Stakeholder Identification and Mapping in highly contested megaprojects

Stakeholder Identification and Mapping in highly
contested megaprojects
Interpreting stakeholders’ ecosystems through relational stakeholder theory
12 June 2023 - Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB)
Dr. Dario Cottafava* (Ph.D.), Dr. Daniel Torchia, Prof. Laura Corazza
University of Turin, Department of Economics and Statistics “Cognetti de Martiis”, Italy

Research aims and design
In particular we aimed at understanding:
1. if megaproject managers were aware of their stakeholder networks and
networks-of-networks representing the external ecosystem.
2. if and how prioritisation occurred, whether a mainstream dimension of
stakeholder salience still exists, or whether managers have already adopted a
relational perspective of stakeholder theory
This research tries to make sense of the relational stakeholders’ perspective
(Rowley, 2017) by adopting an ecosystem view of stakeholder networks in a
contested binational megaproject, the Turin-Lyon high-speed railway (HSR).

Megaprojects: a very brief introduction
Megaprojects are “large-scale, complex ventures that typically cost US$1 billion or more, take
many years to develop and build, involve multiple public and private stakeholders, are
transformational, and impact millions of people” (Flyvbjerg, 2014)
Megaprojects includes large infrastructure such as high-speed railways, large events (e.g.
Olympic Games), or huge hydroelectric power dams
Iron law: “over budget, over time, under benefits and over and over again” (Flyvbjerg, 2017)
Infrastructural Territorialization (Lesutis 2021): the scale of megaprojects is able to affect,
positively or negatively, entire regions or whole nations in the long term, by deeply modifying
not only the surrounding environment but also the social and economic conditions of the
local population (Flyvbjerg et al. 2003).

The challenge of complexity in Megaprojects
Complexity – in terms of life span, generated impacts, and affected stakeholders – has to be
considered during the planning, operating, and dismantling phase (OECD 2019).
• Short VS long-term impacts
• Local VS national/international level
• Social VS environmental VS economic interests
• …..
Environmental Justice and conflict management: Intrinsic complexity of megaprojects
(Nyarirangwe & Babatunde, 2019) provokes increasingly conflictual situations among
stakeholders and local communities (Di Maddaloni & Davis, 2017)
Emergence of the environmental justice movement (Temper et al., 2015, 2018)
Intergenerational justice (Rawls, 1971)

Stakeholder Management: from
company-centric to an ecosystem view
Stakeholder Salience model established a 3-factor prioritization: power, legitimacy and urgency (Mitchell
et at., 1997)
• Highly criticized but still fundamental and widely adopted worldwide
Stakeholder Mapping and Prioritization should be done in a pluralistic way, with formally active and
potential stakeholders (Newcombe 2003).
Stakeholder Management fundamental in construction projects to gradually empower stakeholders to
achieve an increasing degree of influence over a project through a constant process of engagement
(Rowlinson and Cheung 2008).
• Involving secondary stakeholders at later stages, when the main decisions have already been made (Nederhand
and Klijn 2019; Schormair and Gilbert 2021), can have unpredictable negative effects
Stakeholder2Nature approach introduces an ecosystem vision of sustainability, with a strong relational
view and connection between the players and the territory itself.
• the territory understood in a geographical sense is endowed with a specific identity (Heikkinen et al. 2019)

Megaproject Social Responsibility and
Sustainable Infrastructure
Megaproject Social Responsibility defined as ‘the policies and practices of the stakeholders
participated through the whole project life-cycle that reflects responsibilities for the well-being of
the wider society’ (Zeng et al., 2015, p. 540)
 Focus shifted to the sustainable development and management of the unavoidable impacts of
megaprojects (Ma et al., 2017; Lin et al., 2017) by understanding the complex human-environment
interactions (Scharlemann et al., 2020).
Sustainable Development Goal 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructures) of the 2030 Agenda of
the United Nations precisely targets infrastructure at its core, and promotes ‘build resilient
infrastructure’ as an enabler for inclusive and sustainable industrialization.
• Crucial for the carbon neutrality target of the EU and to decouple resource use from economic growth.

Toward Sustainable Infrastructural
Megaprojects
Megaprojects
Sustainable
Infrastructure
Infrastructure
Megaprojects
Sustainable
Infrastructure
Infrastructure
Corazza, L., Cottafava, D., Torchia, D. (2022). Toward Sustainable Infrastructural Megaprojects. In: Leal Filho, W., Dinis, M.A.P
., Moggi, S., Price, E., Hope, A. (eds) SDGs in the European
Region . Implementing the UN Sustainable Development Goals – Regional Perspectives. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91261-1_14-1
Sustainable Infrastructures are “infrastructure projects that are planned, designed, constructed,
operated, and decommissioned in a manner to ensure economic and financial, social, environmental
(including climate resilience), and institutional sustainability over the entire life cycle of the project”
(Inter-American Development Bank, 2018, p.11)

Turin-Lyon Railway: a brief overview
Progressing the Lyon-Turin base rail link, Armand van Wijck, TunnelTalk Europe correspondent. Source: https://www.tunneltalk.com/Lyon-Turin-14Aug13-57km-long-tunnel-design-and-
construction.php
 4 INTERNATIONAL TREATIES
Signed by Italy and France (1996,
2001, 2012 and 2015).
 Since 1872, the Turin–Modane
railway connects Turin with Lyon via
the 13.7 km Fréjus Rail Tunnel.
 The Turin-Lyon line is the new
railway line for the goods and
passengers of about 270km (70%
in France - 30% in Italy).

Turin-Lyon Railway: a brief overview
Source: Progressing the Lyon-Turin base rail link, Armand van Wijck, TunnelTalk Europe correspondent. Source: https://www.tunneltalk.com/Lyon-Turin-14Aug13-57km-long-tunnel-design-
and-construction.php
 The Turin-Lyon high-speed railway
consists of a 65 km cross-border
section between Italy and France of
which 57.5 km will become the
longest tunnel in the world.
 The estimated total cost of the line is
€25 billion, of which €8 billion is for
the international section, which is
the only part of the line where work
has started.

From a local to an international
dimension: TEN-T
It is the central link of the Mediterranean Corridor, one of the 9 axes of the Trans-European Transport Network of more than
3000Km length crossing Europe from east to west and connecting to 7 other corridors of the TEN-T network.

Turin-Lyon HSR history: the earlier protests
March 1998: Sole (the Argentinian Maria
Soledad Rosas), Baleno (Edoardo Massari)
and Silvano Pelissero were three anarchists
victims of a real judicial prosecution.
Accused of carrying out ecoterrorist actions
in the Turin area against the future Turin-
Lyon line, they were placed in isolation
charged by subversive association for the
purpose of terrorism (Art. 270 bis of the
penal code).

Unjustly accused of carrying out ecoterrorist
actions, they suffered a terrible media pillory
that led to the suicide of two of them
• 28 March: Baleno, hanged with sheets in
Turin's Vallette prison
• 11 July: Soledad, suicided with bed
sheets from the shower pipe when were
under house arrest
In 2002, the Court of Cassation in Rome
dismantled the theses of Turin prosecutors. It
was not a terrorist association and the Turin
Court of Appeal reduced Silvano Pelissero's
sentence to three years and ten months.
Turin-Lyon history: the earlier protests

Turin-Lyon history: the rise of the conflict &
the reasons of the No TAV movement
 ENVIRONMENTAL REASONS: initial concerns moved by environmental reasons, such as potential release
of asbestos and uranium from the mountains, increased pollution and noise (Fornero et al., 2005).
 ECONOMIC REASONS: high costs and the perceived lack of benefits of having another railway line
operating, when the other one was still in service (Armano et al., 2013; Tartaglia, 2012).
 POLITICAL REASONS: local communities/institutions felt they were not involved in the planning phases.
• Soon it became as much an environmental battle as a cultural opposition to globalization (Leonardi, 2013)
Frejus rail crossing: freight traffic
trends and forecasts

Turin-Lyon history: the rise of the conflict &
the late creation of the observatory
 The heterogeneous No TAV (Treno Alta Velocità – High-Speed Railway in Italian) movement was
born to oppose the project on different levels: technical, intellectual, and social, with both
peaceful and violent expressions of dissent.
 December 2005: 30000 people marched to the town of Venaus, occupying and ‘reconquering’
the construction sites.

TAV History: the late creation of the
observatory
2006: the Italian Government established the Technical Observatory, to make up for past
communication and stakeholder engagement mistakes but, as Burnside-Lawry and Ariemma (2016)
state, it soon became and instrument of governance, rather than a multi-stakeholder forum.
2011: another violent protest in Chiomonte, leading the site to be permanently militarised and surveilled
 It allows the application of Art. 270 bis of the penal code for terrorism.
2021: after years of standstill the protests resumed against the opening of a new site in San Didero.
Prefecture of Turin, 20 April 2018,
Launch Observatory Phase VI

What is the truth?
Import and Export with France and Spain
Source: https://presidenza.governo.it/osservatorio_torino_lione/quaderni/Quaderno11.pdf
Italy - Spain
Italy - France
Mln
of
tonnes
Mln
of
tonnes
Freight traffic
through the Alps
(2017)

• TELT is a company operating under French law, owned 50% by the French State and 50% by the Italian State (through
Gruppo Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane), established on 23 February 2015. As a public promoter, it acts on the will of the
owners, and it does not get paid dividends for its activity.
• The company was created from the transformation of Lyon Turin Ferroviaire (LTF SAS), an entity owned by the two managers
of the railway networks of France and Italy - RFF (Réseau Ferré de France) and RFI (Rete Ferroviaria Italiana) - previously in
charge of the studies, surveys and preliminary works for the French-Italian part of the joint project.
• TELT, as public promoter, is the entity responsible for overseeing the construction and subsequent management of the 65
km cross-border section - most of it, almost 90%, in tunnels - located between Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, in France, and
Susa-Bussoleno, in Italy.
• TELT’s registered office is in Chambéry (France) and its operational management (headquarters) is in Turin (Italy).
• Under the 2012 Agreement, TELT is also entrusted with the subsequent operation of the new line for 99 years (until 2114).
• In the 2015 Agreement, France and Italy ratified their commitment to start work on the final construction of the Mont Cenis
Base Tunnel, which is scheduled to be operational in 2030 (then postponed to 2032).
• It is a member of the UN Global Compact.
TELT-Tunnel Euralpin Lyon Turin

Research aims and design
This research tries to make sense of the relational stakeholders’ perspective (Rowley,
2017) and of the Stakeholder2Nature approach (Heikkinen et al. 2019) by focusing on
the wider stakeholder networks of the Turin-Lyon HSR in Italy.
We adopted a QUAL-QUANT mixed-method approach to evaluate:
1. If the managers of the company are aware of the network of stakeholders
surrounding the project and their networks-of-networks, basically of the whole
stakeholder ecosystem
2. If and how a stakeholder prioritisation occurs following the idea of stakeholder
salience or according to a relational perspective
Aims & Objectives
Design Method

Methodology: general flowchart

Methodology: semi-structured interviews
21 semi-structured Interviews with directors, project managers and middle managers
• interviewees chosen according to internal hierarchical and horizontal structure of the
company in charge of the Turin-Lyon HSR including 9 directors (DIR), 2 project
managers (COO), 8 construction site supervisors (LOT), and 2 senior managers (SEN).
• Interviews ranged from 60 to 100 minutes each and, when allowed, they were
recorded and transcribed verbatim.
No. Interviewee
1 HR Director (M)
2 Development Manager (F)
3 Deputy Director Italy (M)
4 Construction Director (M)
5 Engineering Director (M)
6 Financial Director (M)
7 Deputy Communication Director (M)
8 Construction Coordinator Italy (M)
9 Construction Site Project Manager 1 (M)
No. Interviewee
12 Construction Site Project Manager 4 (F)
17 Construction Coordinator France (M)
18 Legal Director (F)
19 General Director (M)
20 Head of Environment Department Italy (F)
21 Sustainable Development and Safety Director (F)

Methodology: interviews coding &
questions
Coding phase aimed at checking if:
 Interviewees provide: 1) a self-determined definition of stakeholder and
2) an operationalization of a prioritisation/contextualization of stakeholders
 the company has 1) a stakeholder-oriented organisational culture and
2) a binational nature and how it affects the stakeholder mapping process.

Findings: Qualitative Definition
SELF-DETERMINED DEFINITION OF STAKEHOLDER
 Company vs Project stakeholders: no distinction
among company and project stakeholders.
More evident among interviewees with
institutional power, who adopted a broader
vision.
 Applied vs Theoretical: distinction among who
is already managing the construction sites
(names and faces) and those who are not yet
started (theoretical definition)
 Broad vs Narrow vision: given definitions span
from including all EU taxpayers and future users
to only contractors and subcontractors.

Findings: Qualitative Prioritization
 Previous Experiences: Only 6 respondents had taken part in stakeholder mapping activities
in their career. In many cases, interviewees have based their analysis on previous experience.
 Prioritization: seen as dynamic and not always necessary.
 some respondents defined all stakeholders as primary, and others have made
distinctions based on other criteria (temporal, geographical, internal and external
stakeholders, as well as how they are managed)
STAKEHOLDER PRIORITIZATION

Findings: Quantitative Bottom-up
«clusters» and prioritization
 Links correspond to the mention of a specific stakeholder
by one of the interviewees
 Each node represents a different stakeholder
 Size of the labels/nodes shows the degree of centrality
 Colors represent a “bottom-up” clusterization
 it depends on the local density of links with respect
to the whole structure of the network
FIVE MAIN CLUSTERS
1) civil society (light blue + light green)
2) operational project stakeholders (light green)
3) public national/international institutions (dark green)
4) cross-border public institutions (purple)
5) local institutions, e.g. local mayors/communities (orange)

Social Network Analysis in a nutshell
 Degree centrality evaluates the number of inbound/outbound links.
 Authority, pagerank, and eigenvector assess the centrality of a node with respect to the importance of the
neighbors (Segarra and Ribeiro, 2014) and are used to identify community structures (Newman, 2006)
 Betweenness calculates the probability that, given any two actors/nodes in the network, the shortest path
connecting them, passes exactly through the node being considered.

Centrality degrees: authority and
pagerank
Focused on national/international public institutions (IST) and civil society components (SOC) such as:
• Construction/engineering companies (SOC1-2),
• Public national / international institutions (IST 10, 14-15) and ministries (IST 7-9, 16-18)
(a) Authority (b) Pagerank

Centrality degrees: eigenvector
Eigenvector focused on the institutional components (IST) and internal components (TELT):
• Public institutions related to the environment (IST 31-37)
(c) Betweenness (d) Eigenvector
In this case, the centrality of both
national and international
institutional components (purple
and dark green clusters) and of
national institutions that validates
and check environmental
assessment (light green cluster)
emerges, while the internal
components internal (LOT and
TELT categories) do not turn out
to be particularly central.

Centrality degrees: betweenness and
eigenvector
Betweenness completely centered on internal structures and business units (LOT and DIRE).
(c) Betweenness (d) Eigenvector
This result is because the network
was constructed entirely from
interviews with directors and
internal actors.

Conclusion: qualitative and quantitative
comparison
 common internal/external stakeholder classification (Beringer et al., 2013) was not adopted by interviewees
 Business and project stakeholders are considered the same in opposition with Aaltonen (2008) classification
Stakeholder Definition
Social and Environmental aspects
 From all degrees of centrality, the social component (NO TAV and SOC) turns out to play a secondary role
 In our research, Nature as a stakeholder has not emerged from the interviews, despite much resistance to the
megaproject was sparked by environmental concerns.
 Theoretical vs Pragmatic vision: findings highlight how the vision and actions of interviewees do not agree
(identified stakeholders through the SNA did not reflect the theoretical vision)
 Broad vision from self-determined definition including civil society, NGOs, tax payers.
 Narrow vision from SNA focused on primary stakeholder (suppliers, contractors) and public institutions
Prioritization & Ecosystem view
Although managers strategic vision follows a sustainable development strategy in the long-term, the
preservation of the environment and local community is still far from the real practice.

Managerial Implications of a dynamic
and integrated stakeholder management
As extensively discussed, a dynamic, i.e. repeated in time, mapping process is necessary to
effectively manage all stakeholders in order to avoid (or prevent) the emergence of
conflicts.
• This should fully enter in the earlier phases, from the decisional and planning, and in
the management of the megaproject itself.
In this sense, participatory processes are crucial in the understanding of and in giving a
sense to a community (de Moor, 2015), i.e. a thematic network of actors collaborating for
a mutual benefit or goal (Andrews, 2002; Wenger et al., 2011).
It must be stressed that ex ante activities could/should also lead for the project to be
abandoned altogether, rather than being an instrument of megaproject governance

Limitations & Further Development
Longitudinal study. Stakeholder mapping activities should
be conducted ex ante and then replicated in every phase
of the project, from the top management to the single
construction site.
Top-down approach. The main limitation is that
stakeholders have been analyzed taking the
managers’ point of view. Hence, the study is still
partially company-centric (highlighted by the
betweenness centrality)
Bottom-up process. An horizontal (i.e. by including
interviews to secondary stakeholders) and vertical (i.e. to
investigate deeply the nature of the relationships)
expansion is necessary to fully develop and ecosystem
view.
Intergenerational Justice. It is important to determine how
the project will impact future generations and how
stakeholders will change over time. In forty years, the
megaproject can be seen very differently from now and
see a radical evolution of the stakeholders involved.
Single snapshot. Our study is limited in time (2020-
21) and space (only to Susa Valley) providing a
narrow vision over a conflict and debate with more
than 20 years.
Boundaries’ expansion
Temporal expansion
Past and Future Stakeholders. The interviews and
the obtained network focused on present
stakeholders although during the ‘stakeholder
definition’ certain consideration emerged for future
stakeholders (e.g. future users of the Turin-Lyon).

Future studies: towards an ecosystem
view for stakeholder theory
Cottafava, D. and Corazza, L. (2021), "Co-design of a stakeholders’ ecosystem: an assessment methodology by linking social network analysis, stakeholder theory and participatory
mapping", Kybernetes, Vol. 50 No. 3, pp. 836-858. https://doi.org/10.1108/K-12-2019-0861

Future studies: collaborative mapping
process
 Old model were centered on the organization (Donaldson, & Preston, 1995) but an eco-system
view of stakeholders with multiple-actors is emerging (Roloff, 2008, Rowley, 2017)
Source: Donaldson, T., & Preston, L. E. (1995). The stakeholder theory of the corporation: Concepts, evidence, and
implications. Academy of management Review, 20(1), 65-91.
Why a collaborative mapping process?
 a participatory mapping methodology may give a sense to the community (de Moor, 2015, 2015)
 Sensemaking (Weick, 1995) may create a common meaning to the stakeholders’ experience.

Future studies: towards an inclusive
impact accounting protocol
Corazza, L., Torchia, D., Cottafava, D., & Tipaldo, G. (2022). Considering the social and economic implications of infrastructure megaprojects: theoretical contributions, practical
challenges and managerial implications. In The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility. Corporate Activities, the Environment and Society (pp. 1-30). Routledge.

Future studies: system dynamics and
stakeholder management
3 sustainability pillars:
• Environmental, social and economic
sustainability
2 Megaproject phases:
• Construction and Operation phases
5 macro dynamics identified:
1. Pollution and Waste
2. Strikes and protests
3. Innovation process
4. Tourism and local culture
5. Safety and wellbeing
Shams Esfandabadi, Z., Cottafava, D., Corazza, L., & Scagnelli, S. D. (2023, June). Sustainability Challenges of High-Speed Railway Megaprojects from a Systems Thinking Lens. In
Complexity and Sustainability in Megaprojects: MeRIT Workshop 2022 (pp. 331-341). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland.

Last but not least… a few open questions
1. What are the boundaries between engaged scholarship and
academic activism?
2. Is it always fair (or even necessary) to hide behind impartiality
and objectivity?
3. How can a researcher map the presence of biases, especially in
interdisciplinary research groups that have a different view on
objectivity (e.g. positivism)?
4. How is it possible to construct an empowering dialogue with
those who hold contrasting positions to co-create and co-
develop a common future?
Source: Corazza, L., Torchia, D., & Cottafava, D. (2023). Academics Applying Interventionist Research to Deal with Wicked and
Complex Societal Problems. Social and Environmental Accountability Journal, 1-18.
https://doi.org/10.1080/0969160X.2023.2181838

Thank you for the
attention
Any question?
Contact:
Dr. Dario Cottafava, University of Turin
Mail: dario.cottafava@unito.it

Stakeholder Identification and Mapping in highly contested megaprojects

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