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Project success
Identifying the gaps in project research
success research
A mixed bibliographic and
bibliometric analysis 1553
Qinghua He Received 27 April 2018
School of Economics and Management, Revised 29 July 2018
15 September 2018
Tongji University, Shanghai, China and Accepted 27 December 2018
Research Institute of Complex Engineering and Management, Shanghai, China
Ting Wang
School of Economics and Management, Tongji University, Shanghai, China and
Department of Building and Real Estate,
Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Albert P.C. Chan
Department of Building and Real Estate,
Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, and
Hanzhang Li and Yangxue Chen
School of Economics and Management,
Tongji University, Shanghai, China and
Research Institute of Complex Engineering and Management, Shanghai, China

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review the existing literature on project success in academic
journals, specifically within the context of construction engineering and management (CEM). It also aims to
provide a holistic picture of existing research and to identify research implications in this specific area.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper is an extensive literature review of a total of 164 peer-reviewed
journal papers between 2007 and 2017, using a mixed bibliographic and bibliometric method that considers
annual circulation, institutional and regional contributions, author contributions, citations, categories of
research methods and keywords networking.
Findings – There has been an increasing research interest in CEM project success. The largest number of
published studies targets the developed regions, especially in Hong Kong, whereas the papers related to the
developing economies remain weak. Questionnaire, interview and case study have comprised the main data
collection methods, and descriptive data analysis was performed in most of the case/field studies. The
subtopic related to the critical success factors (CSFs) is considered as the most popular in the keywords
network in the targeted research area. Four implications, namely, megaproject success, project success in
developing countries, relationships between CSFs and success outcomes, and the influence of human
factors are highlighted in future research.
Originality/value – This paper departs from earlier research by using a mixed bibliographic and
bibliometric method, especially facilitating to analyze and illustrate the interlinkages between keywords
effectively. Additionally, it provides a clear picture of the existing literature on CEM project success, which
contributes to insights for successful construction project management. Finally, the holistic analysis identifies
gaps in the body of knowledge, revealing avenues for future research.
Keywords Construction, Construction projects, Bibliometric analysis, Management, Project management,
Project success, UCINET
Paper type Literature review
Engineering, Construction and
Architectural Management
Vol. 26 No. 8, 2019
This research is part of a Joint PhD Program leading to dual awards (PhD of The Hong Kong pp. 1553-1573
Polytechnic University and Tongji University). The authors wish to express gratitude to the National © Emerald Publishing Limited
0969-9988
Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 71390523) for the financial support of this research. DOI 10.1108/ECAM-04-2018-0181
ECAM 1. Introduction
26,8 In recent years, project management has been a hotspot in both academia and industry. This
increasing interest has become more apparent in relation to construction activities, which
has led to the establishment of project management theories and professional organizations
such as the Project Management Institute (PMI).
Despite relatively mature project management theory and the completion of myriad
1554 construction projects, project outcomes continue to yield disappointing results. That is, many
construction projects are not completed successfully, so it is vital to understand the reasons for
the success or failure of construction projects (Ika, 2009). In addition, construction projects have
become more complex, unpredictable and risky, such as complex projects and megaprojects,
which leads to increasing difficulties in project management and delivery, and eventually bad
performance or even failure. Megaprojects are characterized by a “performance paradox,” in
that most megaprojects face cost overruns, quality defects and schedule delays (Flyvbjerg,
2007; Kardes et al., 2013). It is apparent that megaproject management presents a major
challenge worldwide (Hu, Chan, Le and Jin, 2015), and the nature and characteristics of
megaprojects distinguish them from normal construction projects and require a new approach
to ensure success (Flyvbjerg, 2014).
Project success research has attracted the attention of many scholars and large number
of papers related to project success in construction engineering and management (CEM) has
been published. The research topics under this specific area are diversified, such as the
following: evaluation of project success (Akal et al., 2016), identification of critical success
factors (CSFs) (Al-Saadi and Abdou, 2016), theories and principles of project success
(Chou et al., 2013), and the relationship between success factors and project
success (Gilbert and Ron, 2016). And meanwhile, a few review articles on project success
have been conducted during the past decades. Ika (2009) analyzed the characteristics of
articles on project success published in Project Management Journal (PMJ) and International
Journal of Project Management (IJPM) from 1984 to 2004, and the author suggested a shift to
the project, portfolio and program success. Machado and Martens (2015) reviewed
project-success-related publications between 2000 and 2014 from the perspectives of most
cited keywords, citations, co-citations, journals’ impact factors and abstract analysis. Davis
(2014) conducted a literature review on project success mainly to summarize the evolution of
project success and identify perceptions of senior management, project core team and
project recipient stakeholder groups. Jugdev and Müller (2005) developed a review mainly to
assess evolving understanding of project success over the past 40 years and discuss
conditions for CSFs and success frameworks.
Although review articles mentioned above can help researchers capture a picture of the
field of project success and contribute to a better understanding of this specific topic, two
main limitations cannot be ignored. On the one hand, previous studies only reviewed
articles from selected journals or only focused on a specific topic within project success.
That is, a plenty of articles of high quality published in peer-reviewed journals have not
been analyzed. As suggested by Tsai and Lydia Wen (2005), a comprehensive review
would assist the researcher to understand the current status and future trends of the
chosen topics, which could help future researchers not to repeat what has already been
done, and instead to build on the work of others. On the other hand, the above review
articles almost used bibliographic analysis, which cannot reveal the interrelationships
between keywords effectively. However, keywords are important indicators of studies
that convey their main topics. As Kamalski and Kirby (2012) advocated, bibliometrics can
be a useful tool to explore and visualize how keywords are connected in one specific
research area.
Therefore, in this paper, the project success literature published between 2007 and 2017 in
the construction projects field to identify its current status quo and latest research directions
with the assistance of a mixed bibliographic and bibliometric method is comprehensively Project success
reviewed. To meet this study objective, the following questions are addressed: research
• What was the coverage of project success in the field of construction projects by
journal papers published from 2007 to 2017?
• Who were the main contributors to these studies from 2007 to 2017 and where are
they from (countries or regions)?
1555
• What were the main research methodologies, keyword characteristics and trends in
this area during this study period?

2. Basic concepts
2.1 Project success
Although research regarding project success began in the 1980s, as yet, no clear or uniform
understanding of project success has been established (Ika, 2009). Researchers have proposed
various perspectives for defining project success, which makes it difficult to assess and/or
define the degrees of project success. For example, Tuman (1986) stated that the full use of
resources and achievement of the desired goal define a successful project. Wit (1988) believed
that if a project meets the required technical performance, then the main members of the project
team and the main users consider the project results to have been satisfactory. By contrast,
others assessed project success based on the “Golden Triangle” of cost, quality and schedule
(Ika, 2009). Ashley et al. (1987) considered that if the results of a project in terms of its cost,
schedule, quality, safety and satisfaction of the project participants are better than required,
then the project can be deemed a success. Pinto and Slevin (1987) deemed that successful
projects must meet at least four requirements, namely, completion on time, within budget,
completion of all planned goals and the acceptance of the results by customers. In addition to
the three aspects of cost, quality and schedule, project success also relies on human factors like
project management. Some researchers have argued that the evaluation of project management
success ought to be based on the “Golden Triangle,” which requires multidimensional thinking
(Machado and Martens, 2015; Shenhar et al., 2001). The PMI defined project management
success as good control of the time, cost, quality, resources and risk accepted by the project
management team, and focuses more on customers’ expectations than other internal or external
expectations (Khan et al., 2011). On this basis, project management success is determined by
evaluations conducted at the end of the project implementation phase, with respect to the
project implementation stage, which is only one phase of the whole project life cycle.

2.2 Project success criteria and CSFs

Project success studies generally consist of two components – project success criteria and
success factors (Müller, Söderland and Jugdev, 2012). Project success criteria refer to the use
of a group of principles or standards to determine or judge project success. CSFs, first
proposed in 1979 (Fortune and White, 2006), specify the project conditions, events and
circumstances that facilitate final success (Ika, 2009).
The “Golden Triangle” components of cost, time and quality are the most commonly used
criteria for assessing project success. However, quality is an ambiguous and subjective index
that can lead to different understandings by different project stakeholders (Wateridge, 1995).
For example, Chan et al. (2002) suggested that the criteria for project success be further
distinguished between those that are objective and subjective, whereby objective indicators
would include time and cost, budget/economic performance/profit, and safety and health;
and the subjective indicators would include quality, technical performance, production
efficiency, owner satisfaction/project member satisfaction, legal claims, functionality and
environmental sustainability.
ECAM However, for a public–private partnership (PPP) or design-build (DB) project, Osei-Kyei et al.
26,8 (2017) provided a total of 15 indicators and 7 were very critical that included effective risk
management, meeting delivery requirements, time control, long-term relationship and
partnership, profit and budget control, reliable and quality service operations, and satisfying
the need for public facility/service. From the perspectives of various stakeholders, indicators
and dimensions of project success are set against the stakeholder theory or the requirements of
1556 multidimensional participants. For instance, Davis (2014) categorized stakeholders of different
classes, including project managers, users and senior managers (sponsors, owner and
executives). Within this assessment model, project managers often measure success based on
cost/budget, quality and schedule/time, whereas users consider satisfaction and communication
to be the two most important aspects. Meanwhile, senior managers consider decision-making
processes, such as setting targets, to be most important.
Regarding CSFs, Slevin and Pinto (1986) proposed ten key factors: project mission, top
management support, project plan, client consultation, personnel, technical skills, client
acceptance, control and feedback, communication and problem solving. There is a trend in
recent CSF papers to shift the focus to specifying, rather than generalizing, factors relevant
to different countries/regions. Wang et al. (2007) analyzed the CSFs of PPP infrastructure
projects in mainland China, and identified seven types of CSFs: project characteristics
(project scale, attractiveness of private capital and rationality of financial assessment), good
investment environment (good international reputation, stable legal system and public
support), project company competencies (leadership, project organization structure),
regulations and policies (reasonable risk sharing mechanism, supervision and justifiable
pricing mechanism), governmental support (government subsidies and government political
support), product features (quality of products or services, meeting environmental
standards) and project management (project planning, effective project control, reasonable
risk sharing and communication and coordination). Chan et al. (2002) conducted a DB project
study and considered there to be six project success factors, including the project team’s
commitment, the contractor’s ability, risk and liability assessment, client ability, end user’s
needs and the constraints imposed by the end user.
Obviously, there is no universally recognized list of project success criteria and CSFs that
meet the needs of all construction projects. However, project success studies that have
focused on project success criteria and CSFs have provided quantitative information and
guidance for construction practices in the real world.

3. Research methodology
This work mainly adopted a structured method advocated by Machado and Martens (2015)
to identify and assess the major outputs of project success research in CEM published in
peer-reviewed journals from 2007 to 2017. To acquire a more elaborated understanding of
this study, the research framework is illustrated in Figure 1. The entire research process and
methodology involved in this study will be discussed in Sections 3.1–3.3 in detailed;
meanwhile, four contents consist of number of published papers, quantification of
contributions, categories of research methods and keywords network will be analyzed and
discussed in Section 4 and future interests will be put forward finally in Section 5.

3.1 Selection of target academic papers

For this study, comprehensive explorations within the context of CEM via the Web of
Science and Scopus databases were conducted. Based on the abovementioned definitions of
project success and research work by Machado and Martens (2015), for selection in the two
target databases, the keywords success AND project OR projects, successful AND project
OR projects, success AND project management, successful AND project management in the
Title/Abstract/Keyword of selected databases were used. Since the Web of Science and
 Search engine
Project success
research
T/A/K search

Papers

Review and
narrow 1557
Target papers

Number of Quantification of Categories of Keywords

published papers contributions research methods networking

Future interests Figure 1.

Research framework
of this paper
Notes: T/A/K, title/abstract/keywords; MDS, multi-dimensional scale

Scopus databases do not contain a full record of CEM articles between 2007 and 2017, such
as PMJ, which is one of the most popular journals in the construction project field, the
EBSCO database was also adopted to facilitate our paper exploration. In this stage, a total of
263 journal papers were identified and then these papers to identify CEM-related content
were briefly reviewed. Eventually, the total number of papers was narrowed to 164. Articles
identified in this study between 2007 and 2017 are shown in Table AI.

3.2 Quantification of contributions of authors and institutes

Quantifying the contributions of major authors has been a traditional research approach.
Generally, a widely adopted formula, as proposed by Howard et al. (1987), involves scoring
the contributions of authors from different countries (or regions) and institutes
(or universities) in a multi-authored paper, as shown in formula (1) below. Studies that
have employed this formula to identify research trends in construction and demolition waste
management (Yuan and Shen, 2011) and partnering research trends in construction journals
(Hong et al., 2012) have confirmed its suitability and reliability in quantifying the
contributions of authors and institutes. Therefore, employing this formula, the author scores
based on their author-list orders to quantify the contributions of both the authors and their
institutes were calculated. Specifically, the 164 articles to determine the contributions by
author and institution (university) were quantitatively analyzed:

1:5ni
Score ¼ Pn ni
: (1)
i¼1 1:5

In this formula, n is the number of authors in the paper; and i the order of the specific author.
Table I shows details regarding the scoring matrix.
ECAM 3.3 Establishment of keywords network
26,8 The Bibliographic Items Co-occurrence Matrix Builder (BICOMB) 2.0 software was mainly
employed to conduct the research in this part. To be specific, the frequency (also known as
occurrence) of a selected keyword was calculated and then the keywords according to their
frequency were ranked. The specific steps are as follows:
(1) The authors used BICOMB software to build a co-word matrix that quantifies the
1558 frequency of two keywords appearing in one paper. Initially, 447 keywords were
extracted. The authors then merged some similar keywords in the co-word matrix
before performing the next step. Table II shows the resulting frequency of keywords.
(2) The authors used UCINET v6.415 software with the co-word matrix to establish and
visualize a keywords network.
(3) To provide visualizations of the intensity of use and attention given to keywords by
existing academic papers, a bi-dimensional multi-dimensional scale (MDS) table via
SPSS was employed to indicate the most frequently discussed keywords.

4. Discussion and analysis of results

4.1 Number of published papers
Figure 2 shows the annual number of published papers related to project success in the
CEM, for a total of 164 journal papers. As shown in the figure, the number generally
increased from 2007 to 2017, with the largest number in 2016 (29), which is approximately
double those in 2011 (14) and 2012 (14).
Table III shows the number of project success papers related to CEM studies from 2007
through 2017 in the top 10 journals, including the IJPM, Journal of Management in
Engineering ( JME), Journal of Civil Engineering and Management ( JCEM-1), Journal of
Construction Engineering and Management ( JCEM-2), PMJ, Construction Management and

Order of specific authors

Number of authors 1 2 3 4 5

1 1.00 – – – –
2 0.60 0.40 – – –
Table I. 3 0.47 0.32 0.21 – –
Scoring matrix for 4 0.42 0.28 0.18 0.12 –
multi-author articles 5 0.38 0.26 0.17 0.11 0.08

Frequency Keywords Frequency Keywords

51 project success 6 structural equation modeling

48 critical success factors 5 procurement
32 project management 5 project governance
25 PPP 5 factor analysis
17 project success factors 5 project performance
14 construction project 5 Hong Kong
Table II. 8 success criteria 5 stakeholders
High-frequency 8 China 5 Malaysia
keywords identified 8 construction industry 4 principal component analysis
in this study 6 construction continue…
 Annual number Project success
35
research
30 29

25 23
21
20 18
17 1559
15 14 14

10 9
7 8 Figure 2.
4 Annual publications
5
in journal papers
on project success in
0 CEM from
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
2007 to 2017
Note: Data for 2017 were up to October

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Total

Selected journals 435 455 473 516 525 576 643 662 691 755 672 6,403
Project success 2 7 3 1 8 6 9 7 18 14 13 88
Ratio (%) 0.5 1.5 0.6 0.2 1.5 1.0 1.4 1.1 2.6 1.9 1.9 1.4
IJPM 84 84 80 79 96 82 100 126 150 147 126 1,154
Project success 0 2 1 0 3 0 2 3 9 2 5 27
Ratio (%) 0 2.4 1.3 0.0 3.1 0.0 2.0 2.4 6.0 1.4 4.0 2.3
JME 24 28 24 24 27 46 52 73 117 92 87 594
Project success 0 1 0 0 2 0 1 0 3 3 3 13
Ratio (%) 0.0 3.6 0.0 0.0 7.4 0.0 1.9 0.0 2.6 3.3 3.4 2.2
JCEM-1 37 36 41 65 57 88 99 83 92 101 91 790
Project success 0 0 1 0 0 1 2 1 3 0 1 9
Ratio (%) 0.0 0.0 2.4 0.0 0.0 1.1 2.0 1.2 3.3 0.0 1.1 1.1
JCEM-2 109 103 132 131 127 151 170 153 109 175 181 1,541
Project success 1 1 0 1 0 2 1 0 0 1 1 8
Ratio (%) 0.9 1.0 0.0 0.8 0.0 1.3 0.6 0.0 0.0 0.6 0.6 0.5
PMJ 12 39 30 35 36 36 36 36 42 55 27 384
Project success 0 2 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 8
Ratio (%) 0.0 5.1 3.3 0.0 2.8 2.8 2.8 0.0 0.0 1.8 3.7 2.1
CME 101 94 90 91 85 65 70 75 57 57 41 826
Project success 1 1 0 0 2 1 1 0 0 0 0 6
Ratio (%) 1.0 1.1 0.0 0.0 2.4 1.5 1.4 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.7
CEB 10 11 12 19 25 28 35 28 27 26 19 240
Project success 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 1 1 5
Ratio (%) 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 11.1 3.8 5.3 2.1
BEPAM 12 13 13 14 14 15 17 24 29 36 38 225
Project success 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 1 4
Ratio (%) 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 8.3 2.6 1.8
IJCM 14 12 17 22 20 21 23 23 28 25 23 228
Project success 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 2 0 4
Ratio (%) 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 4.8 4.3 0.0 0.0 8.0 0.0 1.8
IJMPB 32 35 34 36 38 44 41 41 40 41 39 421 Table III.
Project success 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 1 0 4 Top 10 journals for
Ratio (%) 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 7.3 0.0 2.4 0.0 1.0 published project
Notes: JCEM-1 refers to Journal of Civil Engineering and Management; JCEM-2 refers to Journal of success
Construction Engineering and Management papers in CEM
ECAM Economics (CME), Construction Economics and Building (CEB), Built Environment Project and
26,8 Asset Management (BEPAM), International Journal of Construction Management (IJCM) and
International Journal of Managing Projects in Business (IJMPB). As shown in Table III, project
success papers (total 88) accounted for only 1.4 percent of the total number of papers in the top
10 journals. The top 5 journals (IJPM, JME, JCEM-1, JCEM-2 and PMJ) published the most
articles in the past decade (27, 13, 9, 8 and 8, respectively), and published 74 percent of the
1560 88 CEM project success papers by the top 10 journals. Of these journals, the IJPM published
27 articles, which represents nearly 31 percent of all the selected papers, thereby representing
the most project success study cases. In addition, whereas the average ratio of this research
with respect to all other research is 1.4 percent (Table III), the relative values of IJPM
(2.3 percent), JME (2.2 percent), PMJ (2.1 percent) and CEB (2.1 percent) are higher than
2 percent, which indicates that these four journals published more targeted papers than the
average. Notably, although the publication number of CEB was only 5, its average ratio
ranked as 3rd among the top 10 journals. This might suggest that the CEB can also be
regarded as an important source for acquiring the most highly valued papers.

4.2 Contributions of countries/regions and authors

The number of academic publications in a country or region is an indication of the extent to
which industrial practices in academic areas are progressing in that location. Thus, it is
meaningful to analyze the contributions of countries or regions to obtain a sense of the current
industrial practices in particular areas (Hong et al., 2012). In this study, the authors analyzed
contributions based on the scores of each author’s contributions. To do so, the formula (1)
found in section Research methodology was used to calculate the scores and used the sum of
the values of all researchers within identified origins as the final score for this location. In
addition, the contribution score of authors with two origins was divided into two equal parts,
which is a recognized method for the calculation of contribution scores.
Table IV lists the countries/regions of origin of publications along with the number of
research institutions, affiliated researchers, a total number of articles involved, as well as
the final scores. It shows that Hong Kong is the biggest contributor to papers on project
success in CEM, with a total score of 14.38 for 23 researchers and 22 articles published
between 2007 and 2017. Table IV also shows that the top 4 contributions by researchers
are from Hong Kong (23), Malaysia (15), Taiwan (10) and Australia (10), which represents
approximately 63 percent of all the researchers in the table. In addition, Hong Kong (22),
Australia (8), Malaysia (6) and Taiwan (5) are the top 4 countries/regions that contributed
publications to project success within CEM, accounting for almost 67 percent of the
identified papers. In addition, although there are five developing countries/regions on this
list (Malaysia, Iran, India, Thailand and South Africa), they represent only 30 percent of

Ranking Institutions Countries/Regions Researchers Articles Scores

1 Hong Kong Polytechnic University Hong Kong 23 22 14.38

2 National Taiwan University of Science and Taiwan 10 5 5
Technology
3 University of Technology Malaysia Malaysia 15 6 4.72
4 Queensland University of Technology Australia 10 8 3.81
5 National University of Singapore Singapore 6 4 3.72
6 Islamic Azad University Iran 5 3 2.58
7 Indian Institute of Technology Delhi India 4 2 2.53
Table IV. 8 University of Salford UK 8 4 2.47
Research origins of 9 Asian Institute of Technology Thailand 5 4 2.4
published papers 10 University of Pretoria South Africa 6 3 2.4
the identified articles. To a great extent, this indicates that project success in these areas is Project success
a topic of greater interest compared to other developing countries or regions, such as research
China and India. Since developing countries are regarded as increasing markets for huge
investments in infrastructure, these countries should strengthen their research efforts
with respect to project success.
A further examination of the research contributors of the identified papers is presented
in Table V. It shows that ten researchers contributed more than two project-success-related 1561
papers from 2007 to 2017. By applying the formula (1) noted above in section Research
methodology, the total contribution score of each of these ten researchers was calculated,
respectively. Albert P.C. Chan published the largest number of related papers during the
study period and received the highest score of 3.9, followed by Ralf Müller and Robert
Osei-Kyei, who also received scores greater than 2, with 3.34 and 2.27, respectively. In
addition, of these ten researchers, only is one from a developing economy, which indicates
the imbalanced development between developing and developed areas.
Citation analysis is another effective way to analyze contributions. Table VI lists the top
10 articles ranked by citations in the selected period. It shows that most of these articles
were published in PMJ, IJPM and JCEM-1, which indicates that these three journals
published not only the most related papers, but also the most influential papers in the
selected period. Although these analyses may not fully reflect the citation status of
recent journal papers, project success research is identified as a consistently important area
in CEM.

Researchers Articles Scores Affiliation Location

Albert P.C. Chan 12 3.9 Hong Kong Polytechnic University Hong Kong
Ralf Müller 7 3.34 Umea University Sweden
Robert Osei-Kyei 6 2.27 Hong Kong Polytechnic University Hong Kong
J. Rodney Turner 4 1.61 University of Lille Nord de France France
Robert Joslin 3 1.8 Skema Business School France
Min-Yuan Cheng 3 1.34 The National Taiwan University of Science Taiwan
and Technology
Adeel Sabir Khan 3 1.19 Institute of Management Sciences Pakistan Table V.
Kate Davis 2 2 Kingston University London UK Top 10 researchers
Shamas-ur-Rehman Toor 2 1.2 National University of Singapore Singapore contributing to
Jui-Sheng Chou 2 1.07 The National Taiwan University of Science Taiwan publications in
and Technology project success

Authors Year Journal Times

Ika 2009 PMJ 465

Müller and Turner 2007 European Management Journal 396
Davis 2014 IJPM 211
Shen et al. 2010 Journal of Cleaner Production 169
Ahadzie et al. 2008 IJPM 162
Yang et al. 2009 JCEM-1 155
Lam et al. 2008 JCEM-1 135
Al-Tmeemy et al. 2011 IJPM 135
Turner and Zolin 2012 PMJ 133 Table VI.
Bryde 2008 IJPM 131 Top 10 journal papers
Note: Data obtained from Google Scholar (accessed October 10, 2017) ranked by citation
ECAM 4.3 Categories of research methods
26,8 Understanding the data collection and analysis methods used can help researchers gain
insights into the development of project success. In this study, the target-publication
methodologies were categorized as either questionnaire, case study, or interview, which
were the top 3 methods used for data collection, totaling 66, 40 and 39, respectively. Other
research methods, such as field research and literature review, are also used. The primary
1562 data analysis method (approximately 83 percent of the total) was quantitative, which is
typically implemented using one of many optimization tools. In this study, we categorized
the main quantitative methods into the following groups:
(1) descriptive statistics/analysis, such as the χ2 test and analysis of variance (Müller
and Turner, 2010; Zare et al., 2016);
(2) factor analysis (Müller, Geraldi and Turner, 2012);
(3) regression analysis (Wang and Gibson, 2010);
(4) structural equation modeling (Ng et al., 2010; Doloi et al., 2011);
(5) analytic hierarchy process (AHP) (Akal et al., 2016; Gupta et al., 2012);
(6) principal component analysis (Almohsen and Ruwanpura, 2016);
(7) fuzzy analysis (Mostafaei et al., 2016; Osei-Kyei et al., 2016);
(8) Delphi (Hu, Chan and Le, 2015); and
(9) modeling, such as system dynamic modeling (Ullah et al., 2017).
It is worth noting that a method that had been adopted by more papers does not indicate that
it is more popular than others since some approaches are more general in scope.
It is also interesting that descriptive analyses were more likely to be used in the earlier studies,
whereas more advanced statistical and modeling methods, such as genetic algorithms and
fuzzy hybrid neural networks, are growing in popularity in project success CEM studies.

4.4 Analysis of keywords network

Keywords are indicators of studies that convey their main topics. As such, co-occurring
keywords can be identified and analyzed to reflect the hottest research issues in a given field. In
this review, a network of high-frequency keywords via the UCINET software (Figure 3) was
constructed. A word’s centrality is a primary indicator that reflects its interlinkages between
target keywords and the size of each node. The thickness of the connection line reflects the
number of co-occurrences of two keywords, that is, the thicker the line, the more co-occurrences.
As shown in Figure 3, project success, CSFs and project management are the most
frequently targeted keywords, with project management being one of the core areas with a
close connection to project success. Figure 3 shows an intense connection between CSFs and
PPP, which may indicate that CSF-related analyses are highly valued in PPP construction
projects due to their great advantages in improving efficiency and effectiveness. These factors
have yet to be extensively studied in the academic and industrial realms. In addition, the target
nodes on the edge of the network can be divided into two primary types (Figure 3) – location
(China, Hong Kong and Malaysia) and research approaches, such as AHP and factor analysis.
Interestingly, projects conducted in different regions tend to adopt different approaches. For
example, the keyword China is largely correlated with project complexity, stakeholders and
stakeholder management, whereas the keyword Malaysia is linked more to research methods
like factor analysis.
Next, the authors used a bi-dimensional MDS table to statistically analyze the distances
between target keywords. To standardize the data matrix, the cosine coefficient was used.
The resulting stress value was 0.16 (o0.2) and the RQS was 0.866 (W0.8), which comply with Project success
the required standards. As shown in Figure 4, project success, project management and research
project manager are keywords with intense links in the first quadrant. PPP, CSFs and
developing countries exhibited closer connections in the second quadrant, which reveals that
developing countries rely heavily on PPPs and CSFs analysis. In the third quadrant, it shows
that China, Malaysia and construction project shared the strongest links, probably because
these articles addressed regional CEM cases descriptively. In addition, the keywords 1563
megaprojects complexity emotional intelligence

project manager
project complexity
China project performance

procurement
stakeholders

project success project governance

project success factors

developing countries sustainability

success criteria critical success factors project management

stakeholders management
project management success

principal component analysis PPP

structural equation modeling
construction project
construction industry Figure 3.
Hong kong
Malaysia construction Network of high-
AHP frequency keywords
factor analysis

2
PPP
critical_success_factors
developing_countries

1
sustainability
structural_equation_modeling procurement project_management
construction project_management_success
AHP construction_industry
Dimension 2

factor_analysis project_success
success_criteria
Hong_kong stakeholders project_manager

0
stakeholders_management project_performance
emotional_intelligence
megaprojects
construction_project project_complexity
complexity
China
Malaysia
–1
project_governance

project_success_factors
–2
Figure 4.
Bi-dimensional
–2 –1 0 1 2
table of MDS
Dimension 1
ECAM megaproject, complexity and project performance are strongly associated with each other in
26,8 the fourth quadrant. This may indicate that these research papers focus mainly on the
performances of large, complex construction projects.

5. Implications for future research

Based on the above review and analyses, project success in CEM is expected to be mainly
1564 centered on four areas: research on megaproject success, project success in developing
countries/regions, identifying the relationships between CSFs and success outcomes, and
human factors in project success. In the following section, four future research directions for
each of these areas are discussed, as summarized in Figure 5.

5.1 Megaproject success

Rapid global urbanization has triggered an investment boom in construction megaprojects for
both renewal activities in developed countries and new construction activities in developing
countries. For example, McKinsey estimates that the world will require about a $57 trillion
investment in infrastructure by 2030 to keep up with the expected GDP growth. Megaprojects
differ from the normal projects in many aspects, such as huge investments, very long periods,
high in complexities and uncertainties, and multiple stakeholders, which may lead to
increasing uncertainties and difficulties in project success. However, most journal articles
addressing project success in the field of CEM have only focused on normal construction
projects, and studies on the success of megaprojects are rather limited. Hence, future research
should emphasize project success within the field of megaprojects. This specific target area
should cover criteria or dimensions that reflect and indicate megaproject success, key factors
in the success of megaprojects of different types and the different perspectives of megaproject
participants at different construction phases/stages.

5.2 Project success in developing economies

During the past few decades, considerable effort has been invested in addressing the barriers
to project success and strategies in construction practices in developed countries/regions, such
as the UK and Hong Kong (as shown in Tables IV and V ). However, these factors for
improving the likelihood of construction project success have been insufficiently addressed in
developing areas. The lack of existing research has adverse impacts on current construction
practices. In addition, the variations in the social and cultural contexts of countries can result
in errors in the application of project success theories or may require more region-specific
strategies. Taking China as an example, organizations generally adopt a centralized
leadership strategy, especially in large-scale and megaprojects, by which construction projects
can be guaranteed to be performed with high efficiency. This situation differs from that in
western countries. Therefore, suggestions for future research directions include customized
research topics that identify differences in the criteria and CSFs in developed and developing
areas, identifying the barriers and strategies for project success in developing countries, and
increasing the effectiveness of identified strategies.

5.3 Relationships between CSFs and project success

In the analysis of keywords networking, CSFs have already been identified as the most popular
subtopic in the targeted research area. Currently, existing studies on the relationship between a
given factor or several factors and project success outcomes have been determined, facilitating
a better understanding and management of factors that contribute to a project’s success.
However, successful outcomes require the analysis of how CSFs affect project constraints, such
as cost and time. Decision makers and managers need this knowledge to manage efficiently.
Although existing research has addressed some important factors regarding project success
 Status quo of
Research topics Future directions Project success
Research research
1. Investigating criteria or
1. Definitions of project dimensions which can scientifically
success reflect and measure megaproject
2. Identification of criteria Megaproject success
and CSFs in general success 2. Identifying key factors in the
construction projects success of megaprojects of different 1565
types, and different perspectives of
megaproject participants at different
construction phases

1. Comparing differences in the

1. Criteria and CSFs criteria and CSFs in developed and
regarding developed developing countries
economics Project success
2. Identifying barriers and strategies
2. Management strategies in developing
for project success in developing
regarding project success countries
countries
in developed economics 3. Increasing the effectiveness of
identified strategies

1. What are the relationships

between CSFs and project success?
1. Relationships between
2. How can we improve project
one certain factor or several
Relationships management based on these identified
factors and success
between CSFs relationships to improve chances of
outcomes
and project achieving construction project
2. Specific approaches to
success success?
carry out data analysis, such
3. Might there be a more robust
as SEM, AHP, etc.
method by which to conduct this
research?

1. What factors drive construction

1. Primarily focus on
participants to contribute to project
managerial and technical
success?
factors Human factors
2. How to design and implement
2. The influence of in project
effective incentive schemes to inspire Figure 5.
leadership or competencies success
participants? Future research
(abilities) on project directions in project
3. How to cultivate benign behavior
success success in the
to improve the likelihood of project
success? field of CEM

outcomes, research is needed that links the correlation of and possible causation by CSFs with
project success.
In addition, methods like questionnaires and the Delphi approach primarily facilitate the
identification of factors and the ranking of their importance to project success, whereas more
complex data collection and analyses could be implemented with computer assistance.
Therefore, future research considerations should ask: What are the relationships between
CSFs and project success? How can we improve project management based on these identified
ECAM relationships to help project managers improve their chances of achieving construction project
26,8 success? Might there be a more robust method by which to conduct this research?

5.4 Human factors in project success

The identified papers addressing CSFs primarily focus on managerial and technical factors.
Studies on human factors are rather limited. However, human-related factors, such as
1566 organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), have already demonstrated to contribute to project
success, still lacking comprehensive studies in CEM project success area. Therefore, for
human-factor-related project success studies, the following questions might be considered and
addressed: What specific factors drive construction participants to contribute to project
success? How can we design and implement effective incentives or reward schemes to inspire
participants? How can we cultivate positive behaviors like OCB in construction practice to
improve the likelihood of project success?

6. Conclusions
Our study provided a holistic assessment of project success in the field of the CEM, which
reviewed a total number of 164 relevant papers published from 2007 to 2017, summarized
the status of this field of research and prospected for future research trends. The major
findings of this paper are concluded as follows:
(1) The PMJ, IJPM and JCEM-1 appeared to be the dominant journals regarding the
CEM project success, which majorly published studies conducted in the developed
countries or regions such as Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong. However, the
developing economies that are currently flourishing in the construction activities
contributed comparatively less in promoting CEM project success research.
(2) Questionnaires, interviews and case studies are the major data collection methods
and descriptive analysis is the main data analysis method.
(3) The CSFs research appears the predominant subtopic of project success at the
current stage by keywords networking analysis.
(4) The megaproject success, studies in developing countries, relationships between
CSFs and project success, and human-related factor impacts on successful outcomes
are four directions for future study.
The specific results of this paper can hopefully contribute to further research by providing new
gaps and research opportunities for researchers. However, this paper only considered articles
published in peer-reviewed journals in the last decade, and some relevant papers might be
excluded. Moreover, although the classification of papers was based on well-designed procedures
that aim to improve objectivity, the authors admit the possibility of some subjectivity, especially
in the paper selection and categories of research methods. Given these limitations, significant
contributions are still exerted in this work. This study reveals the status quo of project success in
CEM and benefits studies that straddle the theoretical sciences and engineering projects.
Meanwhile, a better understanding of research trends may enable scholars and practitioners to
identify the key issues in project success research to facilitate faster development in this area.

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(PPP) in construction journals”, Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, Vol. 135
No. 10, pp. 1076-1086.
ECAM Appendix
26,8

No. Journal Authors Year

1 African Journal of Business Management Li et al. 2011

1570 2 Advanced Engineering Informatics El-Saboni et al. 2009
3 African Journal of Business Management Khan et al. 2011
4 Arabian Journal for Science and Engineering Nilashi et al. 2014
5 Asia Pacific Business Review Thi and Swierczek 2010
6 Asian Social Science Rajablu et al. 2014
7 Australian Journal of Civil Engineering Crosby 2017
8 Australian Journal of Management Clements and Si 2011
9 Automation in Construction Wang and Gibson 2010
10 Automation in Construction Cheng et al. 2012
11 Baltic Journal of Management Müller and Turner 2010
12 Benchmarking: An International Journal Osei-Kyei et al. 2016
13 BEPAM Amoatey and Hayibor 2017
14 BEPAM Rohman et al. 2016
15 BEPAM Babatunde et al. 2016
16 BEPAM Thanh and Hadikusumo 2016
17 Cities Bae and Joo 2016
18 Civil Engineering Journal Zare et al. 2016
19 Civil Engineering Journal Akal et al. 2016
20 CEB Alashwal et al. 2017
21 CEB Fahri et al. 2015
22 CEB Sanni 2016
23 CEB Rotimi and Ramanayaka 2015
24 CEB Musa et al. 2015
25 Construction Innovation Nitithamyong and Skibniewsk 2011
26 Construction Innovation Toor and Ogunlana 2009
27 CME Rowlinson and Cheung 2008
28 CME Lehtiranta et al. 2012
29 CME Thomson 2011
30 CME Tabish and Jha 2011
31 CME Yong and Mustaffa 2013
32 CME Mbachu and Nkado 2007
33 Corporate Ownership & Control Mavetera et al. 2015
34 Ecological Indicators Olanipekun et al. 2017
35 Engineering Management Journal Ahmed and Mohamad 2016
36 Engineering Management Journal Hughes et al. 2015
37 Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management Heravi and Ilbeigi 2012
38 Entrepreneurial Business and Economics Review Węgrzyn 2016
39 Environmental Modelling & Software Merritt et al. 2017
40 European Management Journal Müller and Turner 2007
41 Evaluation & the Health Professions Hogle and Moberg 2014
42 Facilities Osei-Kyei and Chan 2017
43 Habitat International Zhou et al. 2017
44 IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management Ng et al. 2010
45 IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management Müller, Geraldi and Turner 2012
46 IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management Lechler and Dvir 2010
47 Industrial Engineering and Management Systems Khalilzadeh et al. 2016
48 International Journal of Applied Engineering Research Sandbhor et al. 2014
Table AI. 49 International Journal of Applied Engineering Research Sandbhor et al. 2015
A total of 164 articles 50 International Journal of Business and Society Markom and Ali 2012
identified in
journals between
2007 and 2017 (continued )
No. Journal Authors Year
Project success
research
51 International Journal of Civil Engineering and Technology Wahaj et al. 2017
52 IJCM Wai et al. 2013
53 IJCM Osei-Kyei and Chan 2016
54 IJCM Saadi and Abdou 2016
55 IJCM Jin et al. 2012
56 International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Ophiyandri et al. 2013 1571
Environment
57 International Journal of Engineering Business Management Wai et al. 2013
58 International Journal of Information Systems and Project Gilbert and Ron 2016
Management
59 IJMPB Sato and Milton 2014
60 IJMPB Rolstadas et al. 2014
61 IJMPB Joslin and Müller 2016
62 IJMPB Motaleb and Kishk 2014
63 IJPM Ahadzie et al. 2008
64 IJPM Ika and Donnelly 2017
65 IJPM Osei-Kyei and Chan 2015
66 IJPM Joslin and Müller 2015
67 IJPM Joslin and Müller 2016
68 IJPM Chang et al. 2013
69 IJPM Mazur et al. 2014
70 IJPM Carvalho et al. 2015
71 IJPM Bryde 2008
72 IJPM Rezvani et al. 2016
73 IJPM Petro and Gardiner 2015
74 IJPM Alzahrani and Emsley 2013
75 IJPM Zou et al. 2014
76 IJPM Khan and Rasheed 2015
77 IJPM Müller et al. 2017
78 IJPM Carvalho and Rabechini 2017
79 IJPM Banihashemi et al. 2017
80 IJPM Yu and Kwon 2011
81 IJPM Davis 2014
82 IJPM Davis 2017
83 IJPM Ruuska and Teigland 2009
84 IJPM Doloi et al. 2011
85 IJPM Todorović et al. 2015
86 IJPM Costantino et al. 2015
87 IJPM Tmeemy et al. 2011
88 IJPM Toor and Ogunlana 2008
89 IJPM Chou and Pramudawardhani 2015
90 International Journal of Strategic Property Management Osei-Kyei et al. 2017
91 International Journal of Strategic Property Management Gudienė et al. 2013
92 International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment Ihuah et al. 2014
93 International Journal of Urban Sciences Ghanaee and Pourezzat 2013
94 Jordan Journal of Civil Engineering Kahwajian et al. 2014
95 Journal of Business Economics and Management Kao et al. 2016
96 JCEM-1 Surlan et al. 2015
97 JCEM-1 Ghosh et al. 2012
98 JCEM-1 Liu et al. 2015
99 JCEM-1 Gudienė et al. 2014
100 JCEM-1 Yun et al. 2015
101 JCEM-1 Pinter and Pšunder 2013
102 JCEM-1 Yang et al. 2009

(continued ) Table AI.

ECAM No. Journal Authors Year
26,8
103 JCEM-1 Aznar et al. 2017
104 JCEM-1 Cheng et al. 2013
105 Journal of Cleaner Production Shen et al. 2010
106 JCEM-2 Tabish and Jha 2012
107 JCEM-2 Chou et al. 2013
1572 108 JCEM-2 Love et al. 2010
109 JCEM-2 Ghanbaripour et al. 2017
110 JCEM-2 O’Connor et al. 2016
111 JCEM-2 Hwang and Lim 2012
112 JCEM-2 Lam et al. 2008
113 JCEM-2 Ko and Cheng 2007
114 Journal of Engineering, Design and Technology Chau and Long 2016
115 Journal of Environmental Planning and Management Bassan et al. 2014
116 Journal of Facilities Management Ameyaw et al. 2016
117 Journal of Fundamental and Applied Sciences Zare et al. 2016
118 Journal of Green Building Rasekh and McCarthy 2016
119 Journal of Infrastructure Systems Osei-Kyei and Chan 2017
120 JME Hu et al. 2014
121 JME Jiang et al. 2016
122 JME Liu et al. 2015
123 JME Luo et al. 2017
124 JME Chan et al. 2008
125 JME Erdem and Ozorhon 2015
126 JME Molenaar et al. 2013
127 JME Lam et al. 2011
128 JME Meng et al. 2011
129 JME Yu and Shen 2015
130 JME Krajangsri and Pong 2017
131 JME Almohsen and Ruwanpura 2016
132 JME Liu et al. 2016
133 Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities Oyedele 2013
134 Journal of Sustainability Science and Management Ponniah et al. 2015
135 KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering Ribeiro et al. 2013
136 Life Science Journal Ejaz et al. 2013
137 Management Research Review Gupta et al. 2012
138 International Journal of Management Science and Engineering Ogwueleka 2011
Management Journal
139 Pakistan Journal of Statistics Wu 2013
140 Planning Theory and Practice Ward et al. 2014
141 PMJ Alderman and Ivory 2011
142 PMJ Martens and Carvalho 2017
143 PMJ Khang and Moe 2008
144 PMJ Ika 2009
145 PMJ Williams 2016
146 PMJ Creasy and Anantatmula 2013
147 PMJ Turner and Zolin 2012
148 PMJ Geoghegan and Dulewicz 2008
149 Quality & Quantity Ahmed et al. 2014
150 Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews Zhao et al. 2013
151 Renewable Energy Zhao et al. 2009
152 Research in Transportation Economics Galilea and Medda 2010
153 Safety Science Aksorn and Hadikusumo 2008
154 Scientific Research and Essay Elattar 2009
155 South African Journal of Industrial Engineering Van Niekerk and Steyn 2012

Table AI. (continued )

No. Journal Authors Year
Project success
research
156 South African Journal of Industrial Engineering Chihuri and Pretorius 2012
157 South African Journal of Industrial Engineering Pretorius et al. 2012
158 Structural Survey Low et al. 2014
159 Structural Survey Ofori-Boadu et al. 2012
160 Sustainability Shi et al. 2016
161 The TQM Journal Ullah et al. 2017 1573
162 Transportation Planning & Technology Hugo and Bert 2007
163 Transport Reviews Liyanage and Villalbaromero 2015
164 Water Science Technology Mostafaei et al. 2016 Table AI.

About the authors

Qinghua He is Professor in the School of Economics and Management and is Associate Dean of the
Research Institute of Complex Engineering and Management, Tongji University, P.R. China. His research
interests are on construction project management, complex construction program management, lean
construction, integrated project delivery, building information modeling and megaproject management.
Currently, he is Incharge of the research project titled Research on the formation cause, effectiveness
emergence and cultivation of organizational citizenship behavior in construction megaproject which is
financially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China.
Ting Wang is PhD candidate in Management Science, School of Economics and Management,
Research Institute of Complex Engineering and Management, Tongji University, P.R. China. Currently,
her research interests are mainly on megaproject management, e.g. organizational citizenship behavior
in mega construction projects and megaproject success. She is now involving in two research projects
on organizational behavior and model innovation in construction megaprojects supported by National
Natural Science Foundation of China. Ting Wang is the corresponding author and can be contacted at:
pauline_wt@[Link]
Albert P.C. Chan is Chair Professor and Head in the Department of Building and Real Estate and is
Associate Director of the Research Institute for Sustainable Urban Development, Hong Kong Polytechnic
University, Hong Kong. His current research interests are project management and project success, project
finance and public–private partnership, construction procurement, construction industry development
and construct health and safety. He has produced over 800 research outputs in refereed journal papers,
international refereed conference papers, consultancy reports and other articles so far.
Hanzhang Li is first-year MSc Student in the School of Economics and Management, Research
Institute of Complex Engineering and Management, Tongji University, P.R. China. His current research
focuses on project success, particularly critical factors of megaproject success.
Yangxue Chen is first-year MSc Student in the School of Economics and Management, Research
Institute of Complex Engineering and Management, Tongji University, P.R. China. Her current
research focuses on project success, particularly multi-dimensions of megaproject success in China.

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