Toward a Systemic View to Cost Overrun Causation in Infrastructure Projects: A Review and Implications for Research

Infrastructure cost overruns receive significant amount of attention in the academic literature as well as the popular press. The methodological weaknesses in the dominant approaches adopted to explain cost overrun causation on infrastructure projects are explored in this paper. A considerable amoun...

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Main Authors: Ahiaga-Dagbui, D., Love, Peter, Smith, S., Ackermann, Fran
Format: Journal Article
Published: Jossey Bass, Ed. & Pub. 2016
Online Access:http://www.pmi.org/PMJ
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/46969
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author Ahiaga-Dagbui, D.
Love, Peter
Smith, S.
Ackermann, Fran
author_facet Ahiaga-Dagbui, D.
Love, Peter
Smith, S.
Ackermann, Fran
author_sort Ahiaga-Dagbui, D.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Infrastructure cost overruns receive significant amount of attention in the academic literature as well as the popular press. The methodological weaknesses in the dominant approaches adopted to explain cost overrun causation on infrastructure projects are explored in this paper. A considerable amount of cost overrun research is superficial, replicative and thus stagnated the development of a robust theory to mitigate and contain the problem. Future research should move from single-cause identification and the traditional net-effect correlational analysis to a search for causal recipes through systems thinking and retrospective sensemaking to address the high-level interactions between multiple factors.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T09:32:21Z
format Journal Article
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institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T09:32:21Z
publishDate 2016
publisher Jossey Bass, Ed. & Pub.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-469692019-09-02T07:27:25Z Toward a Systemic View to Cost Overrun Causation in Infrastructure Projects: A Review and Implications for Research Ahiaga-Dagbui, D. Love, Peter Smith, S. Ackermann, Fran Infrastructure cost overruns receive significant amount of attention in the academic literature as well as the popular press. The methodological weaknesses in the dominant approaches adopted to explain cost overrun causation on infrastructure projects are explored in this paper. A considerable amount of cost overrun research is superficial, replicative and thus stagnated the development of a robust theory to mitigate and contain the problem. Future research should move from single-cause identification and the traditional net-effect correlational analysis to a search for causal recipes through systems thinking and retrospective sensemaking to address the high-level interactions between multiple factors. 2016 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/46969 http://www.pmi.org/PMJ Jossey Bass, Ed. & Pub. fulltext
spellingShingle Ahiaga-Dagbui, D.
Love, Peter
Smith, S.
Ackermann, Fran
Toward a Systemic View to Cost Overrun Causation in Infrastructure Projects: A Review and Implications for Research
title Toward a Systemic View to Cost Overrun Causation in Infrastructure Projects: A Review and Implications for Research
title_full Toward a Systemic View to Cost Overrun Causation in Infrastructure Projects: A Review and Implications for Research
title_fullStr Toward a Systemic View to Cost Overrun Causation in Infrastructure Projects: A Review and Implications for Research
title_full_unstemmed Toward a Systemic View to Cost Overrun Causation in Infrastructure Projects: A Review and Implications for Research
title_short Toward a Systemic View to Cost Overrun Causation in Infrastructure Projects: A Review and Implications for Research
title_sort toward a systemic view to cost overrun causation in infrastructure projects: a review and implications for research
url http://www.pmi.org/PMJ
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/46969