Towards an efficient approach for identification and selection of stakeholder engagement strategies: a case study

Abstract

The goals and objectives of a project as well as the needs, requirements and expectations of the project stakeholders may contradict or non-fulfillment of them may have different detrimental and negative consequences for the project. Therefore, project stakeholders should be effectively managed, but it is not possible to satisfy all project stakeholders and meet all of their expectations and requirements. As a result, project team must strike a balance between the project goals and objectives and the needs, requirements and expectations of the project stakeholders in order to complete the project successfully. Despite highlighting the significant importance of project stakeholder management, there exists a notable gap in exerting an effective decision support system to adopt stakeholder engagement strategies particularly in oil and gas construction projects. This study proposes a comprehensive framework for the identification, prioritization and selection of the stakeholder engagement strategies in one of the large size oil and gas construction projects in Iran. In this paper, a hybrid method which is the combination of the SWOT (strengths, weakness, opportunities and threat) analysis and fuzzy Delphi method is first exploited for identifying the appropriate stakeholder engagement strategies. Subsequently, fuzzy SWARA (Step-wise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis) is employed to weight the crucial criteria, and finally, fuzzy WASPAS (Weighted Aggregated Sum Product Assessment) is utilized to prioritize the identified stakeholder engagement strategies. This research contributes to the body of knowledge on project stakeholder management by presenting a novel framework for identifying, ranking and selecting the suitable strategies for effective stakeholder engagement considering one of the largest oil and gas construction projects in the country. The value of this study is in applicability of the proposed methodology for project managers and practitioners in other oil and gas construction projects.