Evidence-based management of large infrastructure projects under corrupted conditions: A design synthesis review

Corruption is a global nuisance for infrastructure development that often increases costs and delays of large infrastructure projects, decreasing benefits and limiting positive social, environmental and economic impacts. The growing body of work on corruption in infrastructure development provides valuable understanding about anti-corruption activities, but further work is needed to develop systematic evidence-based approaches to address corruption effects in the provision of infrastructure. The objective of this draft paper is to present an idea for a research design to explicate how the existing research can inform evidence-based management of infrastructure development under corrupted conditions. The proposed research design adopts a systematic review approach that focuses on evidence-informed management knowledge. In so doing, it applies a design-oriented research synthesis using CIMO-logic with the purpose of informing academia and practice about how interventions (I) work in different contexts (C), providing understanding of the mechanisms (M) through which certain outcomes (O) emerge.