Development of project communication network: A new approach to information flow modeling

In complex construction projects with numerous stakeholders, communication can be very challenging, and any miscommunication, i.e., faulty transfer of information, can negatively influence the project's success. Although communication is one of the key success factors in the construction industry, a limited number of researchers have focused on internal communication of primary and secondary stakeholders. Therefore, the aim of this paper was to study the quality of communication among primary and secondary stakeholders, and develop a network for external communication of entities within a civil project. To achieve the mentioned objectives, this study initially utilized the earlier-identified internal CIs within primary stakeholders and then found CIs within secondary stakeholders through several statistical analyses, including the two-sample t-test, chi squared test, and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The indicators, which influence the quality of internal communication between more than one groups of stakeholders, were considered as shared communication indicators (SCIs). Therefore, the overlaps in the various groups of stakeholders creates a new space for communication between these entities (eternal communication). We aimed to quantify an external communication network by utilizing Cohen's d effect size weights. The outcome of this research study allows project participants' to focus on project characteristics, which influence communication between stakeholders and allocate more human and financial resources to the identified sensitive communication areas, which could remarkably increase the communication effectiveness and subsequently project success.