Megaprojects: A Design and Strategy Perspective A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities 2015 Colm Lundrigan Manchester Business School Contents CONTENTS ................................................................................................................................................ 2 LIST OF TABLES ..................................................................................................................................... 4 LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................................... 5 ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................................ 6 DECLARATION & COPYRIGHT STATEMENT ................................................................................ 7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ....................................................................................................................... 9 PREFACE ................................................................................................................................................. 10 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................... 11 1 BACKGROUND ............................................................................................................................... 11 2 RESEARCH SETTING ....................................................................................................................... 13 3 CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE THESIS .................................................................................................... 15 4 REFERENCES .................................................................................................................................. 23 MEGAPROJECTS: AN EVOLVING HYBRID META-ORGANIZATION ..................................... 25 1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................ 25 2 DESIGNING META-ORGANIZATIONS ................................................................................... 28 3 RESEARCH SETTING AND METHODS ................................................................................... 29 4 DATA COLLECTION .................................................................................................................. 31 5 DATA ANALYSIS ....................................................................................................................... 34 6 ANALYSIS: META-ORGANIZING AND DEVELOPING A MEGAPROJECT ....................... 35 7 DISCUSSION ............................................................................................................................... 57 8 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................. 68 9 REFERENCES.............................................................................................................................. 70 THE (UNDER) PERFORMANCE OF MEGA-PROJECTS: A META-ORGANIZATIONAL PERSPECTIVE ........................................................................................................................................ 74 1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................ 74 2 META-ORGANIZATIONS AND MEGA-PROJECTS ............................................................... 77 3 RESEARCH SETTING AND METHODS ................................................................................... 79 4 ANALYSIS ................................................................................................................................... 87 5 DISCUSSION ............................................................................................................................. 107 6 IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE ............................................................................................ 115 7 FURTHER RESEARCH ............................................................................................................. 118 8 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................... 119 9 REFERENCES............................................................................................................................ 121 2 STRATEGIC CAPABILITIES FOR MEGAPROJECT ARCHITECTS ........................................ 128 1 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 128 2 MEGAPROJECTS: A PROBLEM OF STRUCTURAL MISALIGNMENT ............................. 133 3 STRATEGIC CAPABILITES FOR THE MEGAPROJECT ARCHITECT ............................... 136 4 THE TASK STRUCTURE OF THE MEGAPROJECT PROMOTER ........................................ 141 5 THE CAPABILITY TO SHAPE THE MEGAPROJECT NETWORK ...................................... 144 6 THE CAPABILITY TO DEVELOP A TECHNICAL DESIGN ................................................. 152 7 A STRATEGIC APPROACH TO CO-EVOLUTION OF ORGANIZATION AND DESIGN ... 156 8 VARIABILITY IN MEGAPROJECT ENVIRONMENTS AND DESIGNS .............................. 160 9 PITFALLS FOR STRATEGIC ACTION ................................................................................... 162 10 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................... 168 11 REFERENCES............................................................................................................................ 169 CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................................................... 172 1 FUTURE RESEARCH ...................................................................................................................... 173 2 THOUGHTS ON THE DOCTORAL PROCESS ...................................................................................... 174 APPENDIX ............................................................................................................................................. 176 1 LIST OF INTERVIEWEES FOR THE CASE STUDIES .......................................................................... 176 2 CASE 1 – CROSSRAIL ................................................................................................................... 179 3 CASE 2 – HEATHROW TERMINAL 2 .............................................................................................. 200 4 CASE 3 – THE 2012 LONDON OLYMPIC GAMES ........................................................................... 238 Word Count: 72,470 3 List of Tables Paper 1 Table 1 - Summary of Characteristics of the Case Sample and Interviewees ................ 33 Table 2 - Longitudinal summary of the megaproject meta-organization’s constituent structures and membership .............................................................................................. 36 Table 3 – Evolution of Membership and Scope in the Olympic Aquatics Centre .......... 64 Paper 2 Table 1- Summary of Characteristics of the Case Sample and Interviewees ................. 85 Table 2 - Evolution of the Membership, Scope, and Cost and Schedule Targets of the Mega-project meta-organizations in our Sample ............................................................ 89 Table 3 - Tension between performance dimensions and the meta-organization ........... 97 4 List of Figures Introduction Figure 1 - Conceptual Foundations ................................................................................. 21 Paper 1 Figure 1 - Megaproject embryo: conceiving a meta-organization ................................. 37 Figure 2 - Megaproject gestation: expansion of the meta-organization ........................ 42 Figure 3 - Megaproject delivery: stability at the core, explosion at the periphery ........ 48 Figure 4 - Two ideal megaproject meta-organization developmental paths .................. 66 Paper 2 Figure 1 – The link between Evolution in Structure and Ambiguity in Performance ... 100 Paper 3 Figure 1 - Relationship Between growth of the 2012 Olympic Park meta-organization and infrastructure cost .................................................................................................. 139 Figure 2 - Relationship Between growth of the Heathrow T2 meta-organization and infrastructure cost ......................................................................................................... 140 Figure 3 - Strategic alignment of megaproject network growth and design co- production ..................................................................................................................... 158 Figure 4 - Environment and Design Combinations ...................................................... 162 5 Abstract Colm Lundrigan, Doctor of Philosophy in Management Megaprojects: A Design and Strategy Perspective, December 2015 Modern society faces complex problems of collective action that require the development of long-lived capital infrastructure to cope with issues such as population growth, energy shortages, rising sea levels, and migration to cities. These so called ‘megaprojects’ require collaboration between legally