Research On The Decision-Making Governance Of Megaprojects: An Institutional Perspective

The investments and construction of mega-infrastructure projects(megaprojects)play critical roles in the economic and social development around the world,which are the embodiments of a country's core competitiveness.With China's continuous advance in the infrastructure constructions,a series of world-class “megaprojects”,including the Qinghai-Tibet Railway,Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge,Daxing International Airport,have been completed successively.Simultaneously,a lot of megaprojects,including the Sichuan-Tibet Railway,the Qiongzhou Strait Cross Sea Thoroughfare,are about to start very soon.The decision-making of megaprojects have attracted more and more attention both from the engineering areas and from academic areas,which are the key issues of managerial practices.Starting from the basic connotation of decision-making and governance of megaprojects,this thesis argues that decision-making governance of megaprojects can be considered as activities or processes to effectively achieve goals when making decisions of megaprojects,which shows the uses and constraints of public powers.Its essence is a series of institutional designs and arrangements related to decision-making.Drawn from the institutional theory,this thesis proposes that the research of decisionmaking governance of megaprojects is to study the governance entities,governance mechanisms,and governance practices from the three dimensions of institutional logic,institutional innovation,and institutional arrangement.The government is the core subject of decision-making governance of megaprojects that is the integrator and innovator of the institutions.Decision-making governance is a governance structure dominated by the government,which plays different roles in the decision-making processes and faces conflicts from multiple institutional logics.Therefore,this thesis first builds the “incentive-supervision” principal-agent model including government supervision,construction subject innovation,etc.This study finds that effective government supervision can significantly improve the overall project efficiency and can effectively reduce project risks and conflicts.Furthermore,when facing the conditions of conflicts and contradictions in the interests,perceptions,and goals among participants,institutional innovation is an effective governance mechanism to ensure the balance of public powers in the decision-making processes.After analysing the institutional innovation process of steel box girder manufacturing of Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge,this thesis constructs a multi-task principal-agent incentive model,including analysis of problems,access to resources,and institutional innovation.The study finds that the contractor's efforts in analysing problems,obtaining resources,and institutional innovation are positively related to his comprehensive technical level.In the process of decision-making governance,the incentive strategies that meet the project needs and the contractor's characteristics should be selected from the different but related factors for institutional innovation.Finally,taking the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge as a case study,this thesis finds that the decision-making governance of mega-projects faces the institutional complexity emerging from six levels of logic conflicts,namely,the regulatory,the political,the social,the cultural,the relational and the evolutionary level.Furthermore,the study finally proposes that the institutional leader,the institutional localization and the institutional arrangement composed of multi-level institutional coordination mechanisms can be expected as effective tool to govern the institutional complexity within the megaprojects.Finally,this thesis proposes the implications for policymakers from four aspects:prevention of the alienation in decision-making public power,the blacklists of decisionmaking governance,formal prevention of expert review,and collaborative governance of multiple decision-makers.Thus,this thesis provides a new avenue for the balance of public powers in decision-making processes and enriches the theoretical contributions in the decision-making governance of megaprojects in China.It also provides theoretical supports and case references for the decision-making governance practice of mega-projects in the future.