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Managing mega infrastructure projects (MIPs) is more complex because of time, size, social, environmental and financial implications. This study aims to address the management approaches, complexity and risk factors involved in MIPs. The study focuses on project success criteria and their individual effects on the success of MIPs.

To address the challenges and identify the most influencing factor for the success of MIPs, the study deployed a cross-sectional survey approach. Six hundred eighty-two usable samples were collected from the respondents to understand the impact of predetermined factors on the success of MIPs. The structural equation model and artificial neural network approach were used to derive the importance of factors affecting the success of MIPs.

The study's outcome confirms that all three influencing factors: feasibility studies, community engagements and contract selection, have a significant positive impact on the success of MIPs. Community engagement amongst all three has the most influential predictor for the success of MIPs.

The developed model will enable practitioners and policymakers from Indian construction companies and other emerging nations to concentrate on recognized risk reduction variables to enhance project success criteria and project management success, especially for MIPs.

Despite several research efforts tackling construction project risks globally, tertiary education building projects are not devoid of experiencing risks with cascading effects on projects. In the past decades, there has been increasing application of linear assessments of risks in construction risk management practices. However, this study aims to assess the influence of risk factors on the success of tertiary education building projects using a structural equation modelling approach. This study will further reinforce the risk factors that require attention because risk factors are not linear but interdependent.

A quantitative research method was undertaken in this study, where data collection was achieved via a structured questionnaire survey. In total, 452 questionnaires were administered to client representatives, consultants and contractors involved in executing tertiary education building projects across five public tertiary education institutions in Ondo State, Nigeria. Of 452 questionnaires, 279 were found usable for the analysis, implying a response rate of 61.73%. The Cronbach α test, average variances extracted and composite reliabilities values show high reliability and internal consistency of the instrument used for data gathering. Furthermore, the study adopted percentile, mean, correlation, regression analysis and structural equation modelling for analyzing the data collected upon which the study’s inferences were based.

The study found that three out of six criteria for measuring the success of tertiary education building projects were significantly affected by risk factors while using the structural equation modelling technique. With this non-linear method of assessment, completion to time was significantly impacted by environmental risk factors. In addition, safety performance was also significantly influenced by logistic, environmental and legal risk factors; furthermore, logistics, design and environmental risks significantly affected profit. However, completion to cost, standard/quality and end-user satisfaction was not significantly affected by the risk factors in tertiary education building projects.

The quantitative data used for the analysis are limited to the tertiary education building projects from selected five tertiary education institutions in Ondo State; therefore, the results do not indicate all tertiary institutions in Nigeria. In addition, the findings are based on building projects that were procured through a competitive tendering arrangement only and thus considered a limitation for this study.

Not all the risks significantly influence the tertiary education building projects. Therefore, risk factors with a significant effect on the success indicators of tertiary education building projects should be prioritized for a successful project. While risk factors have not affected the completion to cost per se, the study implies that the resultant effect of risks on other success indicators could have a cascading effect on these projects in terms of cost and time overruns. These results may assist during the project risk management while also addressing complexity and uncertainty to avoid chaos in a tertiary education building projects.

The study found significant construction risk factors impacting the success of tertiary education building projects using a non-linear methodology, an extension beyond the usual linear method of assessment of risk impacts on the project performance.

Scaling up smart city infrastructure projects will require a large financial investment. Using public–private partnerships is one of the most effective ways to address budget constraints. Numerous factors have varying degrees of influence on the performance of Public private partnerships (PPP) projects; certain PPP factors are more crucial to the success of a smart city infrastructure project than others, and their influence can be greatly increased when they are fulfilled collectively. This study aims to find out what factors are unique to smart city PPP initiatives, as well as how these factors work together, so that successful smart city infrastructure PPP projects can be scaled up.

The methodology included three sequential stages: identifying the critical success factors (CSF) of PPP for smart cities based on an extensive literature review, collecting data from a sample of 90 PPP practitioners using a Likert scale questionnaire and estimating interrelationships among the CSF and their emergent clusters using structural equation modelling.

The best fit model developed in this study demonstrated the significance of each factor and their interrelationships within their categories in enhancing the performance of PPPs in smart city infrastructure projects. Five categories of critical success factors for PPPs in smart city infrastructure projects have been established: partnership and collaboration; financial sustainability; contractual duties and outsourcing; smart integration; and contract governance.

The proposed model represented the causal interrelationships among relevant critical success factors derived from literature, which may help in directing the organization’s attention and resources to more critical areas, leading to the effective fulfilment of the smart city infrastructure project’s objectives. In addition to the theoretical and methodological contributions, this study produced a usable and readily adaptable list and clusters of critical success factors for research in the area of the implementation of PPP in smart city infrastructure projects.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to identify PPP critical success factors and their themed clusters for smart city infrastructure projects.

Despite the huge capital outlay in tertiary education building projects (TEBP), these projects undoubtedly failed in meeting the set objectives of cost, time and quality, among others. Therefore, rather than the impacts of risks on the overall project performance, which is common in the construction management literature, the purpose of this study is to assess the impacts of risk factors on the criteria for measuring the success of public TEBP.

The paper adopted a quantitative research method where the data collection was via a questionnaire survey. The researcher administered 452 questionnaires to the client representatives, consultants and contractors involved in building projects across five public tertiary education institutions in Ondo State, Nigeria. Of 452 questionnaires, 279 were retrieved and suitable for the analysis, translating to a 61.73% response rate. The reliability analysis of the research instrument showed 0.965 and 0.807, via Cronbach’s alpha test, indicating high reliability of the instrument used for data collection.

The study found different risk factors affecting the criteria for measuring the success of TEBP. For instance, the environmental risk factor significantly impacted completion to cost, while financial and political risk factors significantly impacted completion to time. In addition, while environmental, legal and management risks significantly impacted end-user satisfaction, safety performance was significantly impacted by logistic, legal, design, construction, political and management risks. Besides, the logistic, legal, design, construction, financial, political and management risk factors impacted profit. However, despite profit being one of the criteria for measuring the success of building projects, it recorded the highest risk impacts amounting to 41% variance.

The findings are limited to the public tertiary education building projects procured via competitive tendering; therefore, the results might differ when considering other procurement methods.

The practical implication is that rather than focusing on all risk factors, the project stakeholders could give adequate attention to the significant risk factors impacting each of the parameters for measuring the success of education building projects.

The study revealed specific risk factors impacting the criteria for measuring the success of TEBP, which extend beyond the use of the overall project performance approach.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) consultants have the expertise required to understand the specific contextual needs of an ERP client, implement tailored business processes that meet those needs, and ensure that no potential benefit offered by the ERP remains unexplored by the client. However, conflicts between ERP clients and consultants are a significant source of non-benefit realisation, making managing client–consultant agency crucial to ERP post-implementation benefits realisation. This paper aims to elucidate how managing client–consultant agency affects the benefits derived from ERP systems.

This paper uses microfinance institutions in 15 sub-Saharan African countries to explore different paths through which managing client–consultant agency leads to benefit realisation in ERP projects. It uses partial least squares structural equation modelling to analyse data from 127 managers and explains the results using insights from agency theory and the information system (IS) success model.

This paper reveals three routes through which contractual agreements and conflict resolution strategies lead to benefits realisation in ERP projects.

This is the first study that attempts to provide quantitative evidence of how managing the complex relationship between ERP project stakeholders affects ERP project success. It also contributes a novel theoretical model for ERP benefits realisation to complement existing research on ERP agency issues, critical success factors, and benefits realisation.

The Singapore construction sector is promoting performance improvement by implementing collaborative contracting (CC). For CC's successful implementation, there is a need to sieve out the critical success factors (CSFs). Hence, this paper aims to explore factors influencing the adoption of CC and investigate the potential performance improvement by implementing CC.

Based on the literature review, 23 CSFs were identified and packaged to a questionnaire to evaluate the CSF's priority as well as CC's potential impact on the project performance. After prior validation, 165 potential respondents were drawn from survey list by using simple random sampling. Finally, 31 valid responses were received.

The survey result showed that the top five CSFs are mutual trust, all parties to commit fully, openness between parties, commitment to a win–win attitude and resource availability. The majority of respondents hold that CC implementation would improve overall project performance, decision effectiveness, cost, time, quality and risk performance.

Directors, project managers, contractor managers and site engineers have different perceptions of CSFs. Also rather than meeting the same requirements in the implementation of CC, there are differences among projects with different values.

This study provides an in-depth understanding of the CSFs for industry practitioners adopting CC and CC's potential impact on project performance. This study is also helpful for authorities to formulate effective policies to push the implementation of CC.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a disruption claim management (DCM) life cycle and a risk management framework to provide comprehensive guidance to construction practitioners for facilitating effective and efficient DCM.

DCM life cycle was initially developed through a focus group discussion (FGD) with the participation of the construction practitioners who have diverse experiences about DCM. The life cycle is comprised of 6 phases and also includes proper reactions of the owners and contractors. Then, 42 risk factors that can impact the deliverables of DCM were identified through a literature review and an additional FGD session. This was then followed by a Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP) which was performed to evaluate the importance of each risk factor in terms of the factor's impact on the success of DCM. Additionally, consistency analysis was performed to further maximize the reliability of the results.

Findings revealed that a proactive and systematic approach should be adopted and DCM practices should be initiated before any disruption event is triggered. Accordingly, the proposed framework recommends DCM practices to be initiated early in the contract development phase since compensation for the disruption might be recovered only to the extent that the contract permits. The contract-related risks were given top priority by the experts so that the results of the fuzzy AHP analysis also verified the significance of the contract development phase. Besides contract-related risks, risks related to insufficient site observation, ignorance of the project team, cognitive bias and conflict of interest were determined as the most significant DCM risks, needing an urgent and sophisticated risk response plan. Lastly, results suggested that “Site observation and record-keeping” is the most formidable phase since the phase's implementation on a continuous basis could create unforeseen organizational challenges such as mismanagement of project records, especially in the dynamic and turbulent environment of the construction projects.

Disruption – which is caused mostly by change – is inevitable in construction projects due to their sophisticated nature. DCM, therefore, becomes crucial to compensate losses of contractors and eliminate or diminish the prolonged dispute resolution process. Existing studies, however, do not provide a comprehensive theoretical basis for the DCM life cycle and DCM life cycle's potential risks so that DCM life cycle's promising benefits can hardly be materialized. Thus, developing a DCM life cycle and associating DCM life cycle with risk management, this study is highly believed to make a promising theoretical contribution to the DCM domain since this is one of the earliest attempts in the literature. Additionally, this research provides construction practitioners with an insight into the effective implementation of DCM practices in construction projects.

Organizations are fast adopting new technologies such as automation, analytics and artificial intelligence, collectively called intelligent automation, to drive digital transformation. When adopting intelligent automation, there is a need to understand the success factors of these new technologies and adapt agile software development (ASD) practices to meet customer expectations. The purpose of this paper is to explore the success factors of intelligent automation and create a framework for managers and practitioners to meet dynamic business demands. Total interpretive structural modeling (TISM) framework is a suitable approach to integrate quantitative measurement with qualitative semi-structured interviews capturing the context of the individual organization environment.

This paper identified agility factors and their interrelationships using a TISM framework. TISM results were validated using a one-tailed t-test to confirm the interrelationships between factors. Furthermore, the agility index of a case project organization was assessed using a graph-theoretic approach (GTA) to identify both the triggering factors for agility success and improvement proposals.

Results showed that leadership vision, organization structure and program methodology were driving factors. The TISM model was validated statistically and the agility index of the intelligent automation case project organization was calculated to be79.5%. Here, a GTA was applied and the triggering factors for improvement of the agility index were identified.

The limitations of the study are described along with the opportunities for future research as the field evolves through the rapid innovation of technology and products.

The increasing role of digital transformation in enterprise strategy and operations requires practitioners to understand how ASD practices must be planned, measured and/or improved over time through the implementation of automation, analytics and artificial intelligence programs. The TISM digraph provides a framework of hierarchical structure to organize the influencing factors, which assists in achieving organizational goals. This study highlights the driving factors which contribute to the success of intelligent automation projects and project organizations.

This is a first attempt to analyze the interrelationships among agility factors in intelligent automation projects (IAP) using TISM and the assessment of the agility index of a case IAP organization using a GTA.

Innovation during project delivery is contested space. The aim in this research is to empirically explore the theory of this contested space and how project implementation can be optimized by the contractor to deliver better outcomes. It is hypothesized that project innovation has a proportional and measurable relationship to contractor success.

Based on a novel conceptual framework, this research applies a case study methodology to analyse 31 construction projects undertaken by a single Australian middle-tier contractor. Benefits from innovation are not often equitably shared. There are risks and rewards. The project innovation zone is defined as a combination of three key performance indicators – efficacy, efficiency and margin – merged into a single index that most likely shows evidence of “working smarter”.

Client–contractor project innovation (c2pi) is demonstrated to be strongly correlated with head contractor success (HCS), yielding an r² value of 71%. Innovative projects mostly show positive change in efficacy, efficiency and margin when comparing “planned” and “actual” outcomes. Across the cases studied, 35% demonstrated likely evidence of innovative delivery and 52% demonstrated evidence of success from the construction contractor's perspective.

These findings verify that, within the studied sample, the pursuit of innovation leads to projects that are likely to also have greater success for the head contractor, evidenced by the mix of five critical success factors: finishing on schedule, making profit, and having less defects, less accidents and higher quality workmanship. These outcomes arguably also apply to sub-contractors, where the head contractor assumes the role of “client”.

It is widely accepted that one criterion for determining if a construction project is successful is whether it is completed within the expected budget. There have been advancements in the management of building projects throughout time but cost overruns remain a key concern in the construction sector internationally, particularly in emerging economies such as Ghana. This study aims to answer the question, “What are the critical success factors (CSFs) that can assist reduce cost overruns in public sector infrastructure projects in the Ghanaian construction industry?”

This study used a quantitative survey method. The questionnaire was pre-tested by interviewing 15 contractors to ascertain the validity of the content. Factor analysis and multiple regression were adopted to analyze the data.

This study discovered that the critical factors that can reduce cost overruns in construction projects in Ghana are directly linked to five themes: early contractor involvement in the project planning stage, adequate funding, good project team relations, competent managers/supervisors and project participant incentives/bonuses. This study identifies indestructible, empirically measurable important success criteria for reducing cost overruns in public building projects in Ghana.

When well thought through from the project initiation stage to completion, these critical successes can also be used to deal with damaging economic effects such as allocative inefficiency of scarce resources, further delays, contractual disputes, claims and litigation, project failure and total abandonment.

The uniqueness of this research resides in the fact that it is, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, a first-of-its-kind investigation of the CSFs for reducing cost overruns in public building projects in developing countries.