Combining Stakeholder and Risk Management: Multilayer Network Analysis for Complex Megaprojects

Although megaprojects are complex socio-technical systems that cannot be fully understood by analyzing their components in an isolated way, integrated approaches combining risk and stakeholder analyses remain underdeveloped in the literature. This study proposes a multilayer network analysis that integrates economic transactions between stakeholders and risks to identify discrepancies that may lead to underperformance. This technique was implemented in an Italian megaproject case. The comparison between traditional stakeholders and the proposed multidimensional risk-stakeholder networks reveals the capacity of the latter to accurately capture misalignments between multiple dimensions, such as risk allocation, economic transactions, and project performance. While previous studies have explored one-dimensional networks involving either stakeholders or risks, the novel approach proposed in this paper integrates both dimensions. This research contributes to stakeholder and risk management theory by highlighting the significance of combined stakeholder-risk multilayer networks and introducing a multidimensional approach to quantitatively assess risk propagation and its impact on project outcomes while considering the stakeholders’ role.