Multilayer Analysis in Complex Large Infrastructure Projects

Abstract

The complexity of large infrastructure projects requires the use of methodological methods that can examine how various systems interact rather than just evaluating isolated systems (e.g., either risks or stakeholders). Although the project management literature has invested major efforts into unidimensional networks to study risks or stakeholders separately, there are missing multidimensional analyses that combine complementary perspectives. This study develops a multilayer network analysis by integrating the economic transaction between stakeholders and risks to expose the motives of project underperformances. A large infrastructure education project in Italy is used to demonstrate the application of this technique for identifying potential issues in risk allocation that may result in underperformance among stakeholders. The implementation of the multilayer network demonstrated that stakeholders within the public sector with active participation in the monetary transfers but low-risk exposition tend to perform adequately, which emphasizes the relevance of risk transfer to the contractor. Conversely, lower eigenvector and betweenness values in the multilayer network respecting these metrics in the money flow network expose risk allocation issues affecting the performance of the project.