An Ontology of Megaprojects

Megaprojects are symbolic milestones of human history. From the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Great Wall of China to the Hoover Dam and the Manhattan Project, history is marked by an array of megaprojects. Some megaprojects are born out of necessity while others showcase power and status of individuals, groups, or countries. Most megaprojects are one-of-a-kind endeavors to which traditional project management principles are neither applicable nor suitable, rendering the holistic study of megaprojects especially difficult. Regardless of the recent uptick in research on megaprojects there is no systemic framework that can help systematically assess and guide megaprojects and megaproject research. In the absence of such a framework there is a significant risk of bias in planning the projects and the topics researched. In this paper, we present an ontology of megaprojects and discuss how it can help analyze individual megaprojects and synthesize the corpus of megaproject research

Ontological Meta-Analysis and Synthesis

We present ontological meta-analysis and synthesis as a method for reviewing, mapping, and visualizing the research literature in a domain cumulatively, logically, systematically, and systemically. The method highlights a domain’s bright spots that have been heavily studied, the light spots that have been lightly studied, the blind spots that have been overlooked, and the blank spots that have not been studied. It highlights the biases in a domain’s research; the research can then be realigned to make it stronger and more effective. We illustrate the method using the emerging domain of public health informatics (PHI). We present an ontological framework for the domain, map the literature onto the framework, and highlight its bright, light, and blind/blank spots. We also present detailed analyses using the ontological maps of dyads and triads. We conclude by discussing how (a) the results can be used to realign PHI research, and (b) the method can be used in other information systems domains