Dicks, E P (2023) Analysis of risk identification and relationships for major engineering and construction transportation projects. PhD thesis, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA.
Abstract
Risk management has been integrated into transportation infrastructure construction projects for more than two decades. Risk management seeks to identify possible events that could impact the performance of a project, and allow the project team to influence those events to either reduce the severity of negative possibilities or increase the severity of positive possibilities. Construction risk management literature has focused on each step of the risk management process with the aim of making the next incremental improvement in project performance. Researchers focusing on risk identification have done so primarily by proposing different categorization schemes and the primary factors on which project teams should place their focus. While these studies introduce an important starting point for project managers, they nearly always start with identification of risk factors through a literature review, and measure importance through some version of an expert survey or questionnaire. This approach lacks sufficient rigor as it relies on the evaluation of risks facing hypothetical projects in the abstract. Additionally, the relationship between risk factors is often ignored under the assumption that each risk is independent. Further, there is no existing research addressing the disconnect between risk identification tools and the inability to identify risks in practice. This dissertation provides a comprehensive examination of the risks facing State Transportation Agencies (STA) and the challenges in identifying those risks. Content analysis of more than 5000 risk statements from 289 transportation construction projects revealed 34 common risk factors. The risk factors were reviewed by industry professionals and compared with the factors frequently mentioned in the literature. Additionally, the risks were examined for their relationships to other risks, leading to the identification of 60 significant relationships among the risk factors. The risk relationships were determined by examining the sentiment within risk statements and whether they were identified together in the same project, and validated by a panel of risk practitioners. The final study included 12 interviews with professionals managing one or more projects that experienced incomplete risk identification. The study identified 10 contributing factors through a thematic analysis of the interviews including cognitive biases, communication and alignment, facilitator expertise, imagination, experience, level of detail, management support, process standardization, stakeholder participation, and time constraints. The findings of this dissertation contribute to the body of knowledge in construction risk management. It is the largest empirical study of risk registers, identifying the most common risk factors and their relationships. The findings also have practical implications for public agencies managing transportation infrastructure projects.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Thesis advisor: | Molenaar, K R |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | communication; infrastructure construction; participation; risk identification; risk management; standardization; stakeholder; content analysis; project performance; thematic analysis; project team; professional; project manager; interview |
| Index terms: | interview, level of detail, literature review, risk register, content analysis, transportation project, survey, risk identification, construction project, bias, questionnaire, thematic analysis, practitioner, infrastructure construction, agency, body of knowledge, project manager, transportation agency, facilitator, transportation infrastructure, standardization, empirical study, project performance, risk management, risk factor, stakeholder participation, dissertation, project team, risk relationship |
| Subjects: | civil engineering, performance measurement, project management theory and practice, probability and distributions, methods and analysis, sociology, infrastructure and transport systems, risk assessment, profession, data collection methods, community and social dimensions, technical documentation, project delivery, data analysis and analytics, research methods, financial risk, production management, transportation engineering, environmental hazards, research dissemination and communication, practitioner, knowledge management |
| Topics: | Design Practice, Cost Management, Research Practice, Information Management, Roles and Professions, Stakeholder Management, Quality Management, Project Management, Engineering Principles, Risk Management, Sustainability |
| Descriptive scope: | 5 PCTEA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here