Investigating the major causes of mega-project failures and success in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Mega-projects are considered as large projects which associated with complex and one-off capital investment such as infrastructure development, Olympic parks, railway, power plants, airport, road constructor and other. Despite the fact that mega-projects has a large influence over the country’s economic and social development; however, it associated with disappointing performance as well. This research main aim was to investigate the major causes of mega-projects failure in Saudi Arabia. It was also taken under the context of Vision 2030 which is a national development plan. For this purpose, survey questionnaire was used to collect data from participants who were domain expert in their profession. A total number of 72 participants responded. The results from data analysis procedures indicated that the most important factors of mega-projects failures in Saudi Arabia includes skills shortages, inadequate team design, lack of reward management system. Poor budget estimation, lack of communication and coordination, inappropriate leadership, poor planning and scheduling, and lack of stakeholder’s involvement. Further, results also indicated that failure of mega-projects in Saudi Arabia directly impact on Saudi Vision 2030. There were different strategies recommended in this research for effective managing mega-projects in Saudi Arabia to avoid failure which included: adoption of appropriate stakeholder engagement methods, implementation of an effective communication system, effective monitoring and supervisor, quality work and equipment management and transformational leadership approach. Finally, a conceptual framework for mega-project management was recommended which can be validated in future work. This research also highlighted on the research limitations and future work.