Technological Forecasting & Social Change 196 (2023) 122804

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Technological Forecasting & Social Change

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/techfore

Cooperation in an uncertain environment: The impact of stakeholders'

concerted action on collaborative innovation projects risk management
Zhixue Liu a, Ronggui Ding a, Lei Wang a, *, Rui Song b, Xinyi Song b
a
School of Management, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China
b
School of Building Construction, College of Design, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, United States

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Due to the impact of the epidemic, the risk management strategies of stakeholders in the project have undergone
Integrated management significant changes. Recently, more and more companies have adopted collaborative innovation to develop new
Risk management businesses. While in an uncertain environment, it is difficult for stakeholders to generate complete trust to
Stakeholder management
integrate resources to achieve systematic management of project risks. Concerted action by stakeholders becomes
Concerted action
Collaborative innovation project
a viable solution to this problem. Based on collaborative theory and risk management lifecycle, this paper
proposes a stakeholder-risk integration analysis framework and builds a double-layer network model to verify it.
A case study was conducted, including parallel simulation experiments with different concerted action strategies.
The results show that project risks can be effectively controlled when stakeholders take concerted actions to deal
with the risks. Under the conditions of complex stakeholder and risk relationships in collaborative innovation
projects, stakeholders can achieve systematic risk control through behavioral cooperation without devoting their
personal resources, which is beneficial to protect stakeholders' interests. Our research will contribute to the
theory by promoting risk management research from the perspective of resource integration to organization and
action integration. Finally, we make recommendations for management and future research.

1. Introduction various project stakeholders (Yang and Zou, 2014). The lack of a unified
cooperation strategy and independent risk management method will
The epidemic of COVID-19 has had a significant impact on project lead to waste of resources and, more seriously, to the project's failure.
management. It is manifested in the following two aspects. First, due to More than half of the collaborative innovation projects in China fail each
the disruption of the supply chain and the restriction of personnel ac­ year due to high risk.
tivities caused by the epidemic, the ability of enterprises to conduct The diversity and conservation background make risk management
business activities independently has been reduced (Lee, 2022; Fu et al., of collaborative innovation projects more complex than that of tradi­
2022), and the collaborative innovation project which is a temporary tional projects (Santamaría et al., 2021). First, the project stakeholders
endeavor undertaken through cooperation to deliver a product is come from various industries with different properties, such as univer­
becoming popular (Hazır and Ulusoy, 2020). Second, the epidemic has sities, research institutes, enterprises, governments, etc. All stakeholders
dramatically increased the complexity of risks and reduced the ability of undertake different responsibilities based on their professions to com­
enterprises to manage risks (Chen et al., 2021). A large number of en­ plete project tasks together. Everyone can easily cover up their risk
terprises, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, went bankrupt because others are unfamiliar with his specialty, which will lead to
during the epidemic (Roffia and Mola, 2022). Therefore, enterprises are opportunistic behavior in risk management (Zhang and Qian, 2017).
increasingly adopting conservative strategies in business activities (Shih Second, the status of each stakeholder in the collaborative innovation
and Lin, 2022). In the process of external cooperation, they pay more project is much more equal, and the type of the stakeholder relationship
attention to protecting their own interests and put more resources into is a collaborative relationship rather than a contract-based principal-
controlling their own risks. However, considering that risk management agent relationship. The organizational structure presents the charac­
is systematic work, it is inseparable from effective cooperation among teristics of the network. Therefore, the risks in collaborative innovation

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: zhixue@mail.sdu.edu.cn (Z. Liu), ding_rgui@sdu.edu.cn (R. Ding), wangklei@sdu.edu.cn (L. Wang), ruisong82@gmail.com (R. Song),
sxy922558@gmail.com (X. Song).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2023.122804
Received 15 July 2022; Accepted 18 August 2023
Available online 1 September 2023
0040-1625/© 2023 Published by Elsevier Inc.
Z. Liu et al. Technological Forecasting & Social Change 196 (2023) 122804

projects are transitive (Wang et al., 2020). stakeholder management and risk management in project management,
Meanwhile, the organization that generates the risk does not always integrated management of risk and stakeholder will be feasible and
bear the risk loss. Research has shown that stakeholders struggle to deal benefit the project management by reducing the objective and resource
with the risk they suffered but respond very differently to the risk they conflicts (Xia et al., 2018).
generated because of resource competing priorities (Xia et al., 2018). The basis for integrated management is the similarity between risk
Particularly, stakeholders have little knowledge of the risks they cause, and stakeholder management. Regarding the concept and the manage­
which may give rise to the task of others. Thus, total budget overruns ment process of each area, we note, (a) both risk and stakeholder are
and quality degradation will be incurred correspondingly (Zuo and inevitable elements of the project, which could influence the project
Zhang, 2018). performance from positive or negative perspective, (b) risk and stake­
It is obvious that there is a close relationship between risk manage­ holder issues of collaborative innovation projects can arise from the
ment and stakeholder management in collaborative innovation projects. internal and external of the project, (c) the stage of the risk management
Previous studies proposed that strengthening stakeholder cooperation, and stakeholder management process are similar in identifying and
such as information sharing and resource integration, can effectively classifying, analyzing and assessing, responding and controlling. These
address inter-organizational risks (Giaccone and Magnusson, 2022). similarities lay the basis for potential integration research of these two
However, it is challenging to integrate resources in an environment that domains.
does not generate complete trust. Concerted action in risk management Several studies have sought to extend the risk management approach
means that when one stakeholder takes a risk management action on a to regard stakeholder as an auxiliary factor for risk analysis. The most
specific risk factor, other stakeholders related to the risk will follow and popular theme of these researches is risk management based on stake­
take action immediately, which will produce a better control effect for a holder identification. Stakeholders, including internal and external
single risk. It is an effective strategy for cooperation if stakeholders are stakeholders (Mazur and Pisarski, 2015), are regarded as potential
only willing to address their risks. This cooperative strategy allows threats to the project, so identifying the relevant stakeholders can help
stakeholders to use their resources autonomously and only limits the develop risk response decisions. For example, opposition from the public
timing of their resource use. However, there is no reliable evidence of is a typical threat arising from external stakeholders (Shi et al., 2015).
whether it has a better effect on the overall risk control of the project. Threats posed by internal stakeholders are more diverse, such as order
This paper explores the impact of stakeholders' concerted action on the changes (Ashuri and Mostaan, 2015), payment delays, and inefficient
risk management of collaborative innovation projects to provide an processing (Wang et al., 2016). In addition to the above research from an
effective strategy for enterprise cooperation in the VUCA era. individual perspective, another research perspective focuses on the in­
For this, integrating stakeholders and risk factors in a unified anal­ terfaces among stakeholders, that is, the structure risk (Shokri et al.,
ysis framework is necessary (Xia et al., 2018). Efforts have been devoted 2016; Lehtiranta, 2011). Such risks are termed “project network risk”
to improving the accuracy of risk identification with the help of stake­ (Xia et al., 2018), referring to a specific set of risks resulting from the
holder classification. In contrast, the stakeholder factor is always stakeholder interaction. A survey conducted in Singapore showed that
missing in the risk assessment and evolution process. Risk management the network risk had not attracted enough attention (Hwang and Ng,
and stakeholder management do not have many intersections. On the 2016). Besides that, stakeholders' responsibility in project management
one hand, risk management research has been renewed interest in (Shahata and Zayed, 2016) and management of stakeholder differences
optimizing the project risk interaction network (Wang et al., 2020). On concerning risk (Tymvios and Gambatese, 2016; Shi et al., 2015) are
the other hand, stakeholder relationship network analysis is an impor­ other themes of existing risk-stakeholder literature. In accord with these
tant domain in stakeholder management research (Lo et al., 2013). emerging concerns, the literature examined has realized and explored
Departing from these two networks, this study constructs a novel the subjectivity in risk-related issues among stakeholders.
double-layer network model by considering the correlations among Although previous research has put much effort into establishing the
project stakeholders and risk factors. Specifically, the risk loss will affect relationship between project risk and stakeholder management,
the related stakeholder's decisions. On the flip side, the stakeholder different factors are undertaken in isolation. However, risk interaction
relationship network structure will impact the risk interaction during and stakeholder relationships are inherent attributes and typical char­
the project lifecycle. Our research objective is to integrate risks and acteristics of collaborative innovation projects (Yang et al., 2022). More
stakeholders to find the best cooperation strategy for risk management. complicated, there is usually not a one-to-one correspondence between
It notably facilitates the coordination among actors involved in the stakeholders and risks but a networked connection. Previous research
project risk management process and will support project managers in has failed to propose an effective model to represent these features. To
making more efficient risk response decisions. fill this gap, a double-layer model which integrates stakeholders and risk
The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. In the next factors is constructed in our research.
section, the literature is reviewed. In Section 3, we introduce the
framework for integrating project stakeholder and risk management. A 2.2. Risk response in the collaborative innovation project
double-layer network model of stakeholder relationship and risk inter­
action network (SRN-RIN double-layer network model) is built in Sec­ Studies on the collaborative innovation risk and its management
tion 4. In Section 5, a case study is used to verify the effectiveness of have long attracted widespread interest (Fanousse et al., 2021; Gomes
concerted action in risk management. Section 6 concludes the paper and et al., 2022). The risk management process is commonly divided into
states the potential directions for future research. three main parts, namely risk identification, risk evaluation and risk
response (Xia et al., 2018). Among them, risk identification and risk
2. Literature review evaluation have formed a mature research framework, that is, to identify
risk factors and then calculate the expected risk loss according to the risk
2.1. Integration of stakeholder management and risk management probability and risk impact to sort the risk factors (Wu et al., 2010;
Madanaguli et al., 2022).
Project risk management is essential in project management Regarding risk response measures for collaborative innovation, it
(Amoozad Mahdiraji et al., 2021). Likewise, stakeholder management gets complicated. From the individual perspective, there are four types
has also been considered as the guarantee for the project's success (Mok of risk response measures, including risk avoidance, risk reduction, risk
et al., 2015). Numerous researchers have proposed using cooperation sharing, and risk tolerance (Roper and Tapinos, 2016; Bi et al., 2015;
among the stakeholders as the indicator to evaluate the project risk Shaikh and Randhawa, 2022). A fundamental principle of these re­
(Markmann et al., 2013). Considering the relatedness between searches is that risks are independent of each other and whoever

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Z. Liu et al. Technological Forecasting & Social Change 196 (2023) 122804

generates the risk is responsible for controlling it. Further, studies began 3. Framework for stakeholder – risk integration analysis
to explore the risk response in the context of risk interaction (Wang
et al., 2020), and the network approach is introduced to project risk The occurrence, influence, and control of risks are holistic and sys­
management to describe the complex risk interaction relationship (Fang tematic. Risk is assumed to be triggered by random factors in the
et al., 2012; Jaber et al., 2015). Researchers pay more attention to the traditional risk research and would have a fuzzy impact on the whole
integration and optimal allocation of risk resources, while individual project. Stakeholders will be responsible for controlling a specific risk.
attributes of stakeholders are ignored. Fig. 1 shows an example of a risk management system.
In summary, the risk response approach for collaborative innovation Taking risk R1 in Fig. 1 for example, the risk does not happen out of
projects remains the same as that used for traditional construction the void, and some subtle random factors that are usually not noticed
projects. The construction projects have the same type of stakeholders, trigger it in the project. It will lead to the primary risk occurring when
clear project tasks and goals, and a stable organizational structure, all of these random factors' accumulation reaches a certain threshold. Apart
which are conducive to generating trust among stakeholders to integrate from these random factors, the interaction relationship between R2 and
resources to deal with risks jointly. But these conditions are not available R3 would also make the R1 active, which is the secondary risk occur­
in most collaborative innovation projects. Stakeholders in collaborative rence for R1. Primary and secondary risk occurrences constitute the total
innovation projects have diverse backgrounds, and there is no strict probability of a risk occurrence.
restrictive relationship between them (Lehtinen and Aaltonen, 2020; As for the risk influence and control, obviously, the risk will not
Yang et al., 2022). For example, a professor from university will not directly impact the entire project but on some specific stakeholders.
devote his full energy to the innovation project with the enterprise like a Meanwhile, the stakeholders who have directed association with the risk
worker, and he will not be regulated and restrained by the enterprise. will have chances to control the risk. They are usually not exactly the
In view of this, concerted action is a potential risk response strategy same. For risk R1 in Fig. 1, its occurrence will potentially impact
that not only takes into account the integrity of risk management but stakeholders S1, S2 and S4, while stakeholders S2, S3, and S4 could take
also protects the subjective initiative of individual stakeholders. Risks actions to control this risk.
are persistent, and different stakeholders often have different timings to It should be noted that the change of the risk management process
control risks. Some tend to control the risk at the beginning of its accompanies the change of risk occurrence, influence, and control.
occurrence, and others tend to handle it after the risk makes some Traditional risk management can be summarized as a continuous pro­
impact. Concerted action means that when an entity takes risk control cess consisting of risk identification, assessment, response, and moni­
measures, other related entities also take immediate and consistent ac­ toring. With the change of risk characteristics, there is a thus crucial
tions (O'Donnell et al., 2018). It will significantly reduce the probability adjustment for better project risk management. For instance, more
of risks occurring in a short period, but under the premise of limited identification work should be involved. Risk interaction, as well as
resources, it may cause adverse effects on risk control in other stages. Its stakeholder relationship should be identified at the beginning of the
impact on addressing macroeconomic risks among countries and social management process. Combining Wang's work (Wang et al., 2019) and
issues among social organizations has been proven (Leong et al., 2020). Wagner's work (Wagner Mainardes et al., 2012), a project risk man­
For example, Liu proposes that concerted actions on macroprudential agement framework is put forward. Four phases are necessary to be
policies can contribute to global financial stability based on the coop­ involved in our framework: (1) SRN-RIN double-layer network elements
eration of China and its financially connected economies (Liu and Chen, identification; (2) SRN-RIN double-layer network elements evaluation;
2021). However, it has not been proven whether it still works at the (3) SRN-RIN double-layer network assessment; (4) Evaluation of the
project level. This paper designs an approach to verify the effectiveness effect of risk response decision.
of concerted action in the collaborative innovation project to provide a
new type of risk response cooperation strategy for multi-agent innova­ Phase (1): Risk and stakeholder identification are the foundation of the
tion activities. research framework. The project manager, project team

S3

S1 Stakeholder layer

S4
S2

R3
R2 Risk layer

R1

Random factors

Fig. 1. Risk management system.

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Z. Liu et al. Technological Forecasting & Social Change 196 (2023) 122804

members, and experts will complete these works and get the allocating resources and assigning responsibilities could be
elements lists. Furthermore, risk interaction and stakeholder obtained.
relationship are identified, as well as the relationship be­
tween the stakeholders and risks, including the risk impact 4. Network formation and rules system of SRN-RIN double-layer
direction from risk to stakeholder and risk control direction network
from stakeholder to risk.
Phase (2): All elements and relationships are presented as the binary Based on the above research framework, we established an SRN-RIN
matrix. The number in the binary matrix expresses the exis­ double-layers network model and proposed its simulation process to test
tence of a possible relationship between the two elements of the role of concerted actions in the risk management of collaborative
the row and column. For example, the entry in the i-th row innovation projects.
and i-th column of the risk-stakeholder matrix equal to 1
implies that risk i is likely to cause losses to stakeholders j. It 4.1. Representation of SRN-RIN double-layers network
could be the same with the stakeholder-risk matrix and the
stakeholder relationship matrix, while it is slightly different Matrix is the direct and concise way mainly adopted to represent a
for the risk interaction matrix. The edge in the risk interac­ network (Fang et al., 2012). Among that, the adjacent matrix (Fang and
tion network represents the probability that one risk is trig­ Marle, 2012) and design structure matrix (Browning, 2016) are quite
gered by another, therefore, the weight of edges is a constant popular in describing the logical structure between variables. Fig. 2
between 0 and 1. Besides these, the risk spontaneous prob­ [ ]
gives an example of the process of building a matrix R = rij to repre­
ability and loss should also be evaluated.
sent the risk interaction relationship, that is RIN.
Phase (3): Designing rules for SRN-RIN double-layers network model
Fig. 2(a) shows the identification result of risk and risk interactions,
simulation. Whether the risk occurs is not only related to the
where rij = 1 means that the risk Rj is triggered by Rj directly. Next, all
risk interaction relationship, but also depends on whether
the potential relationships need to be evaluated to get the accurate value
the stakeholders effectively control the risk. Also, the risk
of the risk interaction probability, and the binary matrix is then
loss suffered by the stakeholders is related to the magnitude
upgraded to a numerical one, as shown in Fig. 2(b). Fig. 2(c) shows the
of the risk's influence and closely related to the network
evaluation result of risk spontaneous probability. For the sake of
structure in which they are located. As the project lifecycle
simplicity, the risk spontaneous and transition probability could be in­
has apparent phases characteristic, the risk transmission
tegrated into one matrix by filling the spontaneous probability into the
rules between different stages also need to be defined, which
diagonal of the risk transition probability matrix, as shown in Fig. 2(d).
will significantly impact the total loss of the entire project.
Meanwhile, the other three matrixes that represent the stakeholder
Phase (4): Quantifying the coordination of actions taken by stake­
relationship network, the stakeholder–risk (SR) relationship, and
holders as an indicator and simulating the changes in the
risk–stakeholder (RS) relationship are also conducted. Compared to the
total loss of the project when the indicator takes different
RIN matrix, it will be easier to do these as we assume that all of these
values. The decision-makers can then select the optimal
relationships are assigned a value of 1 when they exist. These can be
strategy to control risks according to the simulation results.
done by the classical project management methods, for example, using
Consequently, a project risk response plan that includes
the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) to collect the stakeholders and
risks in every work package. Besides, the Delphi-based approach is

Fig. 2. Illustration of building a matrix to represent the RIN.

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Z. Liu et al. Technological Forecasting & Social Change 196 (2023) 122804

another common tool to ensure the accuracy of identification result by delay and project quality issues both have an impact on project cost.
getting the consentaneous opinions from the expert team.
For the entirety of the SRN-RIN double-layer network, the above four (1) The process of primary risk occurrence
matrixes describe the part of the system separately. Multi-domain matrix
is adopted for integrating two or more elements with different attributes Considering the primary risk occurrence is a random event, it is
into one matrix (Eppinger and Browning, 2012), which is the expansion appropriate to use random functions to simulate the occurrence of risks.
of the design structure matrix. All factors are both in the rows and col­ Through comparing the risk Ri 's spontaneous probability pii with the
umns of the square matrix. Square blocks display the inner relationships random number generated by the Monte Carlo method, whether risk Ri
of each element on the matrix diagonal, and the off-diagonal blocks is occur or not denoted by the value of op,t
i could be set as Eq. (1):
represent the interrelationship between the elements. An illustration of a {
multi-domain matrix about risk and stakeholder is shown in Fig. 3. op,t
1, Rand(0, 1)〈pii
(1)
i = ,
The block in the upper left corner of the matrix represents the SRN 0, Rand(0, 1) ≥ pii
[ ]
matrix S = sij , where sij = 1 means that there is a potential path for risk
where Rand(0, 1) of the Monte Carlo method performs the function of
loss transfer from Si to Sj , because when Si suffered from the risks, Sj will
generating a random number between 0 and 1.
be affected inevitably as the relationship exists. The block in the bottom
[ ]
right corner of the matrix is the RIN matrix R = rij obtained through (2) The process of risk control
[ ]
the process in Fig. 2. RS matrix RS = rsij is shown in the block in the
bottom left corner. Take the rs12 for example, the parameter has the The risk transfer process between two nodes includes three key steps:
value of 1 is that risks R1 occurs will cause losses to S2 directly. risk generating, control, and transfer. As risk generating is inevitable,
Furthermore, a risk may occur to more than one stakeholder, which will the risk control step is crucial to reducing the impact of risk. The
generate a new loss every time it happens. An assumption is then put stakeholder's amount positively influences the risk control. The higher
forward that the loss of one risk is the same for every stakeholder. The the proportion of stakeholders who are actually involved in controlling
block in the upper right corner of the matrix represents the SR matrix risks to the number of all stakeholders that can control risks, the better
[ ]
SR = srij , where srij = 1 means that Si could take actions to control the the effect of risk control. For example, there are five stakeholders who
Rj occurrence. Risk controlling requires stakeholder cooperation. The can control the risk Ri , when four of them take action to control this risk,
more stakeholders take action to eliminate the risk, the better the effect the probability that Ri trigger other risk is lower than only one stake­
of risk control. holder takes action. Considering the law of diminishing marginal utility,
as the number of stakeholders controlling risks increases, the effect of
4.2. Rules system of SRN-RIN double-layer network simulation reducing the probability of risks interaction becomes less obvious (Fan
et al., 2008).
It is uncertain in the project whether risks occur and transfer and Therefore, the value of risk transition probability ptij denoting
whether stakeholders control the risks, which leads to the dynamic whether Ri cause Rj to occur in period t is given as Eq. (2).
process of the project risk management. The Monte Carlo method is a ⎧
popular tool to solve these random problems. The principle of judging ⎪
⎪ 0, nt−i 1 = ni
⎪
⎪ /
whether a risk occurs or not in a specific project stage is to compare the ⎨
cnt−i 1
ptij = pij , 0 < nt−i 1 < ni , (2)
random number generated from the Monte Carlo method with the ⎪
⎪ ni
⎪
occurrence probability of a risk. The rules system describes how the ⎪
⎩
pij , nt−i 1 = 0
element interactions behave in the SRN-RIN double-layer network.
Project risk impact is measured as the project cost, as the project time

Fig. 3. Illustration of multi-domain matrix.

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Z. Liu et al. Technological Forecasting & Social Change 196 (2023) 122804

where nt−i 1 is the number of stakeholders who are actually involved in μRLi
DSLtij = ∑ , (6)
controlling risks Ri in period t − 1, ni is the number of stakeholders who n
RSij
can control the risk Ri and c is a coefficient to control the adjusted j=1
probability is in a reasonable interval.
where μ represents the proportion of direct risk loss to the total loss. n
(3) The process of risk transition represents the number of stakeholders.
When the stakeholders suffer direct risk losses, the directly related
In the SRN-RIN double-layer network system, there are two premises stakeholders will also bear part of the secondary losses of the risks. With
for risk transmission from Ri to Rj in period t. First, risk Ri should occur complex relationships among stakeholders, one will suffer secondary
in period t − 1 (t ≥ 2), which meet the condition ot−i 1 = 1 in Eq. (1). losses from different adjacent stakeholders and then accumulate.
Following these premises, the risk transition will not occur in the first Consequently, the secondary stakeholder loss SSL caused by risk Ri and
stage of the project. Second, not all stakeholders who can control the risk transfer from stakeholder Sj to Sv in period t can be calculated by Eq. (7).
Ri take actions to eliminate it in period t − 1, which meets the constraints 1− μ
× DSLtij
of nt−i 1 < ni in Eq. (2). SSLti,jv =
μ
= v),
, (j ∕ (7)
∑
n
As with risk occurrence, the process of risk transition is random. Sjv
Consequently, the Monte Carlo method can also be used to simulate this v=1

process. The value of otij denoting whether risk Rj is triggered by Ri in Mathematically, the total stakeholder loss TSL in period t can be
period t (t ≥ 2) can be given by comparing the random number gener­ calculated by Eq. (8).
ated by the Monte Carlo with the risk transition probability ptij , as shown ∑
m m ∑
∑ n

in Eq. (3). TSLtj = DSLtij + SSLti,jv , (8)

i=1 i=1 v=1
{
1, Rand(0, 1)〈ptij
otij = , (3)
0, Rand(0, 1) ≥ ptij (5) Risk response decision representation

From the perspective of risk transmission, if a risk could be triggered

Risk response decision is the combination of several risk control
by several risks, then these risks could be seen as the cause factors of this
actions, which describe any change to one or more of the project work
risk. Therefore, the condition for this risk occur is that any one or more
elements that, if implemented, will affect either the occurrence or the
of the transition processes work. Meanwhile, the risk impact does not
transition of the risk events (Wang et al., 2019). Some generic examples
change with the number of cause factors.
of risk control actions include: adding resources to a work element,
Therefore, the value of os,t
j denoting the secondary occurrence of risk increasing the budget or time allocation to a work element and
Rj in period t (t ≥ 2) is given as Eq. (4). improving the reliability of work by using new technology and tools.
⎧
∑m Ignoring the type of risk reduction actions, the decision variable xtij is
⎪
⎪
⎪ 1,
⎪
⎨
ot−ij 1 ≥ 1, i ∕
=j used to denote whether stakeholder Sj takes actions to control the risk Ri
(4) in period t. The constraints of decision variables xtij is denoted by Total.
s,t i=1
oj = ,
⎪
⎪ ∑m [ ]
⎪
⎪ 0,
⎩ ot−ij 1 = 0, i ∕
=j Suppose the matrix Xt = xtij represents a risk response decision, it
i=1
needs to meet the following constraints, shown as Eq. (9).
where m is the volume of identified risks.
∑
T ∑
n ∑
m
Considering the process of primary risk occurrence and secondary xtij ≤ Total, (9)
risk transition, the value of oti which denotes whether the risk Ri occurs t=1 i=1 j=1

or not in period t (t ≥ 2) can be calculated by Eq. (5).

{ where T is the number of project stage, 0 < t ≤ T.
1, op,t s,t
i = 1 or oi = 1 The more resources are invested, the better the risk control effect is
oti = , (5)
p,t
0, oi = 0 and os,ti = 0
(Pfeifer et al., 2015). Therefore, to achieve the optimal risk control ef­
fect, both sides of the inequality are equal in Eq. (9).
In order to represent different possible risk response decisions, we
(4) The process of risk loss allocation introduce a numerical indicator con to describe the concerted action of
stakeholders, as shown in Eq. (10).
As project schedule and quality issues will cause additional costs,
therefore, for the sake of simplicity, risk loss is defined as the cost of mc
con = , (10)
project overruns. Differ from the risk control relationship, there is a new m×T
channel for risk impact on stakeholders and dissemination among where mc denotes the number of controlled risks. If a risk is controlled by
stakeholders. When a risk occurs in period t, all stakeholders who have ∑
one or more stakeholder in a period, that is, nj=1 xtij > 0, it is counted
RS relationship with this risk need to bear the direct loss, which accounts
once. As a consequence, when stakeholders act in concert, the number of
for a large proportion of risk loss. Meanwhile, due to the relationship
controlled risks is small, leading to the indicator con becoming small.
between stakeholders, after the risk occurs, it will also affect the
However, complexity, management, and coordination of multiple
stakeholders who are directly connected to these first impacted stake­
stakeholders are well-known challenges in projects (Eskerod et al., 2015;
holders. The loss caused by the secondary impact of the risk is much
Cicmil and Marshall, 2005). Since the project is temporary and one-off
smaller than the direct impact of the risk. Considering that after two
work, the stakeholders of the project are not always familiar with
stages of transition, the risk impact is too small to account for, only the
each other, and coordinating stakeholders to act in concert requires
secondary impact of the risk is considered. Take the risk R1 in Fig. 1 for
additional costs (Larsen et al., 2021). Stakeholders participating in the
example, stakeholder S1 , S2 and S4 will sharing the direct loss caused by
collaborative control of a specific risk within a period can form a local
R1 , and stakeholder S3 will bear the risk loss that transfer from S1 and S2 .
network. It's a complete graph with connections between any two nodes
The direct stakeholder loss DSL caused by risk Ri to stakeholder Sj in
in the network. We simplified the cost of coordinating different
period t can be calculated by Eq. (6).

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Z. Liu et al. Technological Forecasting & Social Change 196 (2023) 122804

relationships as the same, namely, the average coordination cost among binary RIN is change to a numerical one. Table 1 shows the identified
the stakeholders. The total coordination cost is related to the number of risks and their related data.
connections in the network, and the cost will increase along with the As for the SRN, 16 internal stakeholders and their relationships are
number of coordinated stakeholders. Following the calculation method identified by the same process, as shown in Table 2. We are concerned
of Ma (Ma and Yao, 2018), a numerical indicator CLti to describe the with analyzing the law of the overall action of stakeholders as a whole,
coordination cost of risk Ri in period t is given as Eq. (11). rather than the specific actions of each stakeholder. To simplify the
( ) model, we have unified the stakeholders in the case, that is, the iden­
nt nt − 1 tified 16 stakeholders may produce and be impacted by the risks iden­
CLti = φ i i , (11)
2 tified above and have the same risk response capabilities. Since the
strength of the relationship between stakeholders is dynamic throughout
where φ is the coordination cost of one relationship, nti is the number of
the project, we adopt a random generation method to ensure the gen­
stakeholders who participate in controlling the risk Ri in period t, nti =
∑n t erality of the model. The strength of the stakeholder relationship is a
j=1 xij . random number between 0 and 1 generated by a random function given
before the simulation.
5. Case study There is other two parameters except for risk interaction that
comprise the SRN-RIN model: stakeholder-risk interaction and risk–­
In this section, we highlight the application of the proposed approach stakeholder interaction. They are randomly generated binary matrixes
to a typical case adapted from an actual collaborative innovation project given before the simulation. The primary SRN-RIN model double-layer
initiated by one of the biggest biopharmaceutical companies in China. network model is shown in Fig. 4.
The development and production of new medicine is a typical collabo­
rative innovation project, and a large number of companies carry out 5.2. Result analysis
such projects every year. The project, Project NSC, is one that the
company has focused on and invested heavily in during the last several The SRN-RIN model is programmed in MATLAB, including gener­
years. The objective of this project was to develop neural stem cell ating initial data and simulating different strategies. Generally, pre­
medicine. Due to the uncertainty of innovation activities, the project has ventive measures with better effects are preferred when the ability of the
no strict time limit but is roughly divided into five stages according to project team to control the loss of the risk event is limited (Zhang and
the project process. Sixteen main participants were involved in the Guan, 2018).
project, including enterprises, universities, hospitals, etc. The work of Two simulation scenarios were set up according to the two limita­
each project stakeholder has its emphasis. Hospitals, universities, and tions. First, we simulated the effects of different cooperation strategies
other scientific research institutions are mainly responsible for R&D on risk control under the same risk control constraints. Second, we
work, enterprises are responsible for market promotion, and govern­ simulated the impact of different risk control constraints on the effect of
ment departments and social institutions will supervise the legality of risk control under the same cooperation strategy. The range of each
the project. adjustment was set to be large enough to improve the sensitivity of the
variation of the results owing to different adjustment strategies. For risk
5.1. Data collection and SRN-RIN modeling control constraints, it's about double the initial value, and for coopera­
tion strategy, it's set to 10 %.
As the basic component of the SRN-RIN model, the data is obtained Fig. 5 portrays the variation of mean total loss under different con.
from the project's actual situation. The data gathering is conducted by The constraint of decision number Total was set to 160, as each risk
four project team members who participate in the whole process of could be controlled twice on average during the 5 stages. The value of
project implementation and are familiar with the research risk man­ con began at 0.5, and increased by 0.1. Because of the risks occur
agement, including the project manager, two enterprise engineers, and a randomly during the simulation process, and the losses caused by
professor from the university. Meanwhile, the project manager is the different risks are different, the results of each simulation are different.
company's senior manager and provides archival data about the WBS To reduce the random error generated by a single experiment, each
and risk documents. simulation experiment was repeated 200 times. The average value was
Face-to-face interviews were conducted with four interviewees. The used to represent the effect of different strategies. It can be seen that the
interviews aim to obtain initial data for building the network model. average value of the total loss gradually stabilizes as the number of
Interviews were conducted over two rounds. The first round consisted of simulations increases.
four separate one-hour interviews. The questions were unstructured and The total loss of all risks in the project improved when con increased.
aimed to identify the project risks and stakeholders. And an initial It means that although the coordination costs caused by the tighter
assessment of the relationship between these factors will also be con­ cooperation between various stakeholders are increasing, the overall
ducted. The second round was conducted two weeks later with the same loss of the project is still decreasing. The average decrease is >10 %
questions to revise the results of the first round. After that, a preliminary when the coordination cost is not considered. Even if coordination cost
SRI-RIN model was modified by the authors based on the interview re­ is considered, the average decline is >5 %. The change of TL against
sults. Finally, a 3-h workshop was held with four interviewees and an different coordination of stakeholder actions (con) is shown in Fig. 6.
expert from project consulting company to gain the final SRI-RIN model. For comparison, Fig. 6 also shows the change in TL under different
They further discussed and modified the relationships within the SIN- con in the condition of no coordination cost. Obviously, as the consis­
RIN model until all interviewees agreed on the network structure, and tency of stakeholders' actions increases, risk management's effect im­
the final model was obtained. proves. Since there is no coordination cost, the rate of decline in total
As for RIN, the entire process follows the logic of risk management, risk loss has not been affected by the increases in coordination. There­
which consists of risk identification, risk interaction identification, and fore, increasing the coordination of stakeholders' actions will be very
risk assessment (Rezaei, 2015). A binary RIN is obtained through the conducive to improving the effectiveness of risk management.
identification step, including the risks and the risk interaction re­ In fact, when the con is closer to 1, meaning that the stakeholders'
lationships. The spontaneous and transition probability and loss of all risk response decision is close to random, all stakeholders control risks
identified risks are obtained through the assessment step, where risk Ri 's according to their needs without considering the overall requirements of
spontaneous probability and loss are denoted by pii and li respectively, the project; when the collaboration rate is lower, it means that all
and the transition probability that form Ri to Rj is denoted by pij , then the stakeholders tend to take the concerted actions in risk management. In

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Z. Liu et al. Technological Forecasting & Social Change 196 (2023) 122804

Table 1
Risk list.
Label Risk pii li Label Risk pii li

R1 Cultural conflicts 0.8 1 R9 Too much rework 0.6 2

R2 Communication problems 0.4 2 R10 Insufficient communication between the team and senior management 0.2 1.4
R3 Unclear milestone and technical route 0.7 2.5 R11 Failed to achieve the expected results 0.2 4
R4 Lack of professional knowledge 0.6 1 R12 Cost overrun 0.1 2
R5 Unclear project implementation path 0.3 0.5 R13 Reputation and trust problems 0.4 1.5
R6 Inaccurate project objectives 0.4 1.8 R14 Financial issues 0.2 2
R7 Poor organizational structure of the project team 0.4 1 R15 Project time delay 0.4 1.6
R8 Insufficient internal communication 0.3 3 R16 Insufficient supervision 0.4 3

Still, the coordination cost does not change the trend that the total risk
Table 2
loss decreases with the increased stakeholders' concerted actions. It
Stakeholder list.
implies that the concerted action of stakeholders is beneficial for the
Label Stakeholders Label Stakeholders overall project risk management.
S1 Government S9 SK Consulting company To better understand the results, the expected loss of each risk in
S2 YF company S10 Supply company different project stages with and without stakeholder cooperation are
S3 RS-CRO company S11 YMKD CRO company presented in Table 3. Based on the results of this research, by concerted
S4 University S12 BJYF
S5 Chief scientist S13 YF laboratory
actions of stakeholders during the project implementation process, the
S6 HZ Hospital S14 Bank total risk loss can be effectively reduced. However, this does not mean
S7 XA Research base S15 ZK research institute that the expected loss of every risk at every stage has been reduced. The
S8 XD hospital S16 Supervision Company bold data in the table shows these exceptions. It could be concluded that
there will be some trade-off between the different risks or stages. First,
from the perspective of stage, for most stakeholders in the first two
other words, if one stakeholder takes action to control the risk in a
project stage, other stakeholders related to the risk will have a higher stages, the risk response strategy with cooperation has a significant
decrease in the expected risk loss than that without cooperation, but the
probability of taking actions simultaneously. The results showed that the
coordination cost had changed significantly. Due to the coordination partial loss brings an increase in the overall profit. The other stages have
benefited from this. This also indicates that the earlier the project risk is
cost, the rate of decrease in the total risk loss has also become moderate.

Fig. 4. SRN-RIN double-layer network model of the project.

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Z. Liu et al. Technological Forecasting & Social Change 196 (2023) 122804

Fig. 5. Variation of the mean of total loss under different con.

Fig. 6. Change in TL and CT under different con.

controlled, the better the effect of risk management. From the by developing a formal and explicit model and generally confirmed such
perspective of specific risk factors, although almost all stakeholders a linkage through the case study. Specifically, this paper makes two
benefit from cooperation, some stakeholders suffer more risk loss due to contributions to the existing literature.
the collaboration, such as stakeholder 9. The project manager should First, how to improve risk management effectiveness through
take measures to compensate him to ensure his enthusiasm for stakeholders' cooperative behavior was few explored in the current
cooperation. research literature (Xia et al., 2018). The result of this study is an
important response to this problem. Many studies on risk management
6. Discussion in the project research domain mainly focused on prioritizing risks and
screening out the risks with significant influence, developing quantita­
Previous studies implicitly suggested a linkage between risk control tive risk allocation models (Chung et al., 2010; Chang, 2015). These
and the stakeholders' cooperative behavior (Gomes et al., 2020; Yang studies implicitly assumed that risk management is an isolated action. If
and Zou, 2014). The research in this paper has extended current studies each stakeholder can control its own risk, the project risk can be

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Z. Liu et al. Technological Forecasting & Social Change 196 (2023) 122804

Table 3
Comparison of risk loss of each stakeholder in different stages with and without stakeholder cooperation.
Sta Stage Risk loss Sta Stage Risk loss Sta Stage Risk loss Sta Stage Risk loss

Y N Y N Y N Y N

1 1 0.62 0.69 5 1 2.14 3.83 9 1 1.42 1.56 13 1 1.50 2.11

2 0.89 0.99 2 3.26 3.92 2 1.63 1.78 2 1.79 2.45
3 0.00 0.21 3 0.20 0.09 3 0.64 0.59 3 0.41 0.87
4 0.33 0.40 4 1.52 0.84 4 0.95 0.86 4 1.19 0.69
5 0.00 0.10 5 1.06 1.11 5 0.71 0.67 5 1.05 1.24
2 1 1.19 1.42 6 1 1.35 1.77 10 1 1.68 1.74 14 1 0.99 1.64
2 1.37 1.69 2 2.54 3.33 2 2.70 3.59 2 1.04 0.57
3 0.60 0.55 3 0.12 1.46 3 0.50 2.07 3 0.57 0.18
4 0.66 0.54 4 0.92 0.69 4 1.42 1.49 4 0.31 0.83
5 0.24 0.54 5 1.02 1.05 5 1.82 1.36 5 0.10 0.71
3 1 1.12 0.65 7 1 3.24 1.44 11 1 0.84 0.99 15 1 1.95 0.99
2 1.35 1.45 2 4.39 3.72 2 2.02 1.92 2 3.05 3.89
3 0.42 1.57 3 0.99 4.64 3 0.55 2.54 3 1.12 3.46
4 0.97 0.95 4 1.82 3.33 4 0.90 1.75 4 1.77 1.58
5 0.34 0.50 5 1.66 2.15 5 1.19 1.11 5 1.32 1.43
4 1 0.89 1.09 8 1 0.92 0.97 12 1 2.19 1.47 16 1 2.54 3.50
2 1.74 1.99 2 1.39 1.72 2 2.44 2.74 2 3.64 4.00
3 0.26 1.34 3 0.63 1.97 3 0.98 3.03 3 1.20 1.84
4 0.71 0.72 4 1.28 1.74 4 1.86 2.14 4 2.43 2.39
5 0.15 0.44 5 1.47 0.72 5 1.40 1.11 5 1.67 2.95

controlled most effectively. However, the underlying mechanism of the Some literature shows that project stakeholders tend to arrange their
linkage in collaborative innovation projects has been ignored (Wang risk management plan independently according to the needs of their task
et al., 2020; Barua et al., 2016). According to the self-organization schedules (Fang et al., 2013). The gap between expected and actual risk
theory, the system's stability requires the synergy between the various management implementation is significant for all practical purposes.
elements in the system, including both resource integration and Our methodology is better in project risk management activities due to
behavioral collaboration. In the existing research on risk management of two aspects.
collaborative innovation projects, researchers focus on the role of First, identifying risk and stakeholder interactions is performed
various stakeholders in resource integration while ignoring the value of when building up the SRN-RIN double-layers network model. This
behavioral collaboration. This research has filled this gap by putting the process permits better confidence in clarifying the relationship between
stakeholder and risk in an integrated model. The result of this research risks and stakeholders. Risk is bound with the stakeholder in most cases,
has confirmed the suspicion that behavioral collaboration is effective in while the risk bearer is not the risk producer in some situations. A better
managing risks. The effect of risk control can be effectively improved by risk response decision will be generated based on the clear stakeholders'
following the principle of concerted action when controlling risks. responsibilities to control risks.
Moreover, considering that cooperation of stakeholders' behavior will Second, improving the coordination of stakeholders' actions to
cause the extra cost for the project, the research findings indicate that to respond to risks will incur a cost. However, it is still beneficial because it
get a better risk management performance, the coordination cost within will reduce the total risk exposure effectively. Namely, it underlines the
a specific range is acceptable. This finding helps to achieve more necessity of coordinating project risk response decision-makers and the
cooperation between project partners. concerted actions of stakeholders in project risk management. It permits
Second, in existing research on collaborative innovation manage­ more information transmission between stakeholders since it does not
ment, trust is the basis for establishing and maintaining relationships seek the transfer of risk responsibility and additional cost of risk control
between stakeholders. In an environment of trust, stakeholders are but the optimal allocation of risk management resources. In the risk
willing to devote their resources to maximize the overall benefits. management planning stage, a dedicated person, who is always a vice
However, in the VUCA era, generating trust is not easy. This paper sheds project manager, is responsible for coordination.
light on the collaborative innovation project risk management under a However, this implies that risk management planning should be
non-full trust condition by providing a strategy that balances the indi­ done carefully, as this vice project manager should not only know who
vidual and project interest. Previous research has shown that risk will manage the risk, but he also needs to ensure the coordination of
management is a systematic work (Hartono et al., 2014). Some studies their actions. Such project risk managers should be able to facilitate
imply that the project stakeholders should integrate resources and communication and group decision-making. They also need to show
control the risk as a whole through a unified resource use strategy (Fang great adaptability if the stakeholders are not used to working together
et al., 2013). However, other studies believe project stakeholders should on risk management since risk management is always regarded as in­
prioritize their risks (Yu et al., 2017; Fernandes et al., 2021). This dependent work in the traditional risk theory. Besides, considering the
research provides a solution to balance them, that concerted actions self-organization characteristics of collaborative innovation projects,
among stakeholders could achieve the best overall project risk control the coordination cost should be assigned to the stakeholders who may
effect under the condition of prioritizing their individual risks. This have enough authority and initiative to coordinate with other
implies that the inconsistency between the findings of previous studies stakeholders.
might be because of a lack of clear question delineation in such research. As a whole, our model responds to the risk from the view of stake­
When risk management is limited to resource collaboration, trust will holder collaboration to improve the utilization efficiency of risk man­
affect the choice of stakeholders in the overall interests and individual agement resources. It provides a new perspective for project risk
interests. However, when the scope of collaboration is extended to the management in the post-epidemic era, especially for projects with high
collaboration of action, the result of this research verified that the two complexity, such as collaborative innovation. Resource integration is
strategies are not opposed to each other. Even if the stakeholders are not the only way to achieve holistic risk management. In collaborative
concerned about their own risk control, they can still optimize the innovation projects, even if the trust among the project stakeholders is
overall risk control of the project through reasonable measures. not enough to support them to contribute their resources, systematic risk

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Z. Liu et al. Technological Forecasting & Social Change 196 (2023) 122804

management can still be achieved through the integration of their ac­ Planning Fund Program of Shandong Province (22DGLJ20).
tions, and stakeholders' concerted action is of great significance for risk
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Pfeifer, J., Barker, K., Ramirez-Marquez, J.E., Morshedlou, N., 2015. Quantifying the risk Zhixue Liu (PhD) is a Ph.D. student in Project Management at Shandong University. His research focuses on project
of project delays with a genetic algorithm. Int. J. Prod. Econ. 170, 34–44. https:// management, collaborative innovation, and risk management. The results of his research have been published in
doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2015.09.007. several journals and book chapters. His work about project stakeholder and risk integration management has been
Rezaei, J., 2015. Best-worst multi-criteria decision-making method. Omega 53, 49–57. award as the best paper of the 8th International Project Management Association (IPMA) research conference in 2020.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.omega.2014.11.009.
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Ronggui Ding (PhD) is a Professor in Project Management at School of Management, Shandong University. He has
characterise the adoption of complex information infrastructures in small and
served as vice president of IPMA since 2021. His research interests include project governance, stakeholder man­
medium-sized enterprises. J. Bus. Res. 144, 1249–1255. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
agement, and complex system management. His work has been published in several journals, include the International
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Santamaría, L., Nieto, M.J., Rodríguez, A., 2021. Failed and successful innovations: the Lei Wang (PhD) is an Associate Professor in management science and engineering with the School of Management,
role of geographic proximity and international diversity of partners in technological Shandong University, Shandong, China, where he serves as the Director of master education program of engineering
collaboration. Technol. Forecast. Soc. Chang. 166, 120575 https://doi.org/10.1016/ management. He is also the Associate Professor—Guest Professor of Alma Mater Europaea, Maribor, Solvenia. His
j.techfore.2021.120575. research interests include project management and governance, risk management, network analysis and optimization,
Shahata, K., Zayed, T., 2016. Integrated risk-assessment framework for municipal and complex system modeling and simulation. He has authored two books, and >30 articles. His work has been
infrastructure. Journal of Construction Engineering & Management 142 (1), published in Information Sciences, Decision Support Systems, Computer & Industrial Engineering, IEEE Transactions
04015052. on Engineering Management, Industrial Management & Data Systems, and Scientometrics.
Shaikh, I., Randhawa, K., 2022. Managing the risks and motivations of technology
managers in open innovation: bringing stakeholder-centric corporate governance
Rui Song (PhD) is a Research Associate in Project Management at Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research
into focus. Technovation 114, 102437. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
focuses on construction project, Public-Private Partnership (PPP) project, and engineering consultation. Her work has
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been published in several journals and professional magazines, for example, Project Management Review.
Shi, Q., Liu, Y., Zuo, J., Pan, N., Ma, G., 2015. On the management of social risks of
hydraulic infrastructure projects in China: a case study. Int. J. Proj. Manag. 33 (3),
483–496. Xinyi Song (PhD) is an Assistant Professor in construction management at Georgia Institute of Technology. Her
Shih, Y., Lin, C., 2022. Co-location with marketing value activities as manufacturing research interests comprise trust, project organization, stakeholder management. Her work has been published in
upgrading in a COVID-19 outbreak era. J. Bus. Res. 148, 410–419. https://doi.org/ Journal of Construction Engineering and Management and Journal of Management in Engineering.
10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.04.060.
Shokri, S., Haas, C.T., Haas, R.G., Lee, S.H., 2016. Interface-management process for
managing risks in complex capital projects. Journal of Construction Engineering &
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