Megaprojects and hybridity. Accounting and performance challenges for multiple diverse actors and values

The aim of this paper is to illuminate how a hybrid organisation tasked with developing the Turin-Lyon Highspeed Railway, TELT, has played a pivotal role in the government of a French-Italian collaborative megaproject. Using a Foucauldian approach, we undertook a longitudinal analysis of TELT to investigate the accounting and performance challenges faced as this hybrid organisation attempted to meet the diverse goals and values of multiple stakeholders. The technologies introduced new work planning techniques, excavating, building prototypes, estimating and certifying standard costs, and implementing time and space controls based on cost classifications. The idea behind all these measures was to normalise the risks associated with the megaproject, and thus zero any cost overruns during the project’s lifecycle. TELT’s ‘winning spirit’ succeeded in navigating a bi-national business value chain spanning governments, contractors, and sub-contracting companies. Different forms of reporting were used concurrently – some for financial disclosure, others for auditing to comply with national and European auditing regulations as enforced by the two governments. Non-financial information was also disclosed to diverse, and sometimes conflicting stakeholders, to increase social value and reduce information asymmetry. The study reveals how a wide range of experts intervened to solve problems at the meso-political and micro-organisational levels.