Project Abandonment Research Articles

Analytical Study of the Causes of Abandoned Construction Projects

Construction industry is a vital field as it plays a significant role in the economic situation of the country. Many job opportunities will be created to develop and enhance the economy. However, not all projects can be finished on time or ahead of schedule, as the project may be delayed or even abandoned in worst cases at any stage of the project's cycle lifetime. Project abandonment is a serious problem which impedes the construction industry in many countries especially in Middle East. This paper is part of an ongoing research investigation to identify the most significant causes of project abandonments in Iraq. It presents a review of an existing literature on the causes of this problem. Consequently, the outcome of an extensive questionnaire survey of 40 crucial causes including 101 respondents is presented and discussed. Various statistical tools were used in the analysis of data such as descriptive statistics, Cronbach's alpha, and relative important index (RII) with the aid of SPSS and MS Excel. The result illustrates that the most significant and vital causes in Iraq were: Financial corruption, Assignment of work to companies that have no experience in that field, and Incompetent Contractor. The findings of this study will help future researchers looking for solutions for this problem in order to enhance the project success.

A Behavioral Study on Abandonment Decisions in Multistage Projects

In uncertain environments, project reviews provide an opportunity to make “continue or abandon” decisions and thereby maximize a project’s expected payoff. We experimentally investigate continue/abandon decisions in a multistage project under two conditions: when the project is reviewed at every stage and when review opportunities are limited. Our results confirm findings in the literature that project abandonment tends to be delayed; yet, we also observe premature termination. Decisions are highly path dependent; in particular, subjects are more likely to abandon after observing reduced project value, and abandonment rate is higher near the middle—rather than near the beginning or end—of a project. Interestingly, when reviews are limited, subjects are less likely to continue a project that should be abandoned. At the same time, subjects are more inclined to review again after receiving negative (rather than positive) news. Our data are explained well by a model that incorporates three behavioral concepts—gains or losses from comparing the project value with an internal adaptive reference point, sunk cost bias, and status quo bias. Our work suggests that more frequent reviews need not lead to better project performance, and it also identifies contexts in which outside intervention is most valuable in project decision making. This paper was accepted by Gad Allon, operations management.

Stakeholders strategies in poverty alleviation and clean energy access: A case study of China's PV poverty alleviation program

Poverty reduction and access to clean energy are two challenges highlighted in the UN Sustainable Development Goals. China's Photovoltaic (PV) Poverty Reduction Program provides an archetype model to address those two questions simultaneously. Using a tripartite game of government, enterprise and household, this paper examines the challenges that have impeded the development of China's PV poverty alleviation program. Based on an evolutionary game model and the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution (GMCR) model involving the three major parties, this study shows that: (1) Governmental monitoring and the active participation of both enterprises and households are essential to achieve a win-win-win outcome; (2) the government plays a leading role in monitoring and encouraging the active participation of enterprises and households and resolving the conflicts between enterprises and households; and (3) households should have a minimum share in the project. The analyses imply the following policy suggestions such as ensuring optimal path selection for all parties, avoiding the abandonment of projects, increasing households' sense of ownership and creating accessible finance.

Invisibilizing politics: Accepting and legitimating ignorance in environmental sciences.

Although sociologists have explored how political and economic factors influence the formation of ignorance in science and technology, we know little about how scientists comply with external controls by abandoning their prior research and leaving scientific innovations incomplete. Most research in science and technology studies (STS) on ignorance has relied on structural and historical analyses, lacking in situ studies in scientific laboratories. Drawing on ethnographic research, this article examines the habitus of ignorance as a mechanism of the social production of ignorance. Scientists have a set of dispositions that establish practical contexts enabling them to ignore particular scientific content. Leaders of the organization repeatedly legitimate the abandonment of unfinished projects, while ordinary laboratory scientists internalize the normalized view that the scientific field is inherently opportunistic and that unfunded research should be left undone. A cycle of legitimation and acceptance of ignorance by actors at distinctive positions within the organization provides a mechanism of social control of scientific knowledge. As the mechanism is habitually self-governed by the rules of the game of current scientific institutions, the result is an indirect, although deeply subjugating, invisible and consolidating form of political and economic domination of the scientific field.

Making water reuse safe: A comparative analysis of the development of regulation and technology uptake in the US and Australia

Highly treated wastewater supplied for potable or non-potable purposes, or ‘water reuse,’ is a promising additional source of supply in water-scarce areas. However, the adoption of water reuse has been constrained by a lack of public acceptance of the technology, in particular for potable use. The development of regulatory frameworks for reuse may help to address safety concerns and support adoption. This paper investigates the interaction between regulation, public acceptance and technology adoption for potable reuse. It employs a Process Tracing methodology to analyse two country cases, the US and Australia, both of which have experience in successful adoption of potable reuse as well as examples of public resistance and abandonment of specific projects. The cases suggest that local, collaborative, transparent risk-based regulation contributes to increased acceptance of reuse among the public and government officials and supports take-up of the technology.

KRYZYS EKONOMICZNY W FEDERACJI ROSYJSKIEJ W LATACH 2014-2016

The economic collapse in the Russian Federation observed in the years 2014-2016 is a result of overlapping negative trends both internally and externally. It should be emphasized that the economic shock caused by external factors in the form of economic sanctions imposed on Russia by Western states and the fall in oil prices on the world markets only accelerated the onset of the economic crisis but was not the main cause of its emergence. In this case the more important was an ineffective economic policy, which made economic development dependent on the prices of natural resources, primarily energy resources and it led to a deep structural crisis. In this context, the term “lost decade” has been used to emphasize the fact that the authorities have lost the chance to carry out deep structural reforms. Necessary and extremely costly economic, political and social reforms should were to be carried out during the economic prosperity that was fueled by persistent high oil prices. Introducing the above reforms during the crisis may not be feasible, however, the complete abandonment of such projects will make it impossible for the state to protect itself against future crises.

Power and Changing Riverscapes: The Socioecological Fix and Newspaper Discourse Concerning the Rhône River (France) Since 1945

Riverscapes are constructs that mix natural components with political, socioeconomic, and technical strategies. This article shows how the riverscapes of the Rhône in France have changed under the influence of different power relations. We use newspapers to highlight the potential of news outlets as a data source with which to apply Foucault’s critical and genealogical methods and to develop a political ecology of socioecological fixes. Media coverage is proxied by a content analysis and textual data analysis of 1,079 articles published in Le Monde from 1945 to 2013. We study variations of newspaper discourse to create five chronological narratives: (1) the reconstruction of France and the creation of new landscapes, (2) the promotion of national development through navigation, (3) the quest for energy independence through dams and nuclear power plants, (4) the abandonment of major projects, and (5) the definition of pollution and flooding as national problems at the same time as the rediscovery of landscapes as local amenities. River landscapes are related to national political objectives, even though schemes for the Rhône seem to be ever less geared to national ambitions. In specific contexts, bottom-up advocacy coalitions occasionally prove powerful enough to influence socioecological trajectories: Their power seems to be on the rise as the national project wanes. They are often opposed to new socioecological fixes. Although political drivers are instrumental in shaping the Rhône, economic dynamics are crucial. Energy production seems to be a good indicator for monitoring socioecological fixes along major rivers because it involves fixed capital. Key Words: construction of riverscape, discourse, political ecology, socioecological fix, temporal patterns.

Influence of Managers’ Subjective Judgments on Project Abandonment Decision Making

Real option valuation with flexibility under uncertainty has been proposed as an alternative and advantageous complement to the traditional net present value (NPV) method for capital budgeting decisions, yet the problem with unrealistic expectations on precision has still not been solved. It appears clearly that a high level of precision in cash flow estimates can be misleading for the decision makers with sentiments. To the extent that precision surrounds a decision, we introduce a fuzzy process into an abandonment option approach, which is built on the use of fuzzy numbers, to investigate the effects of managerial optimism and pessimism when a manager considers whether or not to abandon capital budgeting decisions under imprecision and uncertainty. From the numerical analyses of the proposed model, we find that an optimistic manager tends to continue executing the project, while a pessimistic manager tends to give up the project and liquidate it as the value of the abandonment option is within the range of a fuzzy sentiments interval. In addition, if the project value is below the lower bound of the fuzzy sentiments interval, then it is better to exercise the abandonment option rather than to continue holding it, for both optimistic and pessimistic managers. Finally, this paper also examines why managers may still continue a project, even if its Tobin’s [Formula: see text] value is smaller than one.

Appraisal of Corporate Social Responsibility Practices of Selected Medium Size Contracting Firms in South-South Nigeria

Construction project abandonment, delay in completion time, huge variation between contract sum and final account figure, etc. is gradually becoming a norm in the South-South region of Nigeria compared to other regions. These anomalies have been linked to consequential effect of communal agitations resulting from economic, political and environmental neglect. This study therefore seeks to appraise the corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices of medium size contracting firms in the zone with a view to explore the relationship between CSR practices and project delivery in the region. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 12 contracting firms operating within the region for 10 years (2008-2017). Structured questionnaire was used to obtain quantitative data used for the study. Data analysis was carried out using percentile, frequency, mean item score and correlation analysis. The findings revealed that 27.5% of the contracting firms have CSR policy, 17.5% of the firms have CSR as core mandate in their company vision statement. Importantly, the finding also revealed that most of the contracting firms within the region incorporate local content policy of employing indigenes of the host community (MIS=3.73) as their most important CSR practice. The study recommends that there should be an enactment and enforcement of enabling laws that make it compulsory for business owners to have CSR policy and entrench CSR as a core mandate in their vision statement as a criterion for business registration for all categories of construction companies in Nigeria.

One lab, two firms, many possibilities: On R&D outsourcing in the biopharmaceutical industry

We draw from documented characteristics of the biopharmaceutical industry to construct a model where two firms can choose to outsource R&D to an external unit, and/or engage in internal R&D, before competing in a final market. We investigate the distribution of profits among market participants, and the incentives to coordinate outsourcing activities or to integrate R&D and production. Consistent with the empirical evidence, we find that the sign and magnitude of an aggregate measure of direct (inter-firm) and indirect (through the external unit) technological externalities drives the distribution of industry profits, with higher returns to the external unit when involved in development (clinical trials) than in early-stage research (drug discovery). In the latter case, the delinkage of investment incentives from industry value, together with the ability of firms to transfer risks to the external unit, imply a vulnerability of early-stage investors’ returns to negative shocks, and the likely abandonment of projects with economic and medical value. We also find that competition in the equity market makes a buyout by one of the two firms more profitable to a research biotech than to a clinical services unit, and can stimulate early-stage investments. However, this long-term incentive can be minimal, notably if the superior efficiency of outsourced operations originates from economies of scope that can hardly be exploited when a firm takes control of the external unit exclusively for itself. R&D outsourcing thus does not always qualify as a relevant pathway to address the declining productivity in innovation that has characterized the industry over several decades.

Shelf life: Identifying the abandonment of online digital humanities projects

Abstract A large portion of the research carried out in the digital humanities has an online digital object (usually referred as a project) as one of its components. In turn, these online digital objects can be catalogued as distributed resources, which implies that the administrative control of information related to a topic may be spread across online resources and/or collections maintained by multiple scholars in different institutions. This administrative decentralization can lead to changes in content that are often unexpected by a researcher, which can be caused by different factors or circumstances. This reasoning led us to formulate the following question: When can online digital humanities projects be considered abandoned? In this article, we carry out a study on the persistence and average life span of online projects in the digital humanities. More specifically, we will elaborate on their reliance on distributed resources and methods for measuring their shelf life: the average length of time that a digital project can endure without updates until it can ultimately be considered abandoned by its researcher.

Perception of Stakeholders on Abandoned Housing Projects in Malaysia

Home is a basicnecessity for everyone. However, one of the major issues affecting the construction industry in Malaysia today is that of abandoned housing projects. This issue has caused sufferings to the individuals and society. Several reasons have been cited for the abandoned housing projects, which include the debt financing structure, lack of justice and fairness, and weak regulatory system. The issues of the Islamic banking debt-based home financing products have remained prominent. There are also other issues such as role of the authority in addressing the situations. This study used mixed method of surveys and interviews in determining the perceptions of stakeholders regarding abandoned housing projects in Malaysia. The outcome of study highlights various prospects of mitigating the problem of abandoned housing projects. The findings show that the main cause of abandoned housing project from the interview with the relevant stakeholders is still due to insufficient legal provisions and protection to avoid and prevent abandonment of the housing projects, which is consistent with the previous studies.

Über Anti-Struktur, Grenzgänger und Repräsentationssysteme:

This contribution examines the so-called ZAD of Notre-Dame-des-Landes, a municipality near the city of Nantes in the Western French department Loire-Atlantique. Officially, the abbreviation ZAD stands for the term “designated development area”, zone d’aménagement différé. For decades the site was intended to be the building zone of a large airport project. The opponents of this infrastructure project reinterpreted the abbreviation ZAD: in their understanding and common parlance it means zone to defend- zone à défendre. Within the scope of large-scale protest against the airport project the site had been occupied since 2009. The article examines whether and to what extent the occupied ZAD of Notre-Dame-des-Landes could be described as a socially critical threshold space. In this context it seeks to explore the socio-critical potential and its spatial components with reference to geographical characteristics, location and ideas related aspects as well as action-related factors. The contribution refers to the situation in the first half of the year 2015, before the official abandonment of the airport project and the evacuation of the site. Due to the high dynamic of the developments within the ZAD the findings discussed in this article should be regarded as a “snapshot”.

FUZZY COGNITIVE MAPPING: PROPOSED ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK FOR COASTAL RISK MANAGEMENT PROJECT PROCESSES

As coastal development, understanding of coastal hazards and engineering capability have increased over the past century, it has become standard practice to implement risk reduction strategies to mitigate impacts of inundation, flooding and erosion on coastal communities. The implementation process of coastal risk management projects can be simplified to three phases: i) conceptualization, ii) engagement, and iii) execution with project termination possible at any stage. Each phase is affected by both actors and actants (non-human influencers). To date, there have been few attempts to robustly analyze and understand the technical, institutional, financial, social and temporal complexities of these risk management processes. Consequently critical factors that underpin implementation or abandonment of these projects are poorly resolved. For the purposes of this research, the ratio of projects that are constructed or policies which are enacted as compared to those that are abandoned prior to implementation is termed the “implementation gap” (Lowry, 1985). The implementation gap in coastal risk management in Germany over the past 30 years is approximately 50% (Becker, Huitema, & Aerts, 2015). Furthermore, the implementation gap for policy-centric retreat or adaptation projects is wider than for conventional defense (Gibbs, 2016; Heffernan, 2012). While singular case study approaches aid in understanding dynamics of a particular project and location, coastal risk management and climate change literature have both called for creation of a robust framework to examine decision making processes across several case studies to better understand the “adaptation deficit” in climate change adaptation or the “implementation gap” in coastal risk management (Eisenack, et al., 2014; Dow, et al., 2013). Here we summarize the methods undertaken to develop and test a framework reliant on fuzzy cognitive mapping that will allow comparison of the varied social, financial, and institutional influences driving project outcomes in the conceptual design, engagement, and execution phases of coastal risk management implementation. Testing of this framework will be performed with approximately 25 case studies in Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand and Terrebonne Parish, United States.

Measures to Mitigate Causative Factors of Budget Overrun in Malaysian Building Projects

Completion of a construction within planned budget is one of the main criterion of project success, however budget overrun has become a recurring phenomenon in construction industry. Budget overrun can cause multiple negative effects such as loos of economy, disputes among construction stakeholders, project abandonment, and drop in construction activities. This study aims to identify causes of budget overrun in Malaysian Building projects and then to establish mitigation measures for the identified main causes. Literature review, questionnaire survey and interviews were used in this study. Detailed literature review results in identification of 28 causes of budget overrun. The main causes of budget overrun in building projects in Malaysia were investigated through a questionnaire survey of 83 contractors, 57 clients, and 40 owners. The feedback of questionnaire survey was analyzed statistically. The significant causes of budget overrun were: improper planning, variation in materials price, poor site management, lack of communication between parties, frequent design changes, incompetent contractors, mistakes during construction, shortage of site workers, delay in material procurement, and low speed of decisions making. After questionnaire survey, interviews with 16 construction exports were carried out in order to develop mitigation measures for the top ten significant causes. On the basis of interviews, a list of mitigation measures for each of the top ten significant causes were established. The findings of this study can be useful for construction practitioners in controlling budget overrun and to achieve project success.

Response to Weddington: More Lessons from Afro-pessimism

In this response to George Weddington’s critique of their recent article, the authors argue that Weddington rightfully critiques them for not paying enough attention to the role of psychoanalysis (exemplified by Frantz Fanon) in Afro-pessimist theory and for not giving primacy to the political ontology of blackness in Afro-pessimist thought. However, his critique is hindered by his mischaracterizing the authors’ argument as saying that black political ontology is merely different, not singular, and his lack of engagement with the authors’ analysis of critical race theory. The authors address these issues and suggest that Weddington’s reading of Afro-pessimist claims as empirically unverifiable is inconsistent with his proposal for incorporating the theory into ethnographic projects and would lead to the abandonment of the sociological project.

Ex ante assessment of social acceptance of small-scale agro-energy system: A case study in southern Italy

Social acceptance is a relevant determinant of the development of agro-energy systems because its absence can cause delays or even the abandonment of innovative projects. This paper aims at an ex ante assessment of the socio-political acceptance of small-scale agro-energy systems in rural areas located in southern Italy, according to the bioenergy village approach. Starting from a theoretical model, we investigated the key factors influencing the perception of the risks and benefits of the realization of a biomass combustion plant, by a statistical survey on a sample of 152 members of the local community living in eight municipalities located in a rural area. Through exploratory and confirmatory statistical analyses, we identified two key factors: (a) the economic, environmental, and social benefits for the community and (b) reassurance from the energy company management. This research shows that it is very important to consider these elements in order to facilitate dialogue and the debate within the local community. In this way, the involved actors will be enabled to express their expectations to decision makers and policymakers, thus contributing to the steering of the project. In other words, community involvement and the democracy of the energy policy processes are favoured.

The effects of government construction projects abandonment: stakeholders’ perspective

The construction industry of every country drives economic growth as it serves as the foundation for other sectors’ growth and as such, the need to manage projects in this sector cannot be overemphasized. However, in developing countries, some of these projects fail through abandonment but researchers have not paid attention to the effects that these abandoned construction projects have on stakeholders associated with such projects. This study, therefore, investigates the effects of abandonment on key stakeholders associated with such projects. Using sequential data collection approach through focused group discussions, questionnaire and an in-depth semi-structured interview, 26 effects of construction projects abandonment on stakeholders are identified. The top 10 most important effects are: unemployment, bad image for the government, government sector underdevelopment, slow economic growth, financial institutions lose confidence in the state, discourages investment, loss of revenue by state, pollution, loss of properties and loss of revenue by the citizens. The effects were grouped into four main themes and the most important effects are the economic, social, political and psychological respectively. The findings also suggest that some of these effects are direct whilst others are indirect; and they are cyclical in nature.

Cost and time implications of abandoned project resuscitation

PurposeThis paper aims to determine the effect of the period of abandonment on the final cost and duration of resuscitated tertiary educational building projects as a basis for enhancing the performance metrics of the projects and improving the availability of facilities in tertiary institutions in Nigeria.Design/methodology/approachA structured questionnaire was administered on 47 professionals involved in the physical development of construction projects in Osun State public tertiary educational institutions to provide primary data for the study. Secondary data relating to initial and final costs, initial and final completion dates, dates of abandonment, period of abandonment, date of re-award, etc. were obtained from selected resuscitated projects. Data were analyzed using relative significance index and regression analysis.FindingsThe most significant effects of project abandonment were found to be disappointment of populace and over-stretching of existing facilities. The study showed a directly proportional and an exponential effect of period of abandonment on percentage cost overrun of resuscitated projects, which were represented by yc = −329.755 + 19.545x and yc = 6.1662e0.0506x, respectively. A linear relationship between period of abandonment and percentage time overrun was represented by yt = 0.467 + 0.816x.Research limitations/implicationsThe fact that the regression equations could not be validated because of paucity of data was identified as a limitation of this study.Practical implicationsThis study adds to the body of knowledge on abandonment of building projects from a quantitative perspective. Findings have implications for guiding long-term infrastructure development plans in public tertiary educational institutions.Originality/valueMaximum threshold at which abandoned projects may be resuscitated at an economic cost was established as 16 months. Findings further suggest that the economy of new construction would outweigh resuscitation of abandoned projects beyond this period.

Ranking of Effects of Construction Delay: Evidence from Malaysian Building Projects

Abstract The problem of delay is a regular phenomenon in construction projects all around the world and the Malaysian building projects has no exclusion. The aim of this paper is to determine and rank the effects of delay in Malaysian building projects with respect to their Relative Importance Index. Literature review and questionnaire survey were used to gather data for this study. A thorough literature review was performed to identify the common effects of delays in building construction projects. A questionnaire was distributed among key project participants; contractors, clients and consultants, to rank the effects of delay in Malaysian building projects based on the perception of survey respondents. In total 300 questionnaires were distributed, as a result of 240 questionnaires were received. The collected data of questionnaire survey was analysed using statistical software SPSS. In total, 17 effects of the delays have been determined and findings from the survey revealed that time overrun, cost overrun, dispute, loss of profit, arbitration, claims, contract termination, litigation, poor quality of work, and total project abandonment were the main effects of delay in Malaysian building projects. The findings of this study might encourage construction stakeholders to focus on the issue of delays in building projects.