Research On The Network Risk Management In Construction Projects From The Perspective Of Organizational Resilience

Along with construction projects involve an increasing number of participants and the cooperative relationships among these participants become closer,more and more scholars began to pay attention on the network characteristics of projects and view them as temporary network-based organizations.The development of collaborative network can increase the efficiency of resource utilization and compensate for individual participant’s lack of capabilities in risk management,but it also could bring several new problems.The problems relating to the development of collaborative network include potential conflicts and disputes resulting from participants’ extreme close relationships and the generation of risk interactions and conductions due to the increasement of dependency among participants.Therefore,it can be concluded that the development of collaborative network in construction projects has a double-edged sword effect.On one hand,the collaborative network will help the individual participant to rise its capability in project risk management,but on the other hand,it also could result in the occurrence of network level risks.Traditional project risk management(PRM)research mainly focuses on the improvement of risk management technologies,but it is considered to have limitations in analyzing risks when the risk interactions and cascading effect exists.Organizational resilience reflects that organizations are able to prevent potential shocks or disturbances and response these adverse events and recovery once they occurred,and it is viewed as the organizations’ core ability of managing risks and uncertainties.Recently,organizational resilience elicits increasing attention also reflects that PRM research has turned from paying attention on the improvement of related approached into focusing the capabilities and characteristics of organizations.For the network-based organization developing based on collaborations among project participants,the resilience capability enables it to strengthen preparedness and prevention before risks occur and response them efficiently and recovery once they occur.Therefore,the development of resilience capability would help the networkbased organization to eliminate local risks in time,reduce the occurrence probability of risk conductions,and thereby prevent the whole network-based organization to suffer huge losses.In conclusion,the development and improvement of organizational resilience will play a key role in managing network risks in construction projects.For this reason,this research will analyze network level risks,and explore the formation mechanism and improvement strategies of organizational resilience in construction projects.According to the research objectives,this research will carry out in four areas as follows:(1)To examine whether risks will happen interrelatedly in construction projects.Key risks in construction projects were identified from literature review,and the data related risks were collected and analyzed.Results of data analysis demonstrated the existence of interaction effects among project risks,which means the formation of network among project participants contributes to independences among project risks.Moreover,a total of 20 risk interactions paths were identified according to the results.In addition,the critical risk vulnerability factors which will influence the project objectives were also selected,and these factors include host government–related risk,contractor’s lack of experience and so on.(2)To develop a measurement instrument for construction projects organizational resilience.The dimensions of construction projects organizational resilience were determined by drawing on the dynamic capability theory,and the items for each dimension were identified from literature review.Then,an initial scale was developed,and the empirical analysis was conducted to test its reliability and validity.The analysis results indicated that the finial scale for measuring construction projects organizational resilience comprises two dimensions: static and dynamic,and it concludes 12 items.(3)To explore the relationships among the characteristics of interorganizational project networks,resilience and project risk management performance.The research hypotheses were proposed based on literature review,and they were validated with data via the structural equation modelling technique.The results showed: network structure,relational strength and shared vision are all crucial drivers of organizational resilience;both static and dynamic dimension of organizational resilience have a positive influence on project risk management performance;dynamic resilience has a mediation effect on relationships between network characteristics and project risk management performance.(4)To develop a decision model which will make an optimal balance between resilience enhancement and cost control during risk management processess.A credibility-based fuzzy chance constrained programming model was developed by adopting the chance constrained programming techniques,and this model aims to simultaneously minimizes the percentage of losses which are unable to reduce and the total cost post-risks.To solve this model,a fuzzy interactive solution method is used.Finally,the numerical project case was analyzed and the applicability and feasibility of the proposed model were demonstrated based on the analysis results.The following theoretical contributions can be drawn from this research: Firstly,a theoretical model for risk management performance improvement with considering the context of network was prove in this research,which serves as a fundamental research framework for the future project network risk management research.Secondly,this research uncovered the relationships among project network characteristics,organizational resilience and risk management performance,which will enrich the scope of research about the influence of project network on risk control.Thirdly,this research had developed the scale for measuring construction projects organizational resilience,and the research findings will provide the measure foundation for further research relating to organizational resilience in projects.Fourthly,this research brought dynamic capability theory into the PRM research domain,which will extend the application scope of dynamic capability theory.Moreover,the findings of this research also will provide a better understanding of project risks and their interrelationships for construction practitioners.In addition,this research also will provide theoretical support for participants within project networks to improve network relations,and provide theoretical guidance for project teams to develop and enhance resilience capability during the risk management process.