Storylines, Leadership and Risk, Some Findings from Australian Case Studies of Urban Transport Megaprojects

Abstract

This article is about how storylines are interwoven with mega transport project success. It examines the animating stories that inspire support for a project, the leadership that carries forward and expresses these stories and in turn becomes defined by them, and one particular impact this has on the management of risk. In developing this article we have used data collected on three Australian mega urban transport projects (MUTPs) for OMEGA Project 2, an international project on MUTPs. Framing the discussion also are some wider questions of political ethics which the expenditure of large amounts of public funds entails. In this article we first discuss our interpretive theoretical framework...