Evaluating Decision Making in Sustainable Project Selection Between Literature and Practice

Rakan Alyamani, Suzanna Long and Mohammad Nurunnabi
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Rakan Alyamani: Department of Engineering Management, Prince Sultan University, P.O. Box 66833, Riyadh 11586, Saudi Arabia
Suzanna Long: Department of Engineering Management & Systems Engineering, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla, MO 65409, USA
Mohammad Nurunnabi: Department of Accounting, Prince Sultan University, P.O. Box 66833, Riyadh 11586, Saudi Arabia

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 15, 1-16

Abstract: A robust project selection process is critical for the selection of sustainable projects that meet the needs of an organization or community. There are multiple factors or criteria that can be considered in the selection of the appropriate sustainable project, but it can be challenging to find sufficient depth of expert opinion to perform a strong evaluation of these criteria. Several researchers have turned to the sustainable project literature as a source of expert opinion to evaluate the criteria used in sustainable project selection and rank them based on importance using different multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methodologies. However, using the literature as a source of expert opinion poses a different set of challenges and may not accurately represent the actual opinions of sustainable project subject matter experts (SMEs) and practitioners. In this study, the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) methodology is used to determine the importance of project cost, project maturity, skill and experience, uncertainty, and technology information transfer as selection criteria using collected opinions from academic sustainable project experts and practitioners. The results are then compared with previous research that used the literature to rank these five criteria based on importance when selecting between multiple sustainable project alternatives. The results show that project cost is still considered the major driver of decision making in sustainable project selection by both the literature and practice. However, unlike the literature-as-experts approach, SMEs prioritize skill and experience and technology information transfer over project maturity and uncertainty. Project managers and decision makers can use these findings to best prioritize the types of challenges that may occur depending on inputs for the FAHP analysis.

Keywords: sustainable projects; project selection; fuzzy AHP; multi-criteria decision making (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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