Compliance with building material specifications among informal skilled construction workers in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Informal construction workers rarely comply with Building Material Specifications (BMSs) due to incompetence emanating from knowledge gaps, cost reduction strategies among clients, poor material use and lack of quality checks and control mechanisms. Based on logistic regression model results on the relationship between compliance and knowledge transfer on BMSs, this study has noted a mismatch between informal knowledge transfer practices and compliance with BMSs during construction. This mismatch is partly attributed to inappropriate knowledge transfer on BMSs. Compliance with BMSs is mainly driven by appropriate knowledge transfer and trainer-trainee agreement for effective knowledge transfer. The “carrots and sticks” approaches to enforcing compliance with BMSs among informal craftsmen have marginal effect on the ultimate compliance behaviour of craftsmen. The conclusion is that although social capital through social network is considered useful for knowledge transfer it does little to induce internalisation of knowledge on BMSs leading to non-compliance. That is, positive attribute of knowledge transfer may not necessary yield positive compliance levels. However, since this argument is strongly tied to compliance as measured along instrumental, normative and constraints dimension, it may slightly change in an environment where habits and routine have a major role to play in construction practices.