex environment of megaprojects. This study has three theoretical contributions to the literature. First, by using longitudinal text data from the official project documents, the proposed dynamic stakeholder-associated topic model fills the gap related to the lack of data on the analysis of stakeholder dynamics. Second, the proposed longitudinal stakeholder-associated network model fills the gap regarding the lack of longitudinal network studies, which provide a full picture of stakeholder complexities in the whole lifecycle of a megaproject. Third, the proposed Network-NK model introduces the complex adaptive system modeling technique into the evaluation of stakeholder performance, thus providing a simulative method that would allow us to better understand the stakeholder evolution and resilience in the dynamic and complex environment of megaprojects. Meanwhile, the practical research contributions are summed into three aspects. First, by exploring knowledge from unstructured official project documents, the proposed dynamic stakeholder-associated topic model provides a method by which decision makers can perform dynamic stakeholder management in megaprojects. Second, the proposed longitudinal stakeholder-associated network model can help researchers and decision makers learn about critical stakeholder issues, stakeholder relationships, and management strategies from the complex stakeholder structures in the historic megaprojects. Finally, the proposed Network-NK model is beneficial for decision makers as they forecast and review stakeholder performance in the development of megaprojects by detecting the weaknesses of stakeholder performance and assessing the relevant issues with poor resilience for each project stakeholder.