Megaprojects:Global similarities and global differences

Call for papers for a special issue of“Frontiers of Engineering Management” (ISSN:CN10-1205/N; ISSN 2095-7513)

（这里的 special issue, 不是作为增刊的专刊，而是作为正刊一期的专刊） 

Megaprojects(sometimes known as ‘major projects’ or ‘complex projects and services’) areextremely large-scale investment projects typically costing more than 6 billionyuan ($1 billion). Megaprojects include powerplant (conventional, nuclear orrenewable), oil and gas extraction and processing projects and infrastructuralprojects such as highways and tunnels, bridges, railways, seaports and evencultural events such as the Olympics. Megaprojects are united by their extremecomplexity both in technical and human terms.

Much of the literature that has examined the phenomenon ofmegaprojects to date is undifferentiated by geography. However, there issubstantive evidence to show that where a megaproject is constructed matters toits characterisation and behaviour. Geographic differences are associated with markeddifferences in cost and schedule performance. Nuclear power plant megaprojects builtin Asia experience construction lead times of roughly half of those in Europe.  Dams built in Russia have five times the costoverruns of those in North America. Geographic differences are also associatedwith very different responses from external stakeholders. Rail, airport andpower plant megaprojects in Germany appear to experience comparatively highlevels of protest from external stakeholders.

At thesame time megaprojects are ‘global’ projects:

“(Global projects) are large-scale and complexbusiness or military ventures and engineering projects that involveparticipants from more than one country, and require participants to negotiategreat geographical distances and cultural and institutional differences.”(Ainamo, Artto et al.2010)

Many of the participants, structures and processes involved in megaprojectswill be the same regardless of the country in which the megaproject isconstructed. The degree to which internal differences can be discerned in megaprojectsthat are conducted in different geographical locations may be limited.

This special issue of FEM seeks to explore the similarities anddifferences in geographically disparate megaproject design, construction andoperation particularly in terms of the effects that these may have onmegaproject performance. It encourages the submission of:

• theoretical positioning papers

• quantitative studies

• cross-case research

that respond to these issues.

If youwould like to submit a paper to this special issue, please send your submissionto the Special Issue Editor by Saturday,31^st January 2015 with aview to publication in the June 2015 edition of the journal. For furtherinformation about the journal including information for authors, please visit http://www.cae.cn/cae/tmp/FEM.html.Papers must meet therequirements of the sixth edition APA format (See: The Publication Manual ofthe American Psychological Association, the Sixth Edition), for the title,the author’s name and institutional affiliation, the author note, the abstract,the introduction, the tables and figures, and the references; and papers whichare reports of empirical studies must, in addition, meet the requirements ofintroduction-method-results-discussion sequence. No strict limit is set on thelength, but papers of about 20 thousand letters (including spaces) to 40thousand letters (including spaces) are best welcome. The editors are very happyto answer any questions regarding the suitability of a paper for this specialissue prior to the deadline.

SpecialIssue Editors:

NaomiBrookes,

Professorof Complex Project Management,

School ofCivil Engineering,

Universityof Leeds

LS2 9JT

UnitedKingdom

n.j.brookes@leeds.ac.uk

ZhangShaoxiong,

Professorof Central South University

shkzhang@163.com