Evolutionary collaboration network and organizational competitiveness in megaprojects

Megaprojects continue to emerge with the development of modern society and large-scale infrastructure construction. A megaproject may last for decades and involve with hundreds of stakeholders who need to work with one another to accomplish their objectives. Such complex coordination and collaboration relationships constitute a complex network, where construction organizations collaborate for existing projects and compete for new project opportunities. Therefore, the study of an organizational competitiveness in the network is vital to forecasting its long-term performance and the future success. However, the network-based organizational competitiveness and long-term dynamic evolution haven’t been fully studied yet. This study aims to analyze the organizational competitiveness and evolution in the collaboration network of megaprojects by using case study and social network analysis (SNA). This study constructs the megaproject network based on in a long-term development in Wuxi New District (China) for a 6-years (2008-2013) with a total of 1,897 construction projects. Four types of stakeholders were used in the network and they were owners, contractors, designers and quality supervisors. The result unveils different attributes and trends of stakeholders in the evolution of the network. Contractors who have a high normalized degree and belong to inner K-core are more competitive than other peers when bidding for a new project. Compared to other stakeholders, owners are primarily inclined to choose a “returned” partners (whom owners previously worked with) for the future cooperation, especially in certain types of projects. The result enriches the existing research for inter-organizational relationships in megaprojects, helps to understand the mechanism of collaborations and competitions in the megaproject network, and offers effective and dynamic governing and management strategies for megaprojects.