Rift Valley University
Harar Campus
Post Graduate Program
Department of Project Management
An Article Review on:
Corruption in public projects and megaprojects:
There is an elephant in the room! Received 1 February
2016; received in revised form 6 September 2016; accepted
15 September 2016 Available online 24 October 2016
By: - Abiy Belay
Submitted to: - Marga Hirko (Mr)
October 2023
Rift Valley University, Harar
Table of Content
Table of Contents
Page
I. Bibliography .......................................................................................................................... II
1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1
1.1. Background ..................................................................................................................... 1
1.2. Research Question ........................................................................................................... 2
1.3. Objective of the Study ..................................................................................................... 2
1.3.1. General Objective ..................................................................................................... 2
1.3.2. Specific Objectives ................................................................................................... 2
1.4. Scope of the Study........................................................................................................... 2
1.5. Procedures ....................................................................................................................... 2
2. Critical Reflection .................................................................................................................. 3
3. Implications............................................................................................................................ 5
4. Lesson learned ....................................................................................................................... 6
5. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 7
6. Limitations ............................................................................................................................. 7
7. Further Developments ............................................................................................................ 8
Reference ................................................................................................................................... 8
I
Giorgio Locatelli, Giacomo Mariani, Tristano Sainati and Marco
Greco (2016) Corruption in public projects and megaprojects: There
is an elephant in the room! International journal of project
management 35(2017) 252-268
I. Bibliography
Giorgio Locatelli is a professor at politecnico di Milano, leading the major Complex
Projects Business at School of Management. Since 2006, Giorgio has studied large and
complex projects and programs, particularly in the energy sector. He acts as a trainer and
advisor for public and private organizations. He has authorized over 120 peer-reviewed
Scopus index publications and with over 3,000 citations .He is Co-Editor –in-Chief of the
International Project Management Journal and also sit on the editorial board.
Giacomo Mariani is an experienced Electrical Engineer and Manager. He is currently
employed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory working on semiconductor-based
Visible/IR/Far-IR imagers. He manages the Flight Imaging System Group at JPL for
Hardware Delivery to Instrument Payloads. He holds a PhD degree in Electrical
Engineering from University of California Los Angeles.
Tristano Sainati
is Associate Professor in project management at the BI Norwegian
Business School BI Norwegian Business School | BINBS · Department of Leadership and
Organizational Behaviour. Tristano is an expert in financing and contracting for
infrastructures in energy, nuclear, and sanitation. Tristano has an industrial engineering and
legal background, and his main research interests include contracting and concessions for
infrastructure projects, nuclear licensing, and cost estimation in projects, project financing,
project governance, and project compliance. He published 38 publications in reputable
international journals and cited 613 works with his areas of research interest.
Marco Greco is Assistant Professor at the University of Cassino and Southern Lazio.
Graduated with honors in Business Engineering at the University of Rome, and also gained
this Ph.D. degree in Business and Economic Engineering from the University. His main
research interests are in the areas of open innovation, intellectual capital, strategic
management, game based learning, negotiation and big data. He published 61publications in
reputable international journals and cited 3,396 works with his areas of research interest.
II
1. Introduction
1.1. Background
Corruption is one of the key issues for public policies. It is one of the major impediments to
the development of emerging countries and to further improve the quality of life in developed
countries. The eradication of corruption is one of the key challenges that the world faces.
Some scholars agree that corruption might be eradicated by enhancing education and with
cultural changes leading to a better government capable of producing policies tackling this
issue. Others believes government policies can reduce corruption “increasing the benefits of
being honest, increasing the probability of detection and punishment, and increasing the
penalties levied on those caught such measures usually require substantive law reform and
the introduction of more transparency.
Unfortunately, achieving all these essential processes and cultural changes might take
decades, while projects need to be constantly planned and delivered. Therefore, while the
sociological and political communities cope with the long-term issues, such as the cultural
and policy changes, the project management community should face the issue of corruption
in projects without further hesitation.
Several factors can undermine the performance of projects, such as complexity or
“technological sublime”, weakness in organizational design and capabilities, optimism bias,
strategic misinterpretation or even certain project characteristics. Corruption should be one of
and the most devastating one among these factors, but surprisingly it is not considered in the
project management literature.
Corruption is particularly relevant for megaprojects because of their intrinsic characteristics.
Megaprojects are projects characterized by: large investment commitment, vast complexity
(especially in organizational terms), and long-lasting impact on the economy, the
environment, and society.
In project management, corruption is the “elephant in the room” that needs to be
acknowledged and discussed. This paper summarizes the key aspects known from the wide
literature concerning such “elephant”, shows the relevance of this topic in project
management and suggests a research agenda.
1
1.2. Research Question
1. Which project characteristics favour corruption?
2. How does a corrupt context affect project performance?
1.3. Objective of the Study
1.3.1. General Objective
Assessing corrupt project context in public projects and megaprojects, by taking the Italian
high-speed railways as a case study
1.3.2. Specific Objectives

To identify which project characteristics favour corruption.

To assess how does a corrupt context affect project performance.
1.4. Scope of the Study
The paper merely focuses on public corruption, particularly about public policy and public
megaprojects.
1.5. Procedures
The researchers utilized the institutional theory to introduce the concept of “corrupt project
context” and, using the case study of the Italian high-speed railways to shows the impact on
megaprojects. They have used two drivers of the perception of corruption specifically in the
project context, i.e. the Indexes of Corruption and the Historical Perspective.
The research methodology is designed to answer the two RQs previously presented. RQ1 is
answered with a critical literature review of sources mostly outside the project management
domain. RQ2 is addressed by the literature review and further investigated with the Italian
case study. The methodology compares megaprojects involved in the high-speed rail
programmes in Europe and globally. The comparison considers two main perspectives; the
project contexts and the extent to which it is corrupt. Secondly, the megaprojects
performance normalized and adjusted to consider different environmental, urbanistic and
technological circumstances.
2
The case study is made up of three main perspectives: the project context, the longitudinal
view over the project lifecycle and the transversal view about the project performance for
pragmatic reasons.
The study adopted the research framework of the Merrow's framework which evaluates the
megaproject performance through five parameters. Each parameter is associated with the
threshold value, which permits to judge whether the performance is satisfactory or not.
Moreover, the researchers utilized secondary sources so as to gather relevant information for
the study.
2. Critical Reflection
The reviewer found out that the article is well written and organized. The research objectives
and research questions are both representative and enough to identify and describe the case
study. In terms of supporting the case with different theoretical perspectives, the researchers
have done well and tried to support their study with project context, longitudinal view and the
transversal view. And also they tried to show their cases with the references of Corruption
Perceptions Index measures the perceived levels of public sector, Control Corruption Index,
National Integrity System and “Dealing with Construction Permits” which are developed by
Transparency International and World Bank respectively.
The reviewer supported the deployment of two drivers of the perception of corruption
specifically in the project context, i.e. the Indexes of Corruption and the Historical
Perspective by the researchers since often corruption cannot be directly assessed.
In addition the reviewer is agreed with the use of institutional theory, which provides a
flexible and adaptive way of conceptualize institutions. Thus, institutions can be
conceptualized adopting three main perspectives: regulative, normative and culturalcognitive. These perspectives permit to identify shared rules, norms, values, beliefs and
understandings that characterize institutions which in turn help to assess the “corrupt project
context” assessing corruption in projects from a social and institutional level. Besides
enabling to identify the project context, institutional theory permits to investigate corruption
as a social/ institutional phenomenon rather than an individual crime.
3
Since a given project incorporates several teams and social interactions within and outside of
it, and corruption are usually committed through the chain of individuals and commands, the
use of this theory to investigate the case is very much appropriate and vital.
Moreover, the researchers tried to show the comparison of megaprojects involved in the highspeed rail programmes in Europe and globally. They tried to signal out megaprojects
performance, normalized and adjusted to consider different environmental, urbanistic and
technological circumstances. This move have backed them to engage in critical literature
review, in describing the typologies of projects that are more likely to involve corruption,
and in assessing the effect that projects involving corruption have on their performance and
during their lifecycle which in turn play a relevant role in answering the basic questions of
the study.
On the other hand the study deployed research framework of the Merrow's which used to
evaluate the megaproject performance namely; cost, time, and quality. The reviewer is totally
agreed with the researchers by the use of this framework since an act of corruption has a
strong linkage with institutional and project performances.
In terms of reasoning the researchers used a deductive method which structurally formulated
and narrated beginning from global level to regional level, from regional level to national
level and from national to project level. This flow of logic makes the study coherent and
understandable.
In the discussion part the investigator began with assessing Benchmark with international
performance and compares the over budget of Italian infrastructure with analogous
infrastructure delivered in other countries. The over budget for the Italian infrastructure is
much higher than analogues infrastructure delivered in other countries and no relevant
improvement have seen over time because of a deviant culture such as the tolerance of
corruption becomes accepted and causes counterproductive behaviours.
An in-depth analysis of the literature allowed them to identify several characteristics that
increase the odds of a project to suffer corruption, including project size, uniqueness, heavy
involvement of the government and technical and organizational complexity that
megaprojects match all these characteristics.
4
Furthermore, projects delivered in “corrupt countries” or “corrupt project contexts” are more
likely, ceteris paribus, to suffer corruption than in less corrupt contexts. Project context
matters: discretionary power of officials, economic rents of policy/decision makers and weak
institutions, make a country ideal for corruption. Within the context of the public sector,
procurement of large projects is ideal for corruption.
They also found out corruption is harmful for both project management success and project
success. During the project phase, the infrastructure suffers extra-costs with respect to both
their budget cost and to other comparable infrastructure. Similarly, looking at the schedule,
there are remarkable delays. During the operation phase, the infrastructure fails to deliver the
expected benefit. The reviewer fully acknowledges the findings of the study and stands on the
side of the researchers.
3. Implications
The findings of this investigation on “corrupt project context” in public projects and
megaprojects, by taking the Italian high-speed railways as a case study has a clear and
understandable implication on mega and public projects conducted here in Ethiopia.
Such findings which stressed projects delivered in “corrupt countries” or “corrupt project
contexts” are more likely, ceteris paribus, to suffer corruption than in less corrupt contexts
undoubtedly represent the existing scenario in Ethiopia. According to Transparency
International report the country ranks 94th from 180 countries in the world which illustrate
the exacerbated level of acts of corruption in the country.
Many studies and the reviewer's critical observation shows that the public institution in the
country are characterized by discretionary power of officials, economic rents of
policy/decision makers, weak institutional structure, institutional deviant culture such as the
tolerance of corruption becomes accepted, favouritism, poor resource management and
utilization, lust for money, lack of transparency and accountability, fragile monitoring and
evaluation tasks make the prevalence of corruption very wide.
5
As far as projects are concerned, the country launched and on the verge of launching new
mega public infrastructural projects with a huge amount of capital. But the already launched
projects are experiencing poor preparation, lack of poor documentation and tracking, poor
leadership, lack of proper communication, poor resource utilization and boldly an
exacerbated act of corruption.
These acts of corruption are the main causes of project delay, output quality deterioration,
cost overruns and fragile sustainability. Thus, there is an urgent need to tackle the fast
moving corrupt acts mainly on the public sector procurement of large projects. So as to
improve project accomplishment rate of mega public projects and make them available for
the intended goal and transfer to them the next generation with their main features, we must
all stand against corruption without any hesitation.
4. Lesson learned
While reviewing this article the reviewer had learned and took the following concepts in to
mind. These include:
1. Megaprojects often have unique characteristics and many influencing factors for their
performance “the elephant in the room” corruption brings the fatal damage but it did not
studied and addressed well.
2. The study developed a new systemic view to investigate corruption in mega public projects
from a social and institutional level known as “corrupt project context”.
3. The article provides a first tentative to approach the problem, whereas further research will
need to identify the most appropriate methods to in-depth analyse the phenomenon.
4. The biggest challenge of future research activities is to isolate corruption from other
factors that may lead megaprojects to fail.
5. Italy was 69th worldwide with a score of 43/100 and the worst corrupted country in the
European Union.
6
5. Conclusion
At the end of the day after conducting any research, article or reviews there must be a
concluding remark outlining the basic findings based on the objectives.Thus,the reviewer can
conclude that this article has vividly answered the two basic questions of the study and also
tried to assess corruption in public projects and megaprojects, by taking the Italian high-speed
railways within the institutional theory scenario by merging project context and corruption as a
social phenomenon which originates the concept of “corrupt project context”.
Therefore, the study find out that despite the relevance of corruption in public projects and
megaprojects, it seems that is not convenient to research, to talk and to write about it. In spite
of the amount of papers published on relatively close fields (governance, stakeholders, risk,
and value), corruption seems a taboo and project management scholars seem afraid to write
about it. However (and unfortunately), the context of the public sector and procurement of
large projects is ideal for corruption.
A major contribution of this paper is therefore to rethink the role of corruption in projects
from a social and institutional level. Projects are not delivered in a vacuum environment, but
a number of internal and external stakeholders link them to the project context. At the same
time, the study of the project context alone is not fully appropriate since different project
characteristics may favour or disfavour corruption.
6. Limitations
The case-study approach used in this article has some limitations, as it cannot quantitatively
demonstrate exactly the specific impact of a corrupt context on a project poor performance.
As discussed in the article, demonstrating such relationship is remarkably difficult in that
corruption is often considered a phenomenon more associated to individuals than to projects.
Furthermore, megaprojects often have unique characteristics and many influencing factors for
their performance.
7
7. Further Developments
1. Future research activities should deepen the correlation between corruption and project
performances comparing the costs of similar megaprojects in countries with different levels
of corruption.
2. Future studies should investigate the correlation between project management attributes.
3. Corruption does not simply lead to extra cost and delay, but also increases the transaction
costs such the effort to set certain procurement and controlling system.
4. It is necessary to develop tools and control systems to address the “corruption
performance” of a project.
Reference
@ Corruption in public projects and megaprojects: There is an elephant in the
room!
International Journal of Project Management
8