Identification and classification of change causes and effects in construction projects

Managing changes has become a critical issue in the construction industry in recent years. Changes are inevitable throughout the lifecycle of the construction project. Understanding change causes and effects can support project teams to manage changes proactively. Although various research articles are published in this field, a comprehensive and systematic overview of change causes and effects is missing due to different terminologies and perspectives, lack of distinction between generic and project-specific causes, and lack of validation with industry experts. Therefore, the objective of this study is to identify and classify change causes and effects in construction projects. A multi-case study research method is utilised to achieve the objective of the study. The study provides two contributions to the body of knowledge of change management. First, a comprehensive list of 85 change causes and 45 change effects which are identified from the literature and multi-case study are presented. Around 3951 changes from 19 construction projects are investigated to identify causes and effects. Second, a taxonomy is proposed to classify change causes and effects. The proposed taxonomy consists of three levels with an increasing level of detail of the change cause and effect and it can support project teams to develop strategies to eliminate or minimise changes in the construction project.