Mhamed Biygautane

Purpose: Strategic foresight remains marginal in public management. This article asks why, given the growth of foresight units, long-term national strategies and better analytical tools since Roberge’s (2013) diagnosis. Design/methodology/approach: The paper develops a conceptual synthesis of the strategic foresight literature, illustrated with secondary evidence from recent crises and examples from OECD and non-OECD settings. It groups recurring barriers according to the institutional processes they describe and uses this synthesis to explain why foresight remains difficult to integrate into decision-making. Findings: Foresight remains marginal because six recurring barriers form a self-reinforcing institutional pattern. The article identifies evidential standing as the central mechanism through which the lock-in is reproduced, since foresight is often not treated as usable policy evidence. Foresight is more likely to be treated as evidence when it is robust, fit for the policy context, inclusively produced and connected to decision processes, but these qualities usually develop only after foresight has already won a place in decision-making. This circularity explains why one-off reforms rarely last. Breaking this circularity requires both capability inside government and institutional backing for using foresight in decisions. Originality/value: The paper goes beyond listing barriers to foresight integration. It shows how those barriers form a self-reinforcing lock-in that reabsorbs single-point reform, identifies evidential standing as the problem at its centre, and develops four propositions that public management scholars can test empirically.

This article explores the methodological challenges that face scholars conducting project management research in empirical contexts characterized by apparent institutional voids in which conventional methodological approaches are inadequate. Drawing from our collaborative fieldwork conducted for the Medina Airport public–private partnership in Saudi Arabia, we make three contributions to the project management literature. First, we conceptualize field access in terms of a research strategy entailing processes of bricolaging available resources. Second, we develop strategies to operationalize theoretical concepts in contexts in which there is limited prior research. Third, we propose guidelines for conducting rigorous qualitative research in institutional environments lacking mature and established research cultures. This article provides important methodological and practical insights for project management researchers conducting empirical work in such contexts for generating robust data and knowledge that advance project management research and practice.

Purpose: This paper explores the dynamics of megaprojects through a power relations lens, focusing on sensemaking, temporalities and multiplicities in major projects. It provides an understanding of the political forces influencing the management, decision-making and outcomes of megaprojects. Design/methodology/approach: The paper explores how different stakeholders interpret and enact political, financial and social realities in megaprojects, utilizing some examples of case studies and theoretical analysis to reveal the complexities of these projects. The paper is conceptual, synthesizing divergent ideas and literature by integrating ideas from different domains to generate new theoretical insights. Findings: The analysis reveals the inherently political nature of megaprojects, emphasizing how the politics of sensemaking, temporalities and multiplicities in major projects influence outcomes. Research limitations/implications: The paper is conceptual and as such, all the usual strictures apply; it is the quality of its conceptualization that is significant. Practical implications: This paper suggests that a politically aware approach to project management is essential for addressing the complexities that arise from megaprojects. Project managers that understand how the politics of sensemaking, temporalities and multiplicities in major projects frame projects’ decisions and consequences can achieve better long-term outcomes. Social implications: Megaprojects have direct impact on communities, environments and public resources and leave multiple legacies. Originality/value: The paper offers a novel perspective on megaprojects, moving beyond traditional technical and managerial approaches. It emphasizes the importance of the politics of sensemaking, temporalities and multiplicities in major projects.

This policy insights paper explores the development of public-private partnerships (PPPs) in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region over the past three decades and argues that although GCC states did not embark on a full-fledged experience with PPPs, unstable oil and gas prices are changing this approach. PPPs are increasingly gaining strong political support, and GCC states have made numerous reforms to the existing regulatory and institutional systems to enable a more extensive uptake of PPPs that encompasses a broader spectrum of social and economic infrastructure services. This article offers an overview of the historical development of PPPs in the GCC region since the 1990s, illustrating policy discussions and motivations for adopting PPPs, the meaning and types of PPP projects that have been implemented or planned in the region, and the most recent developments in the regulatory and institutional frameworks underpinning PPPs.

Despite the existence of a voluminous body of literature covering the impact of infrastructure public-private partnerships (PPPs) on public value within the context of Western countries, scant attention has been paid to this topic in the Middle East. Given that the region has hosted numerous PPP projects that were implemented even without the rudimentary legal and regulatory frameworks considered essential for such projects to succeed, a study of PPPs within that region would thus be particularly useful, since an unpacking of the success factors for PPPs in the Middle East can reveal important practical insights that will advance the knowledge of PPP success factors overall. This paper, therefore, explores the rehabilitation and expansion of Jordan’s Queen Alia International Airport via the PPP route. It finds that the factors contributing to the project’s successful implementation can be categorized into those on the macro level related to political support, and the micro level factors concerned with management of daily activities involved in the partnership between the public and private sectors.

The PPP scholarly work has effectively explored the material values attached to PPPs such as efficiency of services, value for money and productivity, but little attention has been paid to procedural public values. This paper aims to address this gap by exploring how Enfidha Airport in Tunisia failed to achieve both financial and procedural values that were expected from delivering the airport via the PPP route, and what coping strategies the public and private sectors deployed to ameliorate any resultant value conflicts. Based on the analysis of Enfidha Airport, it is argued that PPP projects are likely to fail to deliver financial and procedural values when the broader institutional context is not supportive of PPP arrangements, and when political and security risks are not adequately counted for during the bidding process.

The evolution of public‐private partnerships (PPPs) within oil‐exporting states has not attracted sufficient attention from PPP scholars. Particularly, the Gulf‐Cooperation Council (GCC) states such as Saudi Arabia which has had a prolonged history of state‐led economic development and public funding of infrastructure projects is an interesting empirical context to explore how PPPs can become an instrument for infrastructure delivery. Plummeting oil prices since 2014 have urged Saudi Arabia to identify new forms of project organizing such as PPPs. The underlying argument of this paper is that delivering projects through the PPP route necessitates major reforms to the existing legal and regulatory frameworks, establishing relevant institutional support in the form of a PPP unit and developing a friendly business environment that could attract foreign investors to the country. This field report outlines the key reforms enacted by the Saudi government, and highlights pressing challenges that need to be addressed to drastically enhance Saudi Arabia's investment climate and enable the private sector's financing of mega‐infrastructure projects.

This chapter offers a summary of the key findings of the eight chapters in this book which addressed three key themes that emphasized the importance of 1)