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Public-private partnerships (PPPs) have become integral in delivering public services and infrastructure, particularly in the context of megaprojects. This paper focuses on the interplay between stakeholder management, challenges, critical success factors (CSFs), and the overall success of PPP-arranged civil infrastructure megaprojects.

Using the PRISMA methodology, we comprehensively analyze challenges and critical success factors (CSFs) influencing stakeholder engagement within PPP megaprojects. A focused search equation identified 595 papers, which were distilled down to 34 relevant papers and case studies. Qualitative analysis of these papers revealed 48 CSFs categorized into 11 challenges from a stakeholder management perspective, which were further delineated across public, private, and combined sectors, and then mapped along the PPP megaproject lifecycle.

Informed by a diverse amalgam of civil and project management literature, this research reveals the intricate dynamics of PPP megaprojects across the globe that emphasize the critical nature of stakeholder engagement, analysis, and management practices. Key findings highlighted conflicting interests between public and private stakeholders, manifesting in challenges like project performance versus profitability. The literature emphasized instances where neglect of local community culture led to adverse social outcomes. A universal conclusion underscored the context-specific nature of challenges and CSFs, stressing the need for a holistic understanding of stakeholders and project dynamics.

The paper acknowledges that it focused on 34 selected papers out of 595 identified. This sample focuses on civil engineering megaprojects which may not fully represent the breadth of research in the field, potentially missing out on valuable insights from excluded studies.

We believe that the compiled list of CSFs, organized according to stakeholder relationships and the project lifecycle, serves as a potent tool for managers and planners. By enabling the identification of complexity from diverse perspectives, this research allows elucidating the challenges faced by the management team in PPP megaproject.

This research identifies several social outcomes related to PPP megaprojects. Critical Success Factors identified as such should allow the project managers to maximize benefits for society and minimize risk and negative externalities.

This study contributes valuable insights for policies and practices by systematically describing challenges and related CSFs throughout the PPP megaproject lifecycle. Additionally, it addresses the nuanced aspects of internal and external stakeholder management, thereby contributing to the overall understanding and best practices required to confront complex megaprojects involving a wide range of stakeholder groups.

Earned value management systems (EVMS), also called integrated project and program management systems, have been greatly examined in the literature, which has typically focused on their technical aspects rather than social. This study aims to hypothesize that improving both the technical maturity of EVMS and the social environment elements of EVMS applications together will significantly impact project performance outcomes. For the first time, empirical evidence supports a strong relationship between EVMS maturity and environment.

Data was collected from 35 projects through four workshops, attended by 31 industry practitioners with an average of 19 years of EVMS experience. These experts, representing 23 organizations, provided over 2,800 data points on sociotechnical integration and performance outcomes, covering projects totaling $21.8 billion. Statistical analyses were performed to derive findings on the impact of technical maturity and social environment on project success.

The results show statistically significant differences in cost growth, compliance, meeting project objectives and business drivers and customer satisfaction, between projects with high EVMS maturity and environment and projects with poor EVMS maturity and environment. Moreover, the technical and social dimensions were found to be significantly correlated.

Key contributions include a novel and tested performance-driven framework to support integrated project management using EVMS. The adoption of this detailed assessment framework by government and industry is driving a paradigm shift in project management of some of the largest and most complex projects in the U.S.; specifically transitioning from a project assessment based upon a binary approach for EVMS technical maturity (i.e. compliant/noncompliant to standards) to a wide-ranging scale (i.e. 0–1,000) across two dimensions.

The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of stakeholder integration and project complexity on information technology (IT) projects in Kenya. The following research question guided our inquiry: what is the influence of project complexity and stakeholder integration on the performance of IT projects in Kenya?

To advance the current understanding of the effect of stakeholder integration and project complexity on IT projects, multiple regressions were used to predict how project complexity and stakeholder integration influence project performance. Both government-funded and privately funded IT projects from a developing country were examined.

The study found that any project’s complexity and stakeholder integration levels offer a distinctive contribution to its success. Theoretically, the study contributes to linkages between stakeholder integration and project complexity concerning IT project performance. Through the adoption of actionable research and theoretical elaboration, we have shown that the successful execution of IT projects is driven by the successful integration of stakeholders and monitoring the level of complexity at each phase of the project.

The findings of this study add to the burgeoning literature on the performance of IT projects and come with several managerial implications as well. It brings to the fore the concept of stakeholder integration as an essential element of project success. The findings suggest that the inclusion of stakeholder integration into corporate decisions, strategies and policies can be an asset to the production of sustainable competitive advantages needed during the implementation of IT projects in government entities and organisations. As shown in this study, all the above require a collaborative platform allowing for data sharing among diverse stakeholders to ameliorate distrust or lack of information.

This study aims to present a state-of-the-art review of building information modelling (BIM) in the Swedish construction practice with a focus on wood construction. It focuses on examining the extent, maturity and actual practices of BIM in the Swedish wood construction industry, by analysing practitioners’ perspectives on the current state of BIM and its perceived benefits.

A qualitative approach was selected, given the study’s exploratory character. Initially, an extensive review was undertaken to examine the current state of BIM utilisation and its associated advantages within the construction industry. Subsequently, empirical data were acquired through semi-structured interviews featuring open-ended questions, aimed at comprehensively assessing the prevailing extent of BIM integration within the Swedish wood construction sector.

The research concluded that the wood construction industry in Sweden is shifting towards BIM on different levels, where in some cases, the level of implementation is still modest. It should be emphasised that the wood construction industry in Sweden is not realising the full potential of BIM. The industry is still using a combination of BIM and traditional methods, thus, limiting the benefits that full BIM implementation could offer the industry.

This study provided empirical evidence on the current perceptions and state of practice of the Swedish wood construction industry regarding BIM maturity.

Unlocking the potential of Big Data Analytics (BDA) has proven to be a transformative factor for the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry. This has prompted researchers to focus attention on BDA in the AEC industry (BDA-in-AECI) in recent years, leading to a proliferation of relevant research. However, an in-depth exploration of the literature on BDA-in-AECI remains scarce. As a result, this study seeks to systematically explore the state-of-the-art review on BDA-in-AECI and identify research trends and gaps in knowledge to guide future research.

This state-of-the-art review was conducted using a mixed-method systematic review. Relevant publications were retrieved from Scopus and then subjected to inclusion and exclusion criteria. A quantitative bibliometric analysis was conducted using VOSviewer software and Gephi to reveal the status quo of research in the domain. A further qualitative analysis was performed on carefully screened articles. Based on this mixed-method systematic review, knowledge gaps were identified and future research agendas of BDA-in-AECI were proposed.

The results show that BDA has been adopted to support AEC decision-making, safety and risk assessment, structural health monitoring, damage detection, waste management, project management and facilities management. BDA also plays a major role in achieving construction 4.0 and Industry 4.0. The study further revealed that data mining, cloud computing, predictive analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence methods, such as deep learning, natural language processing and computer vision, are the key methods used for BDA-in-AECI. Moreover, several data acquisition platforms and technologies were identified, including building information modeling, Internet of Things (IoT), social networking and blockchain. Further studies are needed to examine the synergies between BDA and AI, BDA and Digital twin and BDA and blockchain in the AEC industry.

The study contributes to the BDA-in-AECI body of knowledge by providing a comprehensive scope of understanding and revealing areas for future research directions beneficial to the stakeholders in the AEC industry.

The performance of large-scale projects is often challenged due to major environmental changes that occur during their life. However, literature has paid little attention to the governance adaptations required to respond effectively to these changes. This paper aims to study changes in the project environment over time, the corresponding governance adaptations and their impact on project performance.

To ensure triangulation between two sources of evidence, we used both primary and secondary data sources and examined 14 projects through 2 studies, the first focused on seven documented, illustrative case projects and the second on interviews with senior and project managers involved in seven additional projects.

We found the key environmental changes that should trigger appropriate governance adaptations to be market evolutions, technological advancements and sociopolitical events. However, we also found that these necessary governance adaptations are not commonly implemented timely, sufficiently or effectively.

The paper distills the dynamics of large-scale projects in achieving project effectiveness and raises theoretical propositions on the combination of environmental changes and deficient governance adaptations that, over time, turns efficient projects into ineffective projects and discusses implications for theory and practice.

Citizen engagement can promote value creation in urban development projects. This potential stems from the granting of decision-making authority to citizens, labeled citizen enfranchisement in this study. Citizens are focal stakeholders of urban development projects and enfranchisement grants them an explicit say on such projects. Despite this potential for enhanced value creation, there remains limited understanding about how project organizations enfranchise stakeholders in the front end of urban development projects.

In this research, we designed a multiple-case study to analyze two novel citizen engagement processes in Northern-European cities. In these processes, citizens were enfranchised in ideating, designing, and making selections on urban development projects. We followed a multimethod approach to data collection. The collected datasets include document data, interview data and observation data.

Our findings demonstrated a distribution and redistribution of decision-making authority throughout the phases of the citizen engagement processes. Citizens’ voices were amplified throughout the project front end, although episodes of decision-making authority held by the cities took place periodically as well. By granting explicit decision-making authority to citizens, citizen enfranchisement facilitated a more democratic urban development process, promoting value creation.

In contrast to the earlier research, the findings of our study illustrate citizen engagement taking place at so-called higher levels of stakeholder engagement. In particular, our study reveals a granting of de facto decision-making authority to citizens, also known as citizen enfranchisement. These findings contribute to the earlier research on stakeholder engagement in projects, where the influence of stakeholder engagement has often been considered symbolic or limited.

Previous studies have postulated that an advance payment system (APS) positively impacts the contractor's working capital and is paramount to ensuring an efficient and effective project cash flow process. However, scant research has been undertaken to empirically establish the cash flow performance and domino effect of APS on project and organisational performance.

The epistemological design adopted a positivist philosophical stance augmented by deductive reasoning to explore the phenomena under investigation. Primary quantitative data were collected from 504 Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) registered contractors (within the grade bandings 1–9) in South Africa. A five-point Likert scale was utilised, and subsequent data accrued were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM).

Emergent findings reveal that the mandatory use of an APS does not guarantee a positive project cash flow, an improvement in organisational performance or an improvement in project performance.

The ensuing discussion reveals the contributory influence of APS on positive cash flow and organisational performance, although APS implementation alone will not achieve these objectives. Practically, the research accentuates the need for various measures to be concurrently adopted (including APS) towards ensuring a positive project cash flow and improved organisational and project performance.

There is limited empirical research on cash flow performance and the domino effect of APS on project and organisational performance in South Africa, nor indeed, the wider geographical location of Africa as a continent. This study addresses this gap in the prevailing body of knowledge.

This study aims to improve a construction company's overall project delivery by utilising lean six sigma (LSS) methods combined with building information modelling (BIM) to design, modularise and manufacture various building elements in a controlled factory environment off-site.

A case study in a construction company utilised lean six sigma (LSS) methodology and BIM to identify non-value add waste in the construction process and improve sustainability.

An Irish-based construction company manufacturing modular pipe racks for the pharmaceutical industry utilised LSS to optimise and standardise their off-site manufacturing (OSM) partners process and leverage BIM to design skids which could be manufactured offsite and transported easily with minimal on-site installation and rework required. Productivity was improved, waste was reduced, less energy was consumed, defects were reduced and the project schedule for completion was reduced.

The case study was carried out on one construction company and one construction product type. Further case studies would ensure more generalisability. However, the implementation was tested on a modular construction company, and the methods used indicate that the generic framework could be applied and customized to any offsite company.

This is one of the few studies on implementing offsite manufacturing (OSM) utilising LSS and BIM in an Irish construction company. The detailed quantitative benefits and cost savings calculations presented as well as the use of the LSM methods and BIM in designing an OSM process can be leveraged by other construction organisations to understand the benefits of OSM. This study can help demonstrate how LSS and BIM can aid the construction industry to be more environmentally friendly.

This chapter explores the role of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly its subfield of machine learning (ML) methods, as a core technology of the fintech revolution in the financial services industry. It simplifies some of the complex concepts related to AI by introducing the main ML paradigms and related techno-methodic aspects. This chapter uses real-world examples to illustrate how next-generation AI powered by ML is transforming the financial services industry. Next, in illustrating the risks associated with AI adoption, this chapter discusses the need for regulation to address the essential facets of AI governance, including transparency, accountability, ethics, and responsible use. Lastly, it looks at emerging regulatory approaches across leading global jurisdictions. The primary goal is to give readers an initial understanding of AI's profound impact on the financial sector.