Posted by: Bent Flyvbjerg on March 7, 2018
We are pleasantly surprised to see how strong megaproject management research stands when compared to other areas of management research, in terms of citations. This is cause for celebration – but not for resting on our laurels. In answer to the question of whether classic texts exist in megaproject management research, we conclude:* The answer […]
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Posted by: Bent Flyvbjerg on February 16, 2018
The IJPM special issue on “Classics in Megaproject Management” is now in print. It contains the following five original research papers, (available here): 1. Do classics exist in megaproject management? by Bent Flyvbjerg, J. Rodney Turner 2. Bibliographic and comparative analyses to explore emerging classic texts in megaproject management, by Yongkui Li, Yujie Lu, John […]
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Posted by: Bent Flyvbjerg on February 12, 2018
In the new, first-ever bibliographic study of the megaproject management literature – “Bibliographic and comparative analyses to explore emerging classic texts in megaproject management,” by Li et al. in IJPM – the authors show that total citations for the most cited texts in #megaproject #management is higher than total citations for most other fields in […]
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Posted by: Bent Flyvbjerg on February 6, 2018
In their new paper, “Classics in Megaproject Management: A Structured Analysis of Three Major Works,” Pollack et al. assess whether three well-known works by Morris and Hough, Merrow, and Flyvbjerg et al. should be considered classics in megaproject management. Pollack et al. employ four criteria to make their assessment: (a) overall impact of the text, […]
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Posted by: Bent Flyvbjerg on February 2, 2018
In his new paper in IJPM, “The making and impacts of a classic text in megaproject management: The case of cost overrun research,” Matti Siemiatycki teases out five “key takeaway lessons” for producing classic texts in the field of megaproject management: 1. Novelty is not required to be revolutionary in Kuhn’s sense. 2. Effective communication to its […]
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Posted by: Bent Flyvbjerg on January 31, 2018
Wider benefits are often invoked to justify projects that are non-viable in terms of direct benefits and costs. But what is the evidence of wider benefits? Wider benefits are often invoked in attempts to justify projects that may not be viable in terms of direct benefits and costs.* It would be nice – and good […]
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Posted by: Bent Flyvbjerg on January 10, 2018
New paper by Rhodante Ahlers, Margreet Zwarteveen, and Karen Bakker, in The Oxford Handbook of Megaproject Management, 2017, Chapter 25, pp. 556-576. Abstract: We argue that the context of dam development today is radically different from that of the 20th century, illustrated by two examples: the case of the Aswan High Dam on the Nile […]
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Posted by: Bent Flyvbjerg on December 16, 2017
China’s three-decade infrastructure investment boom shows few signs of abating. Is China’s economic growth a consequence of its purposeful investment? Is China a prodigy in delivering infrastructure from which rich democracies could learn? The prevalent view in the economics literature and policies derived from it is that a high level of infrastructure investment is a […]
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Posted by: Bent Flyvbjerg on November 9, 2017
“One cannot read far in the history of great economic undertakings without being struck by instances in which entrepreneurial error appears to have been a condition of successful enterprise” “Creative error” describes a situation where error in decision making leads to successful outcomes. The concept was developed by John Sawyer at Harvard University during the […]
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Posted by: Bent Flyvbjerg on September 27, 2017
Too many forecasters are fools or frauds. Forecasting fools should be sent back to school to learn new methods. Forecasting frauds should be fired and possibly prosecuted, depending on how serious their fraud is. Recently, for the first time in history, forecasting frauds have been prosecuted, sending shock waves through the global forecasting industry. [The […]
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