Dimensions for improvement of construction management practice in Ethiopian construction industry

Abstract

Purpose

The state of the different practices in construction industry determines its performance level. Hence, improving performance of construction industry needs assessing state of the practices in the industry and devising improvement intervention. The purpose of this paper is to measure improvement requirement level of different construction management practice areas and to identify the underlying improvement dimensions in Ethiopian construction industry.

Design/methodology/approach

Questionnaire survey was developed for data collection based on a thorough literature review which yielded 28 construction management practice areas. Purposive sampling method was used to select respondents for the survey. Mean score was used to identify the required improvement level, and one sample T-test was carried out to identify significance of improvement requirement. Factor analysis was conducted to identify the underlying dimensions of the construction management practice areas.

Findings

Findings indicate 27 areas need significant improvement. This shows the low level of adoption of good construction management practices in Ethiopian construction industry. Factor analysis resulted in the areas being grouped to four broad improvement dimensions, namely, project management, organization management, knowledge and risk management and project development and contract management.

Originality/value

The findings provide information for appropriate action by the stakeholders to raise standards of adopted construction management practices. It also show areas of construction management which require more focused research in the context of Ethiopian construction industry. Considering the similarity of nature of construction industry problems in developing countries, the findings can be extended to similar countries.

Citation

Mengistu, D.G. and Mahesh, G. (2020), "Dimensions for improvement of construction management practice in Ethiopian construction industry", Journal of Engineering, Design and Technology, Vol. 18 No. 1, pp. 21-39. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEDT-10-2018-0175