Taxonomy of indigenous construction firms in South-South Nigeria

Contractors are generally grouped as small, medium or large, or, indigenous or foreign. An unsupervised statistically derived grouping of indigenous contractors hardly exists. Such a grouping is critical to policy formation for indigenous construction firms (ICFs) development in Nigeria. The objectives of this study were: (1) to group ICFs based on their characteristics and (2) to identify the significant characteristics that discriminate among the groups of ICFs. The ICFs (n = 575) studied were obtained from sample frames retrieved from construction industry professional bodies, the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) and internet sources. The results of the study were based on the demographic data of 428 of the ICFs that returned acceptably filled copies of the study questionnaire. Using cluster analysis, 97.9% of the ICFs were correctly classified into three groups based on their characteristics. Discriminant analysis revealed that two functions (experience and marketing) discriminate among the three groups. The two functions are particularly distinguishable by high loadings in firm experience and firm registration with client bodies. This study demonstrates that ICFs can be classified using other parameters than those traditionally in use. Future ICF development programmes could be tailored along the lines of the three distinct groups discovered in this study.