Project stakeholder management deals with managing and fulfilling stakeholder expectations and has tended to focus on the viewpoint of the focal firm or the project rather than that of the project stakeholders. The stakeholders’ perspective is important because they can significantly influence projects, particularly infrastructure delivery involving both public and private actors. This study focuses on the ways that stakeholders pursue influence on projects through their expectation of project value. The goal is to identify the value-oriented reasons for stakeholders to utilize specific influence strategies. A multiple case study was implemented in three transport infrastructure projects. The study argues that stakeholders’ expectations of project value creation explain the stakeholder influence strategies utilized. The findings link project value with stakeholder influence strategies and reveal four influence strategies in transport infrastructure projects, differentiated according to their different value priorities. The unique value-influence combinations of public infrastructure projects are revealed and discussed.

Introduction

Infrastructure projects, such as the delivery of railways, roads, tunnels, subways, etc., shape their surroundings in significant ways. Infrastructure projects are large in financial terms (often considered major or even mega; Flyvbjerg et al., 2004) and the project deliverables are expected to last and deliver value for society for decades or more. Due to their size and impact on society, infrastructure projects create interest in the eyes of various stakeholders. The delivery of long-term value makes infrastructure projects excellent contexts for research concerning project value. This article investigates the influence of stakeholders on infrastructure projects, particularly in terms of their project value expectations. The concept of project value relates to projects being considered vehicles for the delivery of value throughout their lifecycle, instead of simply the completion of goal-centric tasks (Artto et al., 2016). Previous research suggests that customer value is created through various short-term and long-term costs and benefits and that the customer’s purchasing strategy and the supplier’s marketing strategy will affect the value created (Ahola et al., 2008).