arbiter
JournalsAccount

Escaping the Governance Trap: Insights from New Infrastructure Development “Megaprojects”

Nuno Gil & Sara Beckman

California Management Review2025https://doi.org/10.1177/00081256251329058article
AJG 3ABDC A
Weight
0.46

Abstract

Summary Mega infrastructure projects in liberal democracies often encounter significant cost overruns and delays. These challenges arise from tensions between mandated stakeholder engagement and shareholder-focused decision making. Legal frameworks require broad stakeholder involvement, yet investors prioritize cost efficiency, frequently omitting collaboration expenses from initial budgets. This misalignment creates governance traps, leading to prolonged negotiations, inefficiencies, collective action problems, and diminished trust among managers, stakeholders, and investors. This special section of California Management Review examines the dynamics of large-scale stakeholder enfranchisement. This introduction presents a 2 × 2 framework categorizing megaproject governance based on legal mandates for stakeholder inclusion and the degree of shareholder-centric investment decisions. The featured articles propose strategies to enhance stakeholder collaboration and address governance challenges. Together, they suggest that large-scale stakeholder engagement can be effective when organizations enjoy ample resources or strong cooperative norms. In their absence, governance traps may emerge, hindering efficiency and broad-based wealth creation. Alternative social arrangements can be employed to navigate and escape these governance traps.

4 citations

Open via your library →

Cite this paper

https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/00081256251329058

Or copy a formatted citation

@article{nuno2025,
  title        = {{Escaping the Governance Trap: Insights from New Infrastructure Development “Megaprojects”}},
  author       = {Nuno Gil & Sara Beckman},
  journal      = {California Management Review},
  year         = {2025},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/00081256251329058},
}

Paste directly into BibTeX, Zotero, or your reference manager.

Flag this paper

Escaping the Governance Trap: Insights from New Infrastructure Development “Megaprojects”

Flags are reviewed by the Arbiter methodology team within 5 business days.

Evidence weight

0.46

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.37 × 0.4 = 0.15
M · momentum0.60 × 0.15 = 0.09
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.