A principal component analysis of project management competencies for the Ghanaian construction industry

The study adopts a data reduction technique to examine the presence of any complex structure among a set of project management competency variables. A structured survey questionnaire was administered to 100 project managers to elicit relevant data and this achieved a relatively high response rate of 54%. After satisfying all the necessary tests of reliability of the survey instrument sample size adequacy and population matrix the data was subjected to principal component analysis resulting in the identification of six new thematic project management competency areas; and were explained in terms of human resource management and project control; construction innovation and communication; project financial resources management; project risk and quality management; business ethics and; physical resources and procurement management. These knowledge areas now form the basis for lateral project management training requirements in the context of the Ghanaian construction industry. The main contribution of the paper is manifested in the use of the principal component analysis which has rigorously provided an understanding into the complex structure and the relationship between the various knowledge areas. The originality and value of the paper is embedded in the use of contextual-task and conceptual knowledge to expound the six uncorrelated empirical utility of the project management competencies.