Conflicts in building projets in Tanzania: Analysis of causes and management approaches

The prime objective of a client in a building project is to attain a successful project, a project that has been properly planned, designed and constructed in accordance with plans and specifications, and completed within time and cost originally anticipated. However, the success of a building project depends on a number of variables one of them is the way the building team approach conflicts facing the project. This study examines the causes and management approaches of conflicts in building projects in Tanzania. The main objective of the study is to identify issues/areas on which conflicts occur, factors causing them and how conflicts are managed in building projects in Tanzania. As a means to achieve the above objective, the study was structured into two main parts; the first part aimed at mapping up the nature of conflicts in building projects in Tanzania by establishing critical symptoms of conflicts, factors causing them, and the approaches used in resolving the conflicts. This was done through literature review, interviews and questionnaire survey. The second part aimed at in-depth study of conflicts from their root cause, how they develop/progress and how they are managed in a real building project setting. Four case studies of building projects were studied for this part. The study found that factors causing conflicts are in several forms. There are those related to the nature of contracts, where the contracts are unclear and ambiguous they give room for contracting parties to develop opportunistic behaviour when post adjustments are needed. There are those factors which are related to role functions when the parties fail to perform as expected. As such the study confirmed that contractual incompleteness and consequent post contract adjustments and opportunistic behaviour of some project participants are root causes of conflicts in building projects in Tanzania. However, the study established that there are sufficient mechanisms to deal with conflicts in the standard forms of building contracts used and when the provisions are against the interests of the parties, the parties resort to amicable resolution approaches. Notwithstanding the availability of mechanisms in the standard forms of contracts to deal with conflicts, the study proposes the framework as a strategy that could reduce effectively the occurrences of conflicts in building projects.