Understanding and Managing Risk in Complex Construction Projects A Study through the Lens of Institutional Logics

Abstract

This thesis explores how project professionals understand and manage risk in large and complex construction projects, with a focus on how these practices are shaped by institutional logics. While traditional risk management approaches emphasize structured, calculable processes aimed at minimizing cost, time, and scope deviations, this study adopts a more situated perspective, highlighting how risk is interpreted and negotiated in practice. Drawing on twenty semi-structured interviews with professionals across public and private construction projects in Sweden, the study identifies three dominant institutional logics, market, state, and professional, each offering a distinct framing of risk. The findings show that these logics coexist and often compete, creating institutional complexity that shapes both how risks are understood and how they are managed. Risk emerges not only as a technical or financial concern but also as a context-dependent and interpretive concept, influenced by organizational roles, project conditions, and normative expectations. The study contributes to a deeper understanding of how formal risk frameworks are adapted in practice, and how institutional environments structure the possibilities and limitations of risk work in complex project settings.