The Oxford Handbook of Megaproject Management provides state-of-the-art scholarship in the emerging field of megaproject management. Megaprojects are large, complex projects which typically cost billions of dollars and impact millions of people, like building a high-speed rail line, a megadam, a...

The suggestion to make a Chinese translation of Megaprojects and Risk: An Anatomy of Ambition was particularly welcome. The book is about how to plan and deliver megaprojects in ways that secure successful outcomes. Megaprojects are highly risky and often go wrong, even in China. Some have gone...

We identify and document a new principle of economic behavior: the principle of the Malevolent Hiding Hand. In a famous discussion, Albert Hirschman celebrated the Hiding Hand, which he saw as a benevolent mechanism by which unrealistically optimistic planners embark on unexpectedly challenging...

Albert O. Hirschman's principle of the Hiding Hand stands stronger and more celebrated today than ever. The principle states that ignorance is good in planning, because if decision makers knew the real costs and difficulties of projects, few ventures would ever get started. The paper presents...

This special issue asks, “Do classics exist in megaproject management?” We identify three types of classics: conventional, Kuhnian, and citation classics. We find that the answer to our question depends on the definition of “classic” employed. First, “citation classics” do exist in...

This paper asks and answers the question of whether Kahneman's planning fallacy or Hirschman's Hiding Hand best explain performance in capital investment projects. I agree with my critics that the Hiding Hand exists, i.e., sometimes benefit overruns outweigh cost overruns in project planning and...

This book enlarges the understanding of decision-making on mega-projects and suggest recommendations for a more effective, efficient and democratic approach. Authors from different scientific disciplines address various aspects of the decision-making process, such as management characteristics...