Managing and controlling airport construction projects: a strategic management framework for operators

Alnasseri, Nasser (2015) Managing and controlling airport construction projects: a strategic management framework for operators. Doctoral thesis, Northumbria University.

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Abstract

During the last few decades, strategic management and strategic human resource management theories have received a great deal of attention in many industrial sectors. The complex and constantly changing business environment has driven large construction companies more than ever before to reflect on the interplay between their organisational strategies and their strategic management processes, tools and techniques. This is despite the great value of human capital for an organisation’s strategic flexibility within different sets of environmental evolutions. This includes people in various positions, administrative, professional, managerial and unskilled, as well as numerous project stakeholders. Several researchers are increasingly interested in applying strategies and human-related studies within the construction industry; however, an integrated study of these two factors has been notably lacking, particularly in an airport context where the challenges and difficulties of managing construction projects are high. This doctoral thesis contributes to the existing literature by exploring the unique characteristics of an airport construction environment, along with reporting the findings of the impact that different airport ownership forms have on construction management efficiency. Through integrating numerous theories and concepts associated with project strategies, strategic human resource management and various efficiency management attributes, this research project presents a unique strategic framework that offers a structured approach to support airport holding bodies. Research primary data were collected following semi-structured interviews with senior construction project managers of airport operators within three distinct airport organisations in terms of their ownership structures. The resultant findings provide insight into the many differences between the case studies in term of project management practices. Furthermore, an explanation of the key practices that influence the occurrence of project success were identified. This doctoral investigation identified there is a need for flexibility and scalability aligned with adopting the strategic framework and engaging its conceptual application with actual management and controlling practices. In essence, the research framework was developed for each category of airport organisation, where an airport organisation is encouraged to focus its efforts on managing the most important framework components which are needed for effective improvement of management practices and, accordingly, to achieve expectations. The resulting theoretical framework provides a unique tool for airport operators to apply their project management knowledge effectively in order to realize complex projects and to secure potential efficiency gains. This study therefore provides a novel theoretical insight into the strategic management of human resources during airport construction projects. The primary application of the strategic framework is concerned with managing and controlling existing airport construction projects, particularly refurbishment or extension projects, however this could be also applied to new airport construction projects where the factors affecting strategic management and strategic human resource management anticipated to be different to those studied during this investigation. This has paved the way for future investigations to be conducted to tackle this dichotomy and further understand the intriguing aspects of airport construction business.

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