Brockman, J L (2014) Interpersonal conflict in construction: Cost, cause, and consequence. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 140(2): 04013050, ISSN 0733-9364
Abstract
Interpersonal conflict on the job is identified as one of the top occupational job stressors, strongly linked to a reduction in worker psychological and physical health. In addition, interpersonal conflict has been identified as a determinant of work disability, occupational accidents, and other costs related to reduced quality, loss of skilled employees, restructuring inefficiencies, decreased motivation and productivity, absenteeism, and employee turnover. For the construction industry, studies suggest that construction owners and contractors ranked conflict among construction project participants as the highest factor affecting project cost. It is astonishing, in light of this fact, that no research studies exist which attempt to expose the unmistakable financial cost of day-to-day conflict in the construction industry among project participants at the supervisory and trades level. Therefore, the research question being explored is: What are the triggers and consequences of interpersonal conflict on a construction site and at what financial cost? Using the critical-incident technique, a qualitative research method, 74 construction industry personnel were individually interviewed using a protocol designed to elicit one or more conflict incidents recalled by the interviewee. All interviews were audio taped, transcribed, and analyzed using Nvivo 9 qualitative software. Forty-one of the 86 reported incidents underwent an additional analysis using the time reported and associated labor costs. Based on the key findings, it is recommended that educational opportunities and innovative changes to the construction process could reduce/prevent the incidence of interpersonal conflict on the construction jobsite.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | conflict management; construction productivity; cost in construction; organizational issues |
| Index terms: | labour cost, occupational accident, employee turnover, construction productivity, construction industry, determinant, organizational issue, productivity, owner, construction project, construction process, disability, stressors, personnel, interview, conflict management, absenteeism, qualitative research method, construction site, motivation, project cost |
| Subjects: | psychology, work location, operations management, data collection methods, risk assessment, business, research design and methodology, industry analysis, cost management, conflict resolution, building construction, health conditions and diseases, sociology, production management, health risk and incident analysis, management, economics |
| Topics: | Site Management, Organizational Design, Human Resources, Risk Management, Stakeholder Management, Procurement, Cost Management, Business Strategy, Health and Safety, Research Practice, Project Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTE |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here