An Analysis of the Complexity of Infrastructure International Development Projects

Abstract

The original purpose of international development (ID) projects is to reduce poverty and boost the economic and social aspects of developing countries. They cover both "hard" and "soft" projects. The "hard" or "enclave" projects are civil work construction projects, such as railroads, dams, ports, and power plants. In contrast, "soft" projects aim at human development and include education, health, and institutional development projects. ID funds have been shared with favorable lending conditions and profit motivation has been considered insignificant in ID projects worldwide. ID projects are characterized by their intangible and complex project goals, the involvement of several stakeholders, and cultural diversity. These specific features have contributed to an increase in the overall project complexity, which has failed in most ID projects worldwide. The complexity of construction projects has increased recently. In the age of complexity, each project contains a certain degree of complexity in different ways. Project complexity is a contributing factor to project performance and a critical factor in affecting the project's success. Thus, it is important to understand project complexity and its management. Two foundations of complexity include uncertainty and interdependence of elements. While the uncertainty dimension has been investigated in most studies, the interactions among complexity criteria have not received adequate attention. Previous studies frequently assumed linear relationships, uncorrelated relationships, and independent relationships to analyze complexity criteria. These assumptions, however, are infeasible when several forms of interactions among complexity criteria with different degrees of influence occur in real-world problems. Thus, it is imperative to provide a profound understanding of the interactions among complexity criteria. There are six objectives of this research: (1) compiling a list of complexity criteria of infrastructure ID projects; (2) identifying critical complexity criteria of infrastructure ID projects; (3) investigating interrelations among complexity criteria of infrastructure ID projects; (4) developing a framework to prioritize complexity criteria of infrastructure ID projects; (5) prioritizing complexity criteria of infrastructure ID projects; and (6) proposing practical strategies for complexity management. Employing content analysis, a review of the literature shows 21 key complexity criteria of infrastructure ID projects. After that, the two-round Delphi method reveals 12 significant complexity criteria. These criteria include project duration, administrative procedure, scope uncertainties, site compensation and clearance, ability of consultants, communication among stakeholders, project location, different working culture, number of stakeholders, political in-fluence, high technology application, and exchange rate fluctuation. Subsequently, the fuzzy Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method is used to highlighted dynamic interrelationships among complexity criteria, where a change in one relationship might loop back to affect the original. The complexity map and causal diagram show that site compensation and clearance, administrative procedure, ability of consultants, project location, and project duration are the five most important complexity criteria in terms of their overall relationship with the others. Then, a three-stages complexity prioritization framework based on the combination of the fuzzy Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory and fuzzy Analytic Network Process (DANP) is established to prioritize the complexity criteria regarding their interrelationships. The findings illustrate project duration, administrative procedure, and communication between stakeholders are the three most significant complexity criteria of ID projects in the Vietnam context. After that, this study employs the concept of emergent properties in complex system to pro-pose practical strategies of complexity management with regards cause-effect nature of complexity criteria. The analysis shows nine significant strategies of complexity management grouped into three categories, including absorptive, adaptive, and restorative strategies. This study is one of the first attempts in the ID project literature to implement an in-depth analysis of the complexity of infrastructure ID projects from a developing country's perspective. The Vietnamese government agencies and the project's stakeholders can refer to this study when implementing and managing infrastructure ID projects. A profound acknowledgment of existing interrelations among complexity criteria of ID projects will help the key stakeholders to create suitable management strategies in project implementation. Furthermore, the implications of this study are broad and not restricted to the Vietnamese construction industry. The complexity criteria of infrastructure ID projects were comprehensively identified from research in divergent countries, and can, therefore, be applied to support complexity assessment worldwide, particularly in developing nations, due to the contextual similarities with Vietnam. The outputs of this study can be used as inputs for future work to select suitable management strategies for project complexity.