Decision-making Process in Infrastructure Projects and Losses due to Delayed Decision-making in Public Sector Projects of Pakistan

Abstract

In recent years, the subject of decision-making in public infrastructure projects has become an important topic not only in project management but also in programme and portfolio management literature. Today, interdisciplinary projects are becoming a key focus in the collection, design and execution of government-sponsored programmes. With the various underlying risks and uncertainties, developed countries greatly depend on strategic planning regarding decision-making in infrastructure projects, whereas, in developing countries, the public sector programmes and projects are greatly affected by the lack of standardised and robust decision-making. This is primarily due to the lack of expertise to deal with the increasing complexity of the projects. This article aims at analysing the decision-making process in infrastructure development programmes/projects and discusses the factors affecting the decision-making process and thereby statistically chalking out the key losses caused by the delay in decision-making process in the public sector infrastructure projects of Pakistan. The findings will contribute towards understanding the criticality of decision-making process and mitigating the delay factors by encouraging to introduce standardisation in decision-making processes in the public sector. JEL Classification: C51, D7, D91, L74, O18