Risk Management in Construction Project Networks

Project risk management has been intensively discussed in recent years. Projects are becoming shared efforts of multiple parties – construction industry is a good example of an area, where the project outcome is delivered in an extremely complex actor network. Still, research on how the project risk management should be adopted to the network environment is scarce. This study’s objective is to identify the risks that are caused by the network structure and the ways to manage risks in the co-operation of the whole project network. The focus of the study is put on the informal risk management means. The purpose is to emphasize other than legally binding contracts as risk management means. The study was conducted in the summer 2005, when altogether 14 interviews were made in two different construction projects. Interviews were targeted to the subcontractor’s representatives, but also main contractor’s and client’s representatives were interviewed. Literature searches were done by using HUT library materials and databases. A lot of the risk management research is targeted to the construction projects, which are seen as extremely risky projects with highly inflexible risk management by contracts