IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/popmgt/v28y2019i1p63-81.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Domino Effect: An Empirical Exposition of Systemic Risk Across Project Networks

Author

Listed:
  • Christos Ellinas

Abstract

Activity network analysis is a widely used tool for managing project risk. Traditionally, this type of analysis is used to evaluate task criticality by assuming linear cause‐and‐effect phenomena, where the size of a local failure (e.g., task delay) dictates its possible global impact (e.g., project delay). Motivated by the question of whether activity networks are subject to nonlinear cause‐and‐effect phenomena, a computational framework is developed and applied to real‐world project data to evaluate project systemic risk. Specifically, project systemic risk is viewed as the result of a cascading process which unravels across an activity network, where the failure of a single task can consequently affect its immediate, downstream task(s). As a result, we demonstrate that local failures are capable of triggering failure cascades of intermittent sizes. In turn, a modest local disruption can fuel exceedingly large, systemic failures. In addition, the probability for this to happen is much higher than anticipated. A systematic examination of why this is the case is subsequently performed, with results attributing the emergence of large‐scale failures to topological and temporal features of activity networks. Finally, local mitigation is assessed in terms of containing these failures cascades – results illustrate that this form of mitigation is both ineffective and insufficient. Given the ubiquity of our findings, our work has the potential of deepening our current theoretical understanding on the causal mechanisms responsible for large‐scale project failures.

Suggested Citation

  • Christos Ellinas, 2019. "The Domino Effect: An Empirical Exposition of Systemic Risk Across Project Networks," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 28(1), pages 63-81, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:popmgt:v:28:y:2019:i:1:p:63-81
    DOI: 10.1111/poms.12890
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/poms.12890
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/poms.12890?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhang, Kaimin & Bai, Libiao & Xie, Xiaoyan & Wang, Chenshuo, 2023. "Modeling of risk cascading propagation in project portfolio network," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 612(C).
    2. Vazquez, Alexei, 2024. "Manageable to unmanageable transition in a fractal model of project networks," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    3. Chen, Hong Long, 2023. "Influence of supply chain risks on project financial performance," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 260(C).
    4. Yuming Guo, 2023. "Towards the efficient generation of variant design in product development networks: network nodes importance based product configuration evaluation approach," Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 615-631, February.
    5. Christos Ellinas & Christos Nicolaides & Naoki Masuda, 2022. "Mitigation strategies against cascading failures within a project activity network," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 383-400, May.
    6. Wenhui Zhao & Nicholas G. Hall & Zhixin Liu, 2020. "Project Evaluation and Selection with Task Failures," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(2), pages 428-446, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:popmgt:v:28:y:2019:i:1:p:63-81. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1937-5956 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.