Crises and Coping Strategies in Megaprojects: The Case of the Islamabad–Rawalpindi Metro Bus Project in Pakistan

Rehab Iftikhar,Ralf Müller,Tuomas Ahola

doi:10.1177/87569728211015850

Rehab Iftikhar, Ralf Müller + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.1177/87569728211015850

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Abstract

This study focuses on crises in megaprojects and on the strategies used to cope with them. The context examined is the Islamabad–Rawalpindi Metro, a megaproject in Pakistan. Our empirical data comprise semistructured interviews, illustrative materials, and archival data, analyzed using grounded theory. In the crisis management model, we divide crises into four categories: (1) internal technical/economic; (2) internal social; (3) external technical/economic; and (4) external social crises; and link them to six distinct coping strategies: communication, coordination, resource mobilization, planning and multitasking, negotiation, and compensation. We observe that the first three of these strategies are generic in nature, whereas the three latter are crisis-specific strategies.

Highlights

Megaprojects are temporary organizations undertaken to plan and execute complex large-scale infrastructure project ventures with a long duration and a high budget that involve multiple stakeholders (Gillett & Tennent, 2017; Locatelli & Mancini, 2010; Flyvbjerg et al, 2000)
As the aforementioned prior research focused on a single crisis event, which resulted in extensive damage to human life or the environment (Shrivastava et al, 1988), this study focuses on the variety of crises that megaprojects may have to deal with over time
We grouped them by themes, such as internal technical/economic, internal social, external technical/economic, and external social crises, in line with the theoretical basis discussed above

Summary

Introduction

Megaprojects are temporary organizations undertaken to plan and execute complex large-scale infrastructure project ventures with a long duration and a high budget (from several hundreds of millions to billions of dollars) that involve multiple stakeholders (Gillett & Tennent, 2017; Locatelli & Mancini, 2010; Flyvbjerg et al, 2000). Prior research has identified challenges and unexpected events associated with managing megaprojects (Flyvbjerg et al, 2000), mostly focusing on the management of risk (Flyvbjerg et al, 2003a), project culture (van Marrewijk, 2007), and technology adoption (Gil et al, 2012) These researches have addressed how organizations deal with unexpected events and deviations (Geraldi et al, 2010; Hällgren & Wilson, 2008, 2011), how to cope with uncertainty by learning from experience and conducting trials with multiple solutions (Pich et al, 2002), and identifying the different response approaches used to deal with them (Tukiainen et al, 2010). This article complements these studies by identifying and describing types of coping strategies used in crises

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