Politics of sensemaking, temporalities and multiplicities in major projects

Megaprojects are complex achievements of organization and require effective and balanced management of power relations. In practice, megaprojects are occasions for considerable plural, disparate and complex “sensemaking”, as Weick (1995) defines the concept. Different interests are vested in different sensemaking. Projects are entities operating in inherently political arenas in which players from various fields, such as government, private sector contractors, subcontractors, architects, unions, media, community groups, regulatory authorities, etc. are engaged (McKinsey and Company, 2017). Each of these players has their own interests as stakeholders in the project, interests that shift in terms and alignments as projects unfold and evolve with time, and with the ebb and flow of political representations of interest, constituting differing sensemaking.

Megaprojects are increasingly viewed as the solution to economic, environmental and social grand challenges (Ika and Munro, 2022, 2024; Ika et al., 2024; Flyvbjerg et al., 2003). Governments and private sector actors look to these projects to deliver transformative change. Nonetheless, they frequently fall short of expectations, with many being significantly over budget and behind schedule (Merrow, 2024; Hayllar and Wettenhall, 2010; Kardes et al., 2013; OECD, 2017). The reasons for these failures are often political, involving conflicts between stakeholders, shifting objectives and the influence of private interests (Biygautane et al., 2020).

As private capital increasingly funds public-sector projects, power dynamics create tensions between private investors’ profit motives and the public’s interest in long-term infrastructure benefits. The involvement of financial actors introduces a layer of political complexity, as decisions are often made based on financial considerations rather than long-term social or environmental outcomes (McKinsey and Company, 2017; OECD, 2017). The larger public’s concern with legacy is more likely to be expressed in emotional responses to disruptive processes and artefactual sociomaterial achievements than to some organizations’ bottom line—unless it is that of the public purse, as was the case in the Montreal Olympics (Patel et al., 2013).

The central argument of this paper is that projects are temporally saturated and their sensemaking deeply embedded in complex power relations (van Marrewijk and van den Ende, 2022), producing complex in/visibilities that spill out of and overflow major projects. Such projects may be conceived of as “a space whose boundaries and possibilities for action are marked by subjectivity, meanings, perceptions, and emotions” and, as Passy and Giugni (2000, 122) go on to note, these are frequently “opposed to the external imperatives coming from the “objective” system”. Stakeholders interpret project documents, contracts and timelines not only based on codes governing technical requirements but also through the lens of political interests, power positions and social contexts. In highlighting the inherently political and contested nature of megaprojects (Hodgson, 2002), the theoretical research question guiding this paper is: How do the power dynamics associated with projects become registered in multiple sensemaking and temporalities?

By answering this research question, the paper offers three central contributions to our understanding of how political factors intertwine with managerial practices to influence the trajectory of megaprojects. First, it challenges traditional project management approaches that prioritize technical processes over the political dynamics that influence decision-making (building on Clegg et al., 2017, 2025). Second, the paper explores the political implications of financialization, demonstrating how private sector involvement in megaprojects shifts power dynamics, prioritizing financial returns over public objectives. Financialization has important implications for project sensemaking. Multiple political processes shape both temporal trajectories and long-term legacies of megaprojects (Clegg et al., 2017; Weick, 1995), discussion of which is a third contribution.

The sensemaking assumptions that underlie major infrastructure are typically designed, organized and delivered as mainly engineering-based (Giezen, 2012), in which, typically, rational, linear, quantitative and value-neutral (Ciçmil et al., 2006) aspects of project management are favored. The dominant normative assumptions of traditional project management define these projects mainly in terms of project stages cast as prescriptive processes which tend to minimize underlying power dynamics (Ciçmil and Hodgson, 2006; Clarke, 1999).

Any large-scale project entails a substantial amount of documentation, digital and paper based. At the core of the ways in which these documents are used will be a politics of sensemaking (Weick, 1995). Project managers must be highly skilled and competent in managing to make sense of what they do, using the key competency of sensemaking, defined by Weick (1993) “as the ongoing retrospective development of plausible images that rationalize what people are doing” (p. 635). We are always making sense in the moment. We do so both retrospectively and prospectively and continuously revise whatever sense has been made in the light of new data and opportunities for reflection. Sense is never finally made; it is always open to revision, its plausibility never makes sense that is perfect but only provisional, good enough for the matter, moment and situation at hand. Sense depends on the interest that we have then and there in making that sense and not another. Sensemaking uses devices such as models, plans and mental maps, as well as actants such as AI. Multiple sensemaking is normal sensemaking, both as we individually try to work out what’s going on and as we confront or engage with the sensemaking of others that differs from ours (see Clegg et al., 2017).

Project organizations have a considerable interest in members making common sense, particularly of documentary materials. Common sensemaking is important for organizing. Project organizing uses cues for common sensemaking, by creating, adapting and using common frames of meaning. Making sensemaking common is no easy matter. In practice, as projects unfold, uncommon sensemaking becomes normalized. Variation orders will be submitted exploiting elements of indexicality in interpreting project plans and contractual documents—and there always will be such indexicality where there are different interests being brought to bear on documentary and other materials (Clegg, 1975). For one thing, contractual particulars are invariably very complex. Not only that, but there will also be a great deal of detail in the considerable complexity. Megaprojects are extremely complex accomplishments constituted by many documents produced by multiple actors and actants in many different places, read, interpreted and argued over in even more sites, not just workplaces but sometimes in lawyers’ office and in court, all the results of which will be subject to interpretation and saturated with different meaning through different sensemaking. Documents, used in whatever context, will always be subject to indexical interpretation (Garfinkel, 1967).

It is not just that documents will be interpreted differently. Different actors in project processes will have multiple interests in different aspects of the sensemaking associated with the project. Contract complexity created by skilled lawyers acting for contractors can be a trap for unwary clients, especially from the public sector, perhaps lacking the deep knowledge, experience and learning that enables them to interpret the material effectively. Moreover, a common sensemaking pattern in project management is for different actors to try and exploit different indexical meanings of documents constituting the project (Clegg, 1975). Different stakeholders interpret ellipses, ambiguities and contradictions in the documents in terms of the specific interests that, organizationally, they strive to achieve; hence, they index meaning in different ways that are politically and organizationally framed. The contractual particulars thus become an arena for multiple sensemaking, a politicking that is embedded in projects from the outset.

Sensemaking is influenced by power relations and political interests (Biesenthal et al., 2018; Passy and Giugni, 2000). Stakeholders interpret project documents, contracts and timelines in ways that align with their own interests, and these interpretations can be highly contested (Muganda and Pillay, 2013; Weick, 2008). For example, contractors may interpret ambiguous language in contracts to justify cost increases or time extensions, while government officials may interpret delays as necessary for regulatory compliance (Patriotta et al., 2011). These interpretations are not neutral, but rather shaped by power relations within the project and broader political goals (Clegg et al., 2017; Rowlinson et al., 2010), which, in turn, are shaped by how they construct social reality and make sense of the socio-political environment around them (Flyvbjerg et al., 2003). Project sensemaking is never irrevocably fixed in formal contracts, documents or public statements. It is always a process of becoming, something recognized in conventional model of project constructed in terms of stages, milestones and targets. However, these exist in constant processes of a here-and-now capable of changing both the past through retrospective sensemaking and the future through prospective sensemaking. Indeed, as Pitsis et al. (2003) recorded, future perfect sensemaking is a strategy used to try and make tools such as stages, milestones and targets manageable.

Managers use tools to try and accomplish things that are understood in common: accounting systems, resource planning models, PERT and so on. These tools are designed to be rational instruments to aid managing. Tools do nothing on their own—they must be used; they must be made sense of in terms of the specific context of their application, the time available to do something, the information that is at hand, the skills and capabilities that are available. The important thing is the use to which tools are put—not that they merely exist—and that there is a distinct individual who is the user and who is making sense of the context and situations of use. Several factors thus enter sensemaking.

Sensemaking involves social context: sensemaking is influenced by the actual, implied or imagined presence of others. Professional identity is important in sensemaking. Certain situations may subvert or reinforce this sense of identity. What people notice in elapsed events, how far back they look and how well they remember the past—in other words, retrospective meaning—all influence sensemaking. Organizationally, this is extremely important because sometimes the most important decisions are often the least apparent: decisions made by minutes secretaries—what to keep and what to discard—which can provide the basis for any later sense that can possibly be made by project members. While these are not strategic or conspicuous decisions, they construct the organizational past. Project managers derive salient cues from their past experiences; thus, they project their pasts onto their futures, as do all the other professions, trades and communities of practice with whom they engage. Given the temporality and fluidity of project experience, most central actors will have a great many distinct experiences to draw on when making sense.

Project planning tools provide structure to divide the unfolding of events into different patterns, using stages for sensemaking that creates meaning that is sufficiently plausible to carry on with current projects; such meaning is always enacted here-and-now and thus is always subject to revision as new data emerges or new interpretations of old data emerge. Sensemaking involves redrafting an emerging story so that it becomes more comprehensive as events unfold and are interpreted, framing details as relevant, to isolate themes in an emerging story and provide an answer to the question, “What’s going on?” (Adapted from Weick, 1995, 2008) ^[1].

Sensemaking is endemic in project life. Multiple stories, rumor, gossip, official statements, business plans and websites proliferate, each sensible in its own way but none necessarily coherent with the others. While people talk all the time at work, and much of what they say is formal, even more is not formal, which is to say that it is neither constitutive of, nor mandated by, the occupational and organizational roles that organization members fill. How organization relations pan out will always depend on the specific sensemaking that we find in local situations, discourses and practices. Despite the plethora of sensemaking devices in the project management literature and the many models it produces, these should best be thought of as metaphorical frames designed as codes to try and facilitate common sensemaking. Different types of sensemaking occur, especially where things are uncertain or not as we would have expected them to be, when sense just breaks down, or cannot be made, and normal expectations just do not work, of different actors have different sensemaking frames. Breaches in everyday understanding, suggests Weick (2008), are repaired initially by looking for reasons to keep on doing whatever it was that was being done, especially when organizations are averse to change. A major factor in breaches of understanding in large complex projects will be the different temporalities enacted by diverse organizational actors.

At the heart of projects, a design intent is brought into being through political processes of becoming that are “future making” (Whyte et al., 2022). Projects as schemes to produce futures strive to make dreams become designs, designs become concrete, with interests becoming embedded in the processes that surround these acts of becoming. Some elements of this becoming are quotidian. At the level of project meetings, both formal and informal, there is a complex and sophisticated understanding of temporality evident.

Large-scale temporary organizations that are time-limited and project-focused mélanges of actors and organizations are increasingly used for developing infrastructure, achieving economic growth, targeting welfare and managing health and safety concerns (Altshuler and Luberoff, 2003; Lundin et al., 2015; Burke and Morley, 2016). For such inter-institutional temporary organizations, operating under conditions of institutional complexity and pluralism is a normal condition and an essential raison d’être. These organizations are characterized by designed temporal limitations and explicitly formulated deadlines (Lindkvist et al., 1998) that require project actors to align nested and interdependent activities (Thompson, 1967). Collective agency needs to be managed to realize challenging system-wide goals with regards to limited budgets, time pressure and stakeholder benefits (Merrow, 2011).

Project organizing is unique in its tightly integrated orientation and demands for intense collaboration and synchronization among actors who are typically assembled from different teams and/or organizations. Such project-focused organization constitutes “temporal zones” designed to facilitate collective action among sovereign actors and organizations (Granqvist and Gustafsson, 2016; Tukiainen and Granqvist, 2016). Because different rituals and norms shape organizational practices and structures (Lindgren et al., 2014; Scott, 1994) such organizations are institutionally pluralistic (Friedland and Alford, 1991; Kraatz and Block, 2008; Lounsbury, 2007; Meyer and Rowan, 1977; Whittington, 2003). Differences can range across professional codes (Anderson-Gough, 2001), time horizons (Judge and Spitzfaden, 1995), time orientations (Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967; Mosakowski and Earley, 2000), language communities and spatial separations (van Marrewijk et al., 2016). Of particular significance in the evaluation of value by diverse stakeholders is the alignment of different time reckoning systems (Clark, 1978, 1985, 1995; Clark and Maelli, 2009). Multiple time reckoning systems have effects on temporal conditioning, defined as a process of responding to and coping with institutionally prescribed temporal demands.

Sometimes temporality is stretched out not in hours or days but months and years. Consider one of the most contentious and successful dreams made concrete in the twentieth century: the Sydney Opera House (Gaim et al., 2022). Hugely over budget by nearly 1,400% and ten years late, the project suffered from insufficient detailed planning in advance of construction, as obituaries of Jack Zunz, the chief Arup engineer on the project, argued (Pitt, 2018). In the Sydney Opera House, the major sources of tension were the contradiction in purpose between Utzon (the architect) and the government client (represented by a public works committee) and that between the architect and engineers. The tension concerned the uniqueness and buildability of the design, which was innovative and extremely difficult in its unconventionality. In the long term, the Opera House became one of the great buildings of the last century, probably the greatest, a defining element of Sydney’s success as a global city. In the long term, temporality counts; it can turn failure into glorious success.

In the wake of contributions by Clark and Rowlinson (2004), Kieser (1987, 1994), Üsdiken and Kieser (2004), Üsdiken and Kipping (2014) and Zald (1991, 1993, 1996) distinct historical approaches to organizations are apparent (Maclean et al., 2016; Maclean et al., 2021). Drawing on these, one can extend historically oriented work through innovation in the terms in which the past is approached that are appropriate for projects. When a project is completed, its temporality does not cease. History, as a recollection of times past recorded for present memories, as well as the narratives that historians weave from its traces (Rowlinson et al., 2014), needs to be incorporated into consideration. Traces of times past become appropriated largely in overwhelmingly discursive terms: oral accounts, memoranda, official documents and so on, although history can reside in more material phenomena, as Decker (2013) recommends.

Organizations construct legacies of past and present temporalities to situate core values (Shipp and Jansen, 2011) strategically in the context of their symbolic space (Decker, 2014; de Vaujany and Vaast, 2014). “History is a social and rhetorical construction that can be shaped and manipulated to motivate, persuade, and frame action, both within and outside an organization. Viewed as a malleable construct, the capacity to manage history can, itself, be a rare and inimitable resource” (Suddaby et al., 2010, p. 147). Managing legitimacy changes over time (Drori and Honig, 2013) as organizations gain, maintain and repair legitimacy (Suchman, 1995). Traditions are invented and innovated (Hobsbawm and Ranger, 1983). Maintaining tradition is a process without end: “managers rarely can afford to treat legitimation as a completed task” (Suchman, 1995, p. 594). Organizational legitimacy, faced with “a reactive response to an unforeseen crisis of meaning” (Suchman, 1995, p. 597), frequently requires repair (Ashforth and Gibbs, 1990). Project organizations are always newly temporary and “face the daunting task of winning acceptance” (Suchman, 1995, p. 586). A project is not completed when it is built or delivered to the client. Not only may the financialization of the project stretch into the far future but its meaning will also be always under retrospective construction from the changing here-and-now.

Retrospective construction can be influenced by careful selection, curation and organization. Managing historical positioning involves the creation and maintenance of what Judt (2009, p. 199) refers to as “public memory” that entails the organizational production of discursive accounts that claim legitimacy (Elsbach and Sutton, 1992; Mazza, 1999). These are cues that manage stakeholders’ perceptions of an organization (Dowling and Pfeffer, 1975; Suchman, 1995; Patriotta et al., 2011), as well as the creation of material aide-mémoire, signs interpreting the past in the present, ranging from the purely semiotic to public materializations, such as plaques, statues and buildings. Judt and Snyder (2012, p. 277) notes a significant difference between memory and history: “Whereas history of necessity takes the form of a record, endlessly rewritten and re-tested against old and new evidence, memory is keyed to public, non-scholarly purposes: a theme park, a memorial, a museum, a building, a television program, and event, a day, a flag”.

Identifying dynamics in organizational memories is the stuff of organizational history (Le Goff, 2006). Memory and commemoration are always constructed from the perspective of specific actors or stakeholders. Organizing history in memorialization entails deliberately playing with visible material and symbolic strata. While memorialization draws on history, it is not history: it is a keying of the emotions through instrumental appropriation of selected aspects of a past imagined in a present that informs a possible future. Understandings of the legacies of projects are highly interpretative and grounded in everyday activities that have their own temporal orientations. Activities change both symbolically and materially; time modifies narratives, leading to periodicity in organizational memory and in how past strata and periods relate to each other (e.g. by changing the narrative on a website or the chronology used to classify corporate archives). Some organizations play strategically with their past to manage present claims to legitimacy. Organizational memory is an ongoing process, making some things visible while others are occluded, and legacy accrues or not.

The question of what is made visible and what is made invisible is a key issue. It is necessary to create many visibilities to favor invisibilities and conversely create invisibilities to improve visibility. During a complex project, its actors can be lost in endless anticipation and projection of the future, making so much visibly anticipated that they are overwhelmed and miss the invisibilities that sustain their projections. Conversely, they may be consciously freezing memories of adversely similar pasts to the present project, losing visibility of the present or the risks inherent in future perfect projections as they do so.

Adrift in the present, organizational elites typically selectively memorialize elements of the past as they anticipate their futures, through visibility–invisibility loops (Merleau-Ponty, 1964) that have a historicity. The Sydney Opera House is a case in point: in contemporary memorialization of the project Utzon’s design genius is celebrated where once it was spurned. Other examples are Frank Gehry’s memorable Bilbao Guggenheim Museum and Jean Nouvel’s Louvre in Abu Dhabi. The former turned a post-industrial wasteland into an icon of twenty-first century architectural projects while the latter did the same for a sand island, Saadiyat Island, 500 meters offshore from Abu Dhabi.

The relationship between the past, the present and the future is not just a matter of practical and academic interest. The fabric of legitimacy claims requires tight statements linking an imagined past and present in a way that frames a future and freezes a past in an emotional frame. Material practices that curate, display and memorialize aspects of organizations maintain and reinvent connections for the sake of organizational legitimacy. At a time when presentism and immediacy dominate (Hartog, 2003), when the complex webs of power and meaning inscribing time–space distanciation have become more professionally constituted and blurred (Giddens, 1984), and when social life has become more liquid (Bauman, 2000), there is great value in legacy for project legitimacy. Its consideration might also lead to better quality projects and design, worth memorializing.

Legacy means that the temporality of projects does not stop with project completion. Especially in the case of major infrastructure projects, the results of the project may remain in public discourse for a very long time. Or, they may go unnoticed, remain invisible, which is, of course, another way in which their achievements leave a legacy, through causing little offence or attracting no notice. Legacy may be memorialized, either formally or informally. Formally, legacy usually involves institutional staging and celebration; informally, a legacy is more likely to be communicated by word of mouth and other reportage. The legacy that major projects bequeath are an important part of their politics because legacy is rarely singular; more realistically the legacy will be multiple (Mol, 1999), constituting multiple project realities, as consideration of a half century of major projects in New York under Robert Moses’ leadership attests (Caro, 1974).

Multiplicity is a fundamental characteristic of all organizational environments. The idea of the multiplicity of enactments, or ontological multiplicity (Mol, 2002), has been used by numerous social scientists (cf. Escobar, 2008; Latour, 2013; Law and Singleton, 2014; Stengers, 2015). Megaprojects are political arenas in which multiple stakeholders—governments, private investors, contractors, unions and community groups—engage in power struggles that shape the trajectory of these large-scale endeavors (Mol, 2010). The interactions between actors reflect competing interests, priorities and strategies that are continuously negotiated throughout the project’s lifecycle. The organizational self-interest of the various parties contracted brings many diverse power agendas into play. These agendas are not only concerned with the technical objectives of the project (i.e. time, cost, scope) but also with the financial interests of the various organizations involved, as well as political, economic and aesthetic objectives (Flyvbjerg, 2014). Power relations play out in terms of accountabilities, in terms of targets set, met and missed; milestones achieved, shifted and slipped; industrial relations managed ill or well; communities’ concerns considered and dealt with or not; ecologies degraded or improved; complex and expensive machinery available or not, all of which have financial implications.

As a result of the mega-costs associated with megaprojects and changes in government policy related to public expenditures and debt, megaprojects mostly rely on private investments from banks, private investors or capital funds. Multiple forms of sensemaking are engaged. Investors have their own objectives, which may not be entirely aligned with the overall objectives of the project sponsors per se nor those of their opponents, making the megaproject arena a fertile ground for power dynamics to affect project progress. External involvement of private sector capital means that continuation of vital project funding becomes partially contingent on third-party considerations of medium-term return on investment, which can affect important decisions throughout the project lifecycle. In the context of multiple stakeholders whose objectives, goals and strategies will, in all probability, not be aligned, other than though various expressions of financial motivation, megaprojects face major social, political and cultural challenges (Mamédio and Meyer, 2020).

Financialization has become a central feature of megaprojects, especially in the context of PPPs and other models that involve substantial private sector involvement (Grimsey and Lewis, 2004; Epstein, 2005; Liu et al., 2021). Existing literature has documented the shift from public sector financing to private investment, often framing this shift in terms of efficiency—highlighting how private investment can ease the financial burden on governments (Biygautane, 2017; Wang et al., 2018). However, what this literature often overlooks is the shift in power dynamics that come with multiple private sector actors’ financing of megaprojects (Liu et al., 2021; Terlizzi et al., 2017). The introduction of private capital transforms the political landscape of megaprojects particularly when banks, hedge funds, and private equity firms become involved in financing infrastructure projects, bringing their own priorities and objectives, which are not essentially aligned with the broader goals of the project that the public sector aims to achieve (Flyvbjerg, 2008; Guven and Johnson, 2018).

The focus of private financiers on generating profitable returns creates constraints on both project managers and public sector actors (Jooste et al., 2011). Decisions are no longer driven purely by public interest but are influenced by financial imperatives such as return on investment and medium-term profit maximization (Grimsey and Lewis, 2002). Private investors can exert disproportionate control over the direction of megaprojects (Grimsey and Lewis, 2004). Unlike public sector actors, who are accountable to voters and communities, private investors are primarily concerned with maximizing financial returns, often at the expense of social, environmental or long-term sustainability concerns (Clegg et al., 2017, 2025; Verhoest et al., 2015). This shift in priorities can inevitably lead to decisions that may undermine the original intent of the project, such as cutting costs on materials or labor or renegotiating contracts to their advantage (Pessoa, 2008; Ng and Loosemore, 2007).

In recent years governments have increasingly used public–private partnerships (PPPs) as a way of structuring public infrastructure investments. The upshot of these tendencies is that the temporality of projects is far greater than their apparent duration; the PPP may well construct finance streams to the private sector from public usage or from taxpayers up to 25 years into the future. One may think of this as the financialization of project infrastructure investments. The financialization of infrastructure investments as an asset class, involving hedge funds and institutional investors, makes the relationship between the state, other stakeholders and PPP investor(s) and the ability of the state to participate in and/or effectively regulate infrastructure investments deeply problematic (Ruiz Díaz, 2020; Van Waeyenberge, 2016). One major attraction of PPPs is to enable governments to shift costs and liabilities off their balance sheets in the near term. However, as Guven and Johnson (2018) suggest there are occasions for both optimism and pessimism among the different stakeholders: “the first questions that decision-makers should focus on are whether and under what circumstances a PPP should be considered”.

Private financing has become seen as more efficient and appropriate than using governmental accounts to fund major projects; private finance is viewed optimistically by government (Biygautane et al., 2020). Instead of the government building and paying for major projects directly, they contract private firms that borrow to finance their construction, under a deal that the government will pay them back over, say, 25 years, through a BOOT scheme, with monopoly rights to sources of finance, such as tolls. Of course, this all depends on the forecasts of usage, which is where retrospective pessimism about the sensemaking inherent in future accounting of demand becomes significant.

Forecasts often end up being costly. Hall (1980) identified that the Bay Area Rapid Transit System carried only 51% of forecast riders. Phillips (2008) noted that usage estimates of the Sydney Cross City Tunnel prior to construction were 90,000 cars per day. After completion, the financing costs could not be met by tolls from the 26,500 cars that used the tunnel daily. Prior to construction, the Sydney Lane Cove Tunnel was estimated to achieve between 90,000 and 110,000 cars per day but only achieved a daily average of 50,000 cars when the toll was introduced to the newly completed tunnel. The construction of the Sydney Airport Link provides a similar example. Ng and Loosemore (2007) identified that six months after the line was opened passenger rates were only 12,000 per day, rather than the 46,000 predicted.

These shortfalls are often attributed to what Flyvbjerg (2008) calls “optimism biases” in forecasts of usage of infrastructure. “Optimism bias” is proffered to explain the gap between socially constructed forecast and the social reality that ensues. Flyvbjerg (2014) notes that one of the major reasons why megaprojects rarely come in on time and on budget, and with design integrity, is because they can often only be launched with an inherent implicit optimism bias, with political support of the project from powerful stakeholders, persuasive for decision-makers in government. Hence, a form of conspiracy theory, in which the key players are implicitly aware of the conspiracy, is advocated as a causal factor in megaproject failure. Optimism bias is a strange phenomenon; it only comes into play retrospectively when social reality belies prior social construction. An argument that is seemingly only available evidentially on a post hoc basis cannot be proven one way or another. The nature of bias is attributed post hoc as an account of failure. After the event, it is a rationalization; one that accounts for commitment to early project definition and early progress, ensuring commitment to poor estimates.

Flyvbjerg and Gardener (2024) argue that the antidote to having to construct such rationalization is to plan slowly and act fast. In other words, the more detailed are social constructions, the less there is need for rationalization (Clegg, 2025). However, the more complex and detailed the contracting, which can run to thousands of separate documents on a major infrastructure project, the more that micro-political elements of “indexicality” (Garfinkel, 1967; Clegg, 1975) are likely to be politicized. The micro-politics of sensemaking of all this contextual detail in multiple situations have significant impacts on the macro-outcomes being constructed, socially and materially, as we shall go on to discuss.

The theoretical research question underlying this paper is How do the power dynamics associated with projects become registered in multiple sensemaking and temporalities? In terms of implications, the paper argues that attention to the power dynamics of major projects is sufficient to resile scholars from reducing projects to a series of technical tasks to be managed (Biygautane et al., 2019, 2020; Clegg et al., 2017, 2021). An account of the politics of sensemaking accords with a view that traditional project management approaches are overly prescriptive and less than realist in theoretical terms (e.g. Flyvbjerg, 2007; Holmes, 2018; Maylor et al., 2008). It is not that appropriate theoretical knowledge does not exist but that it is often embedded in social science accounts of organizational politics that rarely make it into the engineering syllabus though they do become, somewhat inchoately apparent, in practice (Liu et al., 2022a, b). Making the education of project managers more explicitly concerned with the politics of organizations would be a significant innovation, given the plural, contested and politically constrained contexts in which they will be likely to operate. There is some progress in this direction. Recent research, instead of aiming toward the development of universal models for abstracted conceptualization of project management, emphasizes instead social science-based, process-oriented tradition of research (Blomquist et al., 2010; Blomquist and Packendorff, 1998; Engwall and Jerbrant, 2003; Söderlund, 2002). Practice-oriented studies emphasize that projects and their underlying processes are relational, evolving over time. “The forming of a practice coming-into-being is always constituting and reconstituting itself: it is becoming per se” (Bjørkeng et al., 2009, p. 156).

The practice-oriented project management studies view that we subscribe to views projects as a “social and organized setting in which numerous conceptual organizational theories and organizational behavior frameworks can be applied and developed” (Blomquist et al., 2010, p. 6). The major contribution of the practice perspective is that projects must also be understood as processes incorporating the complexities of social life (Ciçmil and Hodgson, 2006). Traditional assumptions about projects as objective realities are challenged. The project manager is seen as a reflective practitioner who resolves issues in a context-dependent, pragmatic and political fashion (Ciçmil and Hodgson, 2006), since “there is considerable agreement that conventional, universal statements of what management is about and what managers do—planning, organizing, coordinating and controlling—do not tell us much about organizational reality, which is often messy, ambiguous, fragmented and political in character” (Alvesson and Deetz, 2008, p. 60). The usual form of project process is one of messy muddling through, in which various bounded rationalities clash over project specifications, process and outcomes, using various practices of pooled, sequential and reciprocal interdependencies (Thompson, 1967) to secure interests, outflank those whose interests do not align over whatever is at issue at the time, while gaining small wins in specific episodes of power.

Power dynamics are a normal part of the political liquidity shaping projects (Biygautane et al., 2020; Flyvbjerg, 2014; Osei-Kyei and Chan, 2015). Politics emerge when stakeholders—such as unions, community groups or even contractors—feel their interests are inadequately represented (Grimsey and Lewis, 2002; Battilana, 2006). Stakeholders challenge decisions conflicting with their own goals (Ali, 2010; Pitsis et al., 2003). For example, labor unions may resist efforts to cut costs by reducing employment, wages or benefits, while community groups may resist projects they perceive as harmful to their environment or way of life (Awortwi, 2004; Osei-Kyei and Chan, 2015). Framing such actions as a political allows for a clearer understanding of project dynamics, and this perspective challenges project managers to engage with politics constructively, acknowledging it as an expression of power that must be negotiated rather than simply suppressed (Clegg et al., 2017; Van Marrewijk et al., 2016).

In Table 1, we synthesize and summarize the core constructs that underpin the politics of sensemaking, project temporalities and temporal multiplicities in megaprojects. It highlights how power dynamics shape interpretative conflicts among actors, how project narratives evolve across past, present and future and how stakeholders’ differing temporal orientations create tensions that require active negotiation. By synthesizing key insights, examples and managerial implications, Table 1 provides a structured understanding of how these dimensions influence megaprojects’ trajectories and long-term legacies.

Existing literature focuses largely on the construction phase of megaprojects—evaluating success based on completion time and budget adherence (Biygautane et al., 2019; Scott and Levitt, 2017). However, this paper argues that the true legacy of a megaproject is shaped long after construction ends, as stakeholders, as political actors, strive to frame its significance in ways aligning with their political or personal interests (Jennings, 2012; Judt and Snyder, 2012; Rolstadås et al., 2014). A classic case of megaproject with an infamous informal legacy is the Berlin Brandenburg Airport. What was proposed as a major infrastructure project for Berlin and Germany became a widely recognized example of a megaproject gone wrong, not only due to its technical and managerial failures but also because of the high expectations that had been placed on it. The airport’s tarnished reputation was so widespread that it became emblematic of bureaucracy and inefficiency in discussions about Germany’s much vaunted “efficiency”.

Legacy entails narratives that shape how a project is viewed by stakeholders and the public (Rowlinson et al., 2014), and these narratives are not neutral; they construct normativity (Clark and Rowlinson, 2004). An important normative aspect of legacy is that it becomes a recursive feedback mechanism for cueing aesthetic appreciation. It is not enough to build something to endure materially if it is reviled aesthetically by arbiters of taste and legitimacy, or a laughingstock for the public at large. While it was not by any means a megaproject, the fate of the London Marble Arch mound is illustrative. Costing six million pounds, the “parched and patchy” mound, whose grass resembled “ill-matched carpet tiles”, was termed a “monstrosity” and a “disgrace” on social media, and was rapidly demolished, leading to resignations on the Westminster Council that had commissioned it (Moore, 2021; BBC, 2022).

Aesthetics count. Governments, for instance, may emphasize the economic benefits of a project, downplaying its social or environmental costs (Petersen, 2010), while community groups may focus on the negative impacts of a project, using these narratives to mobilize opposition to future developments (Biygautane et al., 2019; Hartog, 2003). By exploring how political dynamics shape the legacy of megaprojects, this paper demonstrates that meaning of a megaproject is continuously negotiated through political processes (Mouraviev and Kakabadse, 2015; Hancock and Spicer, 2011). The paper provides a more comprehensive understanding of how megaprojects influence political and social life long after their completion, adding a new dimension to the study of project management, the importance of political and aesthetic legacy. Table 2 provides an integrated analysis of how power, temporalities and the dynamics of stakeholder politics interact within major project practices to produce legacy.

A first contribution of the paper is to distance itself from much of the literature’s focus on objective and quantifiable metrics, such as efficiency, which often underestimate the politics of sensemaking in megaprojects (Flyvbjerg, 2014; Cicmil et al., 2006). For instance, scope creep and budget overruns are frequently attributed to poor management or unforeseen technical challenges (Ika and Donnelly, 2017), but these issues are often the result of political pressures to alter project scope to satisfy key stakeholders (Verhoest et al., 2015). These approaches do not account for the numerous conflicting interests, strategies and power relations among multiple stakeholders (Flyvbjerg, 2007; Blomquist et al., 2010). The paper extends these traditional frameworks by drawing on political analysis of project practices, which recognizes that projects are not linearly rational entities but are continuously negotiated through sensemaking imbued with power relations between stakeholders, often with competing agendas and priorities (Clegg et al., 2017). Traditional project management approaches undermine the role of political actors—such as politicians, community leaders or union representatives—who influence the direction of the project in ways that cannot be reduced to technical considerations (Morris and Geraldi, 2011; Söderlund, 2002). These actors have competing goals, and their influence on project decisions is shaped by their ability to mobilize power within project arenas.

A second contribution of this paper is its emphasis on the importance of multiple temporalities, something inherent to sensemaking. The paper builds on existing ideas of sensemaking in megaprojects and theorizes it as a political process of multiplicities (Mol, 2010) and temporalities (Graan et al., 2024) rather than being individually cognitive (Clegg et al., 2017; Weick, 1995). Sensemaking has long been recognized as an important cognitive aspect of organizational life (Weick, 2008), but much of the literature treats it as an individual- or group-level phenomenon (Flyvbjerg, 2014; Weick, 1993). Sensemaking does not stop with project completion. Major infrastructure projects live on long beyond their immediate lifecycle, considering their long-term political impact, in terms of legacy and memorialization, both formal and informal (Decker, 2014; Hobsbawm and Ranger, 1983).

The paper presents a dynamic theoretical model (Figure 1) that integrates the complex interplay and liquidity of power dynamics, sensemaking, stakeholder politics, project practices, project outcomes and legacy in the context of megaprojects. The framework conceptualizes these as interconnected processes continuously shaping and reshaping the trajectory of a project (Clegg et al., 2017; Söderlund, 2002). This perspective moves beyond traditional project management approaches, which focus predominantly on technical execution (Ika and Donnelly, 2017; Hodgson, 2002; Muganda and Pillay, 2013), to foreground the socio-political forces that define how megaprojects evolve and how they are ultimately perceived (Flyvbjerg, 2014; Engwall, 2003). Our theoretical model reflects the multi-faceted nature of these large-scale projects, underlying how political, social and cognitive dimensions can have powerful influence on their trajectory and long-term impact (Blomquist et al., 2010; Biygautane et al., 2019; Clegg et al., 2023).

As shown in our theoretical model presented in Figure 1, power dynamics, in their liquidity, influence how sense is made in megaprojects by determining which of the shifting narratives, whose sensemaking of project objectives and priorities, allocations of resources and interpretations of project events register, as well as where they are signified (Clegg, 1975; Biesenthal et al., 2018). Sensemaking, as theorized in this paper, is not confined to isolated moments of interpretation (Weick, 1995; Van Marrewijk et al., 2016; Engwall, 2003), but it goes beyond that. We argue that sensemaking in megaprojects is neither linear nor confined to discrete moments of interpretation; but it is an ongoing process that unfolds across multiple temporalities; it is highly liquid, giving rise to the liquidity of power dynamics. Stakeholders engage in a mixture of retrospective and prospective interpretations, reconstructing past events to justify present actions while projecting preferred futures to shape project trajectories (Passy and Giugni, 2000; Patriotta et al., 2011; Rowlinson et al., 2010). The theoretical model highlights how sensemaking is politically charged—actors do not merely interpret project realities but actively construct them in alignment with interests (Caro, 1974; Pitsis et al., 2003). By treating sensemaking as a political and temporal process (Clegg et al., 2017; Flyvbjerg, 2007), this framework underscores how the liquidity of power dynamics is constantly informing interpretations (Goffman, 1974; Decker, 2014). Unlike conventional models that treat sensemaking as a cognitive or organizational function (Weick, 2008; Maclean et al., 2016), our paper positions it as a socio-political mechanism through which stakeholders rationalize and legitimize their positions, in a fluid historical drama, in which legacy might always be reshaping past sensemaking as well as framing present-day sensemaking, as it strives to create a future perfect legacy (Pitsis et al., 2003).

As our theoretical model in Figure 1 shows, it is the liquidity of power dynamics that are at the heart of megaprojects, shaping how stakeholders interact and affect project decisions (Clegg et al., 2002). The model is not defined by any specific project but seeks to show how the processual flows that such projects create have temporal and sensemaking effects that flow into and from projects. Power structures embedded in megaprojects operate beyond formal hierarchies and institutional mandates, extending into networks of influence where multiple actors compete to frame project decisions (Hällgren and Söderholm, 2011; Clegg et al., 2023; Osei-Kyei and Chan, 2015). Likewise, less powerful stakeholders (e.g. community groups, contractors) engage in counter-sensemaking, contesting dominant interpretations by presenting alternative narratives (Muganda and Pillay, 2013; Ruíz Díaz, 2020). This interplay between authority-driven sensemaking and resistance-driven counter-sensemaking underscores how it is the liquidity of power relations that influences which narratives gain legitimacy over time.

Our paper highlights how liquid power dynamics constitute projects through negotiating, resisting and coalition-building, shifting and shaping sensemaking and stakeholders. Conventional project management emphasizes rational decision-making processes within projects; we join those who theorize megaprojects as arenas of contested authority where actors strategically position themselves to influence key decisions (Jooste et al., 2011; Van Marrewijk and Van den Ende, 2022; Söderlund, 2002). As shown in Figure 1, stakeholder politics inform the liquidity of power relations within megaprojects and vice versa. These politics serve as the primary vehicle through which power dynamics and sensemaking materialize and liquidize in project practices (Clegg et al., 2002; Van Marrewijk et al., 2016; Lindgren and Packendorff, 2009). The shaping effect of power on stakeholder politics transforms project management into a field of strategic maneuvering rather than a purely technical process (Pitsis et al., 2003; Söderlund, 2002; Awortwi, 2004). Furthermore, our model shows that stakeholder actions are not passive reactions to project developments but are vehicles that are driving project practices through their adoption of deliberate strategies to assert influence, shape narratives and reconfigure project objectives (Blomquist et al., 2010; Patriotta et al., 2011; Osei-Kyei and Chan, 2015). Political actors, private investors, regulatory bodies and civil society groups continuously engage in purposeful work to advance their agendas, often leading to conflicts that redefine project goals (Grimsey and Lewis, 2004; Ruíz Díaz, 2020; Petersen, 2010). Stakeholder politics thus function as both a constraint and an enabler—limiting managerial discretion while simultaneously generating new possibilities for negotiation and compromise (Merrow, 2024; Clegg et al., 2017; Locatelli et al., 2017). These practices are not merely technical but are deeply embedded in political strategies that must be navigated constructively (Clegg et al., 2017; Van Marrewijk et al., 2016; Giezen, 2015).

Project practices such as contract structuring, budget allocations and milestone adjustments emerge from negotiations embedded in liquid political politics, shifting sensemaking and stakeholder politics (Söderlund, 2002; Locatelli et al., 2022a; Kardes et al., 2013). Our theoretical model conceptualizes project practices not as neutral or purely technical but as active forces in which political relations in project practices are manifestly framing sociomaterial project outcomes (Flyvbjerg, 2007; Biygautane et al., 2019; Hällgren and Söderholm, 2011). While traditional project management focuses on metrics such as cost and schedule, this framework extends the analysis to consider how political and sensemaking relations shape project success (Clegg et al., 2017; Söderlund, 2002; Engwall and Jerbrant, 2003). For instance, budget overruns often attributed to technical mismanagement may, in fact, result from political pressures to expand project scope to satisfy stakeholders (Flyvbjerg, 2014; Verhoest et al., 2015; Patel et al., 2013). Decision-making processes, regulatory compliance, contract renegotiations and design alterations all reflect the contested nature of megaprojects (Clegg et al., 2017; Pitsis et al., 2003; Locatelli et al., 2017).

Our paper challenges the assumption that project outcomes are predetermined by technical efficiency or managerial competence, instead emphasizing how they are determined by the ability of actors to navigate political complexities (Flyvbjerg, 2014; Söderlund, 2002; Van Marrewijk et al., 2016). The final shape of a megaproject—its technical success, cost efficiency and social acceptance—is a direct function of the political and managerial decisions made during its lifecycle (Biesenthal et al., 2018; Engwall, 2003; Jooste et al., 2011). Technical outcomes (such as cost overruns, delays and infrastructure quality) are often attributed to managerial competence, but this framework emphasizes that these are frequently determined by political struggles, financial imperatives and stakeholder negotiations (Clegg et al., 2017; Grimsey and Lewis, 2004; Osei-Kyei and Chan, 2015). Likewise, social outcomes—such as community acceptance, environmental impact and long-term usability—depend on whether and how stakeholder interests were represented during the decision-making process (Patriotta et al., 2011; Pitsis et al., 2003; Biygautane et al., 2019).

The model demonstrates that in constructing project outcomes, legacy is significant. Stakeholders have many different legacies that they can aim for; some architects striving to be “stararchitects” (McNeil, 2009; Tarazona-Vento and Atkinson, 2024), while public sector agencies, seeking financial discipline, fear the excesses of design, project managers aiming to bring projects in on time, cost and quality tailored to temporal and financial constraints. Major projects are arenas for ambition, egos, disciplines and the bigger the project the larger the politics are likely to be. Legacy becomes a contested terrain. Some projects, despite facing cost overruns or delays, are later deemed as successes largely due to shifts in political narratives and public perception (Decker, 2014; Rowlinson et al., 2014; Jennings, 2012). Others, even if completed in time and within budget, may be regarded as failures due to negative social impact or political fallout (Flyvbjerg et al., 2003; Grimsey and Lewis, 2004; Van den Hurk and Verhoest, 2015). This process of constructing legacy highlights how project outcomes do not necessarily speak for themselves but are instead subject to reinterpretation and reframing by different actors with certain vested interests (Clegg et al., 2023; Judt and Snyder, 2012; Maclean et al., 2016).

Legacy, nonetheless, does not simply mark the final stage of a megaproject; rather, it actively feeds back into the ongoing processes of sensemaking, power dynamics and stakeholder politics, reshaping how future projects are framed, interpreted and managed (Hobsbawm and Ranger, 1983; Engwall, 2003; Söderlund, 2002). As shown in Figure 1, legacy generates a recursive feedback loop that affects how future projects are conceived and implemented. First, legacy is constantly reshaping sensemaking by providing interpretative signs that stakeholders use to rationalize the development of new projects (Van Marrewijk et al., 2016; Patriotta et al., 2011; Pitsis et al., 2003). The narratives developed around past megaprojects—whether they are celebrated as successes or condemned as failures—become templates for understanding and positioning ongoing projects (Maclean et al., 2021; Mouraviev and Kakabadse, 2015; Decker, 2014). Political actors, project managers and community groups draw upon these past narratives to construct legitimacy, justify strategic decisions or challenge proposed developments (Rowlinson et al., 2010).

Second, the distribution of authority and credibility among key actors (Söderlund, 2002) is vital for legacy. Stakeholders associated with successful megaprojects gain greater influence in future projects, while those linked to controversial or failed initiatives may face diminished legitimacy (Van Marrewijk and Van den Ende, 2022; Engwall and Jerbrant, 2003). This means that past performance—real or perceived—acts as a form of political currency that dictates whose voices carry weight in decision-making processes (Clegg et al., 2017; Patriotta et al., 2011; Maclean et al., 2016). Governments, funding institutions and regulatory bodies use past project outcomes to determine which actors should be granted decision-making authority, financial control or regulatory oversight (Petersen, 2010; Söderlund, 2002; Locatelli et al., 2022a).

Third, by reinforcing or challenging established coalitions, alliances and conflicts, stakeholder politics both inform legacy as the meaning of legacy informs stakeholder politics (Van Marrewijk et al., 2016; Clegg et al., 2023; Rowlinson et al., 2014). Past megaprojects create enduring political alignments that persist beyond their immediate completion (Söderlund, 2002). Community opposition groups that mobilize against prior developments often become institutionalized stakeholders in future projects, wielding greater organizational capacity and legitimacy (Passy and Giugni, 2000; Patriotta et al., 2011; Hancock and Spicer, 2011). Conversely, government agencies and private investors learn from previous confrontations, adjusting their engagement strategies to either co-opt opposition or mitigate resistance (Hodgson, 2002; Jooste et al., 2011; Söderlund, 2002). This cyclical nature of stakeholder politics ensures that project dynamics do not begin from a neutral starting point; they are always shaped by prior struggles, negotiations and power shifts (Hällgren and Söderholm, 2011; Engwall, 2003; Clegg et al., 2017). Memories of past projects haunt those present and inform future sensemaking. The presence of deeply entrenched political positions means that stakeholder interactions in megaprojects are rarely spontaneous; they are informed by historical conflicts and alliances that continue to evolve with each new initiative (Clegg et al., 2017; Locatelli et al., 2017; Söderlund, 2002).

Finally, the interplay between power, sensemaking, stakeholder politics, project practices and legacy ensures that megaprojects remain dynamic and continuously reinterpreted (Clegg et al., 2017; Weick, 1995; Maclean et al., 2016). Although they may move through distinct circuits of power, while these may be pre-planned, events have a way of unsettling circuitry, introducing “fluidity” and “liquidity” (Suddaby, 2025). Recognition of the power of events, fluidity and liquidity fundamentally shifts how we should conceptualize megaprojects. Instead of viewing them as neat and finite undertakings with clear beginnings and ends, this model conceptualizes them as ongoing socio-political processes whose meanings, importance and performance evolve, liquidly, over time (Maclean et al., 2021; Decker, 2014). By embedding this perspective into megaproject research, this paper offers a more comprehensive understanding of how projects function as sites of political contestation, social negotiation and historical reinterpretation (Clegg et al., 2017; Flyvbjerg, 2014; Söderlund, 2002). Our paper provides a nuanced lens for analyzing the complexities of megaprojects, illustrating how they are not simply engineered systems but political constructs that are shaped by power struggles, temporal negotiations and stakeholder conflicts (Rowlinson et al., 2014; Van den Hurk and Verhoest, 2015; Maclean et al., 2021).

This paper has demonstrated that megaprojects are deeply embedded in political arenas shaped by complex power dynamics. Stakeholders’ interpretations, sensemaking and power struggles, and broader political agendas, significantly influence decision-making processes, project outcomes and the long-term legacy of these vast infrastructure projects. The meaning of such projects is always contested, rather than purely managed. It is important to highlight that megaprojects’ impact continues long after their completion, as multiple narratives seek to frame these projects’ historical significance and legitimize the actions of the political actors related to them. By incorporating these dimensions into the analysis of megaprojects, this paper has offered a better understanding of the political forces that shape projects, emphasizing the importance of adopting politically aware management approaches that can make sense of the complexities of power relations, stakeholder interests and long-term social impact. Megaprojects, therefore, as a project topic, include not only what gets built and how but also concerns how political power is constructed, maintained and remembered over time. Anybody who has ever visited the Sydney Opera House knows the name Jørn Utzon; how many know the name of the man who fired him? ^[3]

Finally, drawing the themes together, one can see that both prospective and retrospective sensemaking are important for project-based temporary organizations. The more politically closely aligned temporal sensemaking is in the here-and-now of the various moments of the project’s becoming, the lower the conflictual politics of the project are likely to be. However, the costs of doing this require far more care in the contracting and design of projects in their initial stages, necessitating the development of embedded expertise in design and delivery, as well as independent oversight of processes to see that lessons learned are played out in practice so that the retrospective judgement of optimism that Flyvbjerg identifies does not occur. However, there is a paradox at work here: the more detailed the formal contractual documentation of the project is in advance, to try to reduce uncertainty, the more opportunities for indexically multiple sensemaking to arise, which potentially produces conflicts that might impede progress. Conversely, the less detailed the specifications are in advance, the more the project partners will have to trust one another and, within an appropriate framework, the less opportunities there will be for them not to do so (Pitsis et al., 2023).