Naoum, S G (1989) An investigation into the performance of management contracts and the traditional methods of building procurement. PhD thesis, Brunel University, UK.
Abstract
This research pursues the development of management contracting in the UK construction industry and aims to compare it with the traditional method with a view to providing some indication of how both systems may be matched to particular circumstances. A theoretical model was used to assist in comparing project performance in a case study sample of 39 management contracts and 30 traditional form of contracts, and have identified several variables which could influence the performance of a project. The first main hypothesis proposed is that management contracting can satisfy clients who need their projects quickly and for projects that are large and/or highly complex. This led to a second hypothesis, that project performance is a function of the characteristics of the client, the project, the designers, the contract procedure employed and the procurement method adopted for their projects. The use of management contracting is growing throughout the UK, but the percentage of traditional contracting is still greater than other forms of building procurement method. Analysis of the 69 case studies suggest that management contracting performs better in some respect than traditional contracting, in particular, when time is the essence of the contract and when the project is highly complex. However, in the construction of large simple buildings, there was no strong evidence which shows that management contracting can perform better than the traditional form of contracts. Moreover, analysis of the results also suggests that procurement method is not the only variable affecting project performance. The client's requirements, the designer, the characteristics of the project and the contract procedure employed, all had their relative effect on certain performance measures as defined by time, cost and quality.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | construction procurement; contracting methods; general contracting; management contracting; performance |
| Index terms: | evidence, contracting method, performance measure, building procurement, construction industry, management contracting, construction procurement, investigation, project performance, form of contract, designer, traditional contracting, procurement method, case study |
| Subjects: | contractual arrangements, profession, data collection methods, evaluation and assessment methods, industry analysis, project management theory and practice, performance measurement |
| Topics: | Quality Management, Project Management, Research Practice, Roles and Professions, Procurement |
| Descriptive scope: | 5 PCTEA |
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