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Cited by 293

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 92 of the 92 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Clarifying the project complexity construct: Past, present and future

Open access
Bakhshi, Javad, Ireland, Vernon, Gorod, Alex·2016·International Journal of Project Management

Abstract

Abstract The research explores the historical development of project complexity. Projects are becoming more complex due to unexpected emergent behaviour and characteristics. Complexity has become an inseparable aspect of systems and also one of the important factors in the failure of projects. While much has been written about project complexity, there is still a lack of understanding of what constitutes project complexity. This research includes a systematic literature review to demonstrate the current understanding of commonalities and differences in the existing research. This was achieved by examining more than 420 published research papers, drawn from an original group of approximately 10,000, based on citations during the period of 1990–2015. As a result of this exploration, an integrative systemic framework is presented to demonstrate understanding of project complexity. It was found that there are three primary and distinctive models of project complexity, the Project Management Institute view, the System of Systems view and the view developed from the analysis of citations of research papers, which is called the Complexity Theories view. Further testing is required on a range of complex projects in order to attempt to reconcile these views.

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Metadata

Authors
Bakhshi, J., Ireland, V., & Gorod, A.
Venue
International Journal of Project Management
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2016-10
Volume
34
Issue
7
Pages
1199-1213
ISSN
0263-7863 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2460661780
Cited by
293
References
92
FWCI
24.09
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
green

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Clarifying the project complexity construct: Past, present and future. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1016/j.ijproman.2016.06.002
The paper
Bakhshi, J., Ireland, V., & Gorod, A. (2016). Clarifying the project complexity construct: Past, present and future. International Journal of Project Management. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2016.06.002

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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.