This article examines the long-term dynamics among a best-practice risk management framework, risk management technologies and the translation of uncertainties into risks by using a longitudinal case study of a large mega-project. We show that the framework and technologies through the visual power of inscriptions and the purifying work of risk consultants as experts establish the boundaries of the forms of uncertainties that are accepted and included as risks. We term the accepted and included risks 'pure risks' and the risks excluded after disagreement 'impure risks'. We also show that the construction of impure risks challenges the predictions of the framework causing a false sense of security for the project objectives, and that the continuous readjustment of technologies, in particular, is necessary to ensure the long-term realisation of these predictions. Finally, this article contributes to the literature on performativity by showing how technologies serve as buffers to shield failing economic frameworks against criticism.

Governments worldwide are introducing “reference class forecasting” to improve the accuracy of megaproject cost estimation and thus ultimately the ability to deliver megaprojects on budget without altering the project specifications and/or changing the time schedule. In contrast to current findings, which show that reference class forecasting leads to more accurate project cost estimates by counteracting human cognitive and organizational biases, this article indicates the contrary, that reference class forecasting does not lead to more accurate cost estimates. The article theorizes that reference class forecasting fails to produce more accurate project cost estimates because estimates are always a relational network effect of human and nonhuman actors’ “biased” efforts to establish them. This finding challenges the existing literature by pointing to a more complex understanding of project cost estimation and biases. The finding is based on a longitudinal case study of a 23.6‐billion‐kroner Danish public megaproject, which failed to meet its objectives despite the application of reference class forecasting.

For over two decades, the literature has characterized contemporary Western societies as audit societies. These societies are characterized by an approach to governance that is shaped by the idea and practice of auditing. This paper shows that with regard to public governance, the audit society has started to give way to a program of government innovation, or what we theorize to be the emergence of a new form of society: the innovation society. The paper builds this theorization on a longitudinal case study of the past 40 years of Danish central government administrative policy developments with a focus on internal auditing. The paper shows that internal auditing has transitioned from being a macro actor of public governance to becoming a micro actor and ultimately terminated. The paper further shows that this dissociation process was instigated not by elected politicians but by highly positioned civil servants who managed to remove what they identified as an obstacle to the stability of the innovation program.