How host country and transnational institutions interact on international infrastructure projects in less developed countries: Case studies of high-speed rail projects in China and Taiwan

Delivering infrastructure efficiently and effectively, especially in less developed countries (LDCs), offers both great opportunities and equally great challenges. Success in these projects requires effective collaboration between LDCs and international actors in the initial "project shaping" stage, but this has proven difficult to achieve. Recent empirical studies document that differences in institutions (e.g., cultures, norms, and regulations) between host countries and entrant firms lead to project losses, delays, and disputes. This dissertation develops an integrated framework to enhance our understanding of institutional effects on international projects by adopting a longer term perspective in gauging the institutional effects through project shaping, design, and construction phases, and by incorporating the perspective of local project participants. It builds on three theoretical foundations: institutional theory, international project management, and international human resource management. It involves three case studies of high-speed-rail projects–two in China and one in Taiwan–taking into account the institutional context of the railway industries, and employs a dual-method approach, combining historical archival-document analysis with in-depth case studies. The dissertation comprises three interrelated papers. The first paper provides a historical archival analysis tracking the shared origin, diverged evolution, and policy development of the railway industries in China and Taiwan. Specifically, it offers an overview of political culture, industrial culture and structure, and foreign relations of these two nations. These institutions rooted in history largely define desirable goals and appropriate means of a nation's development and roles that international actors play in the development. The second paper uses both local and English language archival materials in examining project development and implementation processes of the three high-speed rail projects. This comparative analysis illustrates critical roles of international actors in LDC development and captures negotiations and competition among logics and interests in political, professional, and international domains. Under an authoritarian regime, political systems largely decide project arrangements. At the same time, through domestic political decision-making processes, decision makers introduce, negotiate, and modify international technology, standards, and ideas in project development and implementation. In other words, international projects are not simply means of fulfilling political goals: they are institutional transformers channeling international influences, which are mediated by foreign relations. The third paper employs in-depth case studies, based on field observations and interviews with both local and international participants. It provides thick descriptions of interactions between these two groups, with an emphasis on the work of freelance expatriates, who are a group of under-investigated professionals providing a valuable human resource in the international construction market. Collectively, these three papers illustrate how local institutions provide major actors with rules, incentives, and expectations for action and decision. The dissertation is one of the few studies in the project management field to date that (1) explores the continuing effects of founding conditions of projects' institutional environments, (2) addresses interdependent effects of domestic and transnational institutions across phases of projects, and (3) incorporates local perspectives.