Stakeholder management in construction: An empirical study to address research gaps in previous studies Jing Yang a , Geoffrey Qiping Shen a, ⁎ , Manfong Ho a , Derek S. Drew a , Xiaolong Xue b a Dept. of Building and Real Estate, The Hong Kong Polytechnic Univ., Hong Kong b Department of Construction and Real Estate, School of Management, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China Received 12 April 2010; received in revised form 13 July 2010; accepted 29 July 2010 Abstract This paper concentrates on identifying gaps in the scope of previous studies on stakeholder management, and starting to address those gaps by conducting an empirical study. To complete these research objectives, literature review, interviews, questionnaire survey, and a case study were used in this study. Four gaps regarding critical success factors, stakeholder management process, methods for stakeholder management and stakeholder relationship management were identified. Based on an empirical study, a framework for effective stakeholder management is proposed, and the application of a Social Network Analysis technique, as a means of determining the influence of stakeholders on decision making, is illustrated and validated by a case study. These findings can serve as initial references towards a more systematic approach for stakeholder management. Since the empirical study was conducted only in Hong Kong and Australia, further studies should be conducted in other regions to validate and compare with the finding in this paper. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. and IPMA. All rights reserved. Keywords: Stakeholder management; Construction; Critical success factors; Framework; Social Network Analysis 1. Introduction According to PMI (2004), a project is: “a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result”. Based on this definition, projects are temporary and unique. Olander (2006) points out that a project is a unique process, consisting of “a set of coordinated activities with a start and a finish date, undertaken to achieve an objective conforming to specific requirement, including constrains on time, cost and resources”. Ibrahim and Nissen (2003) also state “there is no such thing as a typical facility development project. No two projects are ever the same”. The uniqueness nature and limited duration of projects require additional efforts to build effective project teams and generate trust, both within the team and between the team and the project stakeholders (Grabher, 2002). The team members must learn quickly how to work together as a coherent unit (Ibrahim and Nissen, 2003). Project managers need to be attuned to the cultural, organisational and social environments surrounding projects (Wideman, 1990). Youker (1992) defines the notion of “project environment” according to the Random House dictionary, which is “the aggregate of surrounding things, conditions or influences”. Burton and Obel (2003) also use contingency factors to describe the project environment as one of having high complexity, high uncertainty, and high equivocality, such factors make stakeholder management difficult. Youker (1992) clarifies that uncertainty becomes a problem for the project manager because of the dependency relationship between the project and the uncontrolled elements in its environment. Managing stakeholders needs to balance competing claims on resources between different parts of the project, between the project and other projects and between the project and the organisation (Bourne, 2005), but an environment of uncertainty and complexity makes “achieving this balance more difficult” (Turner and Muller, 2003). International Journal of Project Management xx (2010) xxx – xxx JPMA-01266; No of Pages 11 www.elsevier.com/locate/ijproman ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: 06902079r@polyu.edu.hk (J. Yang), bsqpshen@polyu.edu.hk (G.Q. Shen), bscrysta@polyu.edu.hk (M. Ho), dereksdrew@hotmail.com (D.S. Drew), xlxue@hit.edu.cn (X. Xue). 0263-7863/$ - see front matter © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. and IPMA. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijproman.2010.07.013 Please cite this article as: Yang, J., et al., Stakeholder management in construction: An empirical study to address research gaps in previous studies, Int. J. Proj. Manag. (2010), doi:10.1016/j.ijproman.2010.07.013