Taxonomy for change causes and effects in construction projects

During many construction projects frequent changes often result in time delays, cost overruns, quality defects and other negative impacts. In recent years, many researchers worldwide investigated the effects of project change and more importantly the common causes behind the changes from different perspectives. A large number of research papers have been published in this field. While most existing papers presented valuable empirical work, very few offered a comprehensive and systematic overview. There is also a certain degree of confusion in the terminology used by different authors. The objective of this paper is to fill this knowledge gap by: (1) reviewing and synthesising existing literature on project change causes and effects; (2) developing two taxonomies for change causes and change effects; and (3) illustrating how the taxonomies can be used during the project change management process. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd and IPMA