Risk-bearing capacity as a new dimension to the analysis of project governance

Project governance has been recognized as a critical factor to the success of project delivery in practice. Accordingly, this research aims to demonstrate that the notion of risk-bearing capacity (RBC) can be drawn upon as a new dimension to the analysis and design of project governance. An effort is made to link this concept with the definitions of governance employed within the literature of transaction cost economics and corporate governance. The RBC approach distinguishes itself from extant views of project governance through its ability to quantitatively integrate organizational (e.g., delivery system), contractual (e.g., risk-sharing ratio) and financial (e.g., insurance cover) measures. This novel approach provides an avenue for incorporating the project's historical construction and operating data into the design of project governance; an advantage with the potential to exponentially increase as a torrent of digital data is made available through the deployment of emergent information technologies (e.g. building information modelling).