Modelling project complexity for leadership decision making and success in the building construction industry in Lagos, Nigeria

Construction projects improve the built environment and human civilisation. However, the challenges arising from project complexity in the strategic era of Project Management (PM) have resulted in majority of projects around the world failing to deliver to stakeholders’ satisfaction. Particularly, building construction projects are inherently complex and this affects leadership decision-making and project success at project, organisation and institutional levels. This study argues that existing models of project complexity (MPC) are limited in their conceptualisation as they do not account for all the factors that influence project success, resulting in poor decision-making and project failure. This study examines failure relating to building collapse in Lagos, Nigeria. Therefore, a literature review revealed the main paradigms, concepts and constructs that influence project success in the PM, Business Management and Leadership Studies literature. The gaps in existing models informed the development of the novel Leadership Systems Response (LSR) framework which characterises project systems within organisation, environment and leadership constructs. The LSR framework was used as a conceptual lens for the research design, data collection and analysis using the epistemology of pragmatism, applying retroductive strategies and adopting the exploratory sequential mixed method approach and analysis techniques. The data collection tools were mainly interview and questionnaire while the data was analysed using content analysis, as well as descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings are based on the 2010 Building Industry Reforms (BIR) in Lagos and were used to validate and revise the LSR framework. The results suggest that projects are embedded in complex systems, which have endogenous and exogenous dimensions. These exist as complex adaptive organisation, environment and leadership, systems of which are in constant interaction with one another through people, in linear and non-linear social dynamics. Decision making must account for these dynamics to improve project outcomes. Additionally, leadership systems are essential to improve project success and maintain the adaptability of projects within complex systems. Therefore, this study’s main contribution to knowledge is the LSR framework as a new decision-making tool that can improve the way complex projects are conceptualised, particularly by researchers and practitioners.