Building Bridges for Bridges

Building Bridges for Bridges: Towards a Participatory Approach for Tackling Large-Scale Societal Assignments in Project-Based Polycentric Systems: The Case of the Large-Scale Rehabilitation Assignment of Civil Engineering Structures in the Netherlands

Bletsis, Alexander (TU Delft Technology, Policy and Management)

Brazier, F.M. (mentor)
Lefter, I. (mentor)
Kwakkel, J.H. (graduation committee)
van Langen, P.H.G. (graduation committee)

Delft University of Technology

Complex Systems Engineering and Management (CoSEM)

2020

The Dutch civil engineering sector is facing a large-scale rehabilitation assignment of their civilengineering structures, that consists of complex projects that lead to cost overruns and time delays. As a consequencethereof, the sector as a whole must realise a productivity growth to match the required capacity and complexity.Criteria such as innovation, knowledge dissemination and digitisation have a positive effect on productivity growth.However, barriers such as current rules & regulation, individual interests and short-term competition result incollective action problems. Furthermore, the sector is characterised as a polycentric system that consists of multipleautonomous yet interdependent public and private actors with diverging interest. These aspects the challenges of therehabilitation assignment. Therefore, there is a need for governance and coordination that is able to facilitatecollective action. This article presents a novel conceptual framework of governance and coordination is that is ableto address the challenges of the rehabilitation assignment. More specifically, the framework combines programmemanagement, process management, polycentric systems, hybrid organisational structures and participatory systemsto facilitate collective action.

Polycentricity
Project-based
programme management
participatory systems
civil engineering
civil infrastructure
sociotechnical systems

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:b65cdc0c-1cde-4e99-8ade-6591c8980c0c

Student theses

master thesis

© 2020 Alexander Bletsis