Branding and governmentality for infrastructure megaprojects: The role of social media

Johan Ninan,Stewart Clegg,Ashwin Mahalingam

doi:10.1016/j.ijproman.2018.10.005

Abstract

This paper explores subtle strategies that megaproject teams develop in practice to manage stakeholders external to the project team. A governmentality approach is used to account for these strategies. A metro rail megaproject in India provides the case for the study. The strategies were identified through a content analysis of 640 project and non-project based Tweets posted by the metro rail organization. We augmented this dataset with the community's response through social media, as well as through semi-structured interviews that captured the project teams' responses. The findings indicate that the megaproject used various strategies: promoting the organization, giving progress updates, appealing to the community, as well as targeting of specific sections of the population. The effect of these attempts at governmentality through branding were observed in community discourses on social media platforms that echoed the strategic discourses projected by the megaproject while interviews enabled us to access the project team's responses. For the project community, the effects included a positive brand image, creating community brand advocates and building support for the project during contentious episodes. For the project team, the effects included job attraction, enhanced job perception as well as the creation of project team brand advocates. The relation between the governmentality instruments and their corresponding effects are theorized in six propositions.

Highlights

Infrastructure megaprojects tend to have large numbers of project participants arranged within a pluralistic governance structure (Gil, 2015), in which conflicting logics co-exist with diffused power among the stakeholders (Biesenthal et al, 2018)
Following the 5C’s framework of structuring a research article proposed by Lange & Pfarrer (2017), we have summarized the need for effective stakeholder management in megaprojects as the ‘Common ground’ and the difficulty in managing external stakeholders who cannot be governed by contract as the ‘Complication.’ The underperformance in megaproject resulting from scope creep and escalation of commitment is the ‘Concern’
We explored the intersection of two under-researched areas in the construction sector, branding and social media, as message and media for governmentality influences managing the project community

Summary

Introduction

Infrastructure megaprojects (which are generally defined as those costing more than 1 billion USD) tend to have large numbers of project participants arranged within a pluralistic governance structure (Gil, 2015), in which conflicting logics co-exist with diffused power among the stakeholders (Biesenthal et al, 2018). These characteristics of external stakeholders can make them demanding and sometimes unanticipated participants in projects (Szyliowicz & Goetz, 1995), often pursuing compensation in return for cooperation (Giezen, 2012), with demands that can lead to scope creep (Shapiro & Lorenz, 2000) and escalation of commitment (Ross & Staw, 1986) Governance instruments such as contracts cannot be used to manage external stakeholders so megaprojects have to rely solely on reactive strategic actions enacted in response to situations and definitions (Ninan & Mahalingam, 2017) as well as proactive preparation for strategic contingencies that might arise. We intend to use theories of power to study these strategies in practice

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Conclusion