Marx, H (2010) Employers' and agents' perspectives of the condition of the construction industry in South Africa. In: Egbu, C (ed.) Proceedings of 26th Annual ARCOM Conference, 6-8 September 2010, Leeds, UK.
Abstract
Annual monitoring of the condition of the South African construction industry is vital to enable government and other role players to evaluate the impact of current interventions and to timely and pro-actively implement revised legislation, strategies and development programmes to act as an updated roadmap for the future well-being and growth of the industry. This monitoring of the construction industry is done annually by the Construction Industry Development Board (cidb) in partnership with the Department of Quantity Surveying and Construction Management of the University of the Free State. A database with contact particulars of employers, contractors and agents involved in 3441 projects completed in 2008 was compiled. Three separate survey forms were faxed or e-mailed to the contractors, employers and agents of these projects. Their responses were captured in a Microsoft Access database. From the 3441 completed projects in the database, 1169 survey forms were received back from contractors, 602 from agents and 332 from employers. The scope of this paper is limited to the results received from the employers and agents. The average perspectives of the respondents were determined for different project types, employer categories and provinces. The main findings were that contractor quality was discarded as being of any importance in many tenders allocated. Agents were only paid on time on 47% of all projects completed. There is a strong indication of political intervention in the tender adjudication procedures of many employers. This research contributes to the understanding of the construction industry and highlights existing problems to solve on the way forward. Government can make use of the results obtained to timely and pro-actively take action, or implement revised legislation, strategies and development programmes to ensure the well-being and growth of the industry.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | construction industry indicators; key performance |
| Index terms: | surveying, legislation, adjudication, programme, construction industry development, survey, database, strategy, partnership, monitoring, well-being, South Africa, agent, construction industry |
| Subjects: | legal systems, health monitoring assessment and metrics, data collection methods, mental health and wellbeing, control systems, practitioner, dispute resolution, partnership management, project controls, data management, industry analysis, management, Geography, development economics |
| Topics: | Research Practice, Geographical Context, Business Strategy, Health and Safety, Stakeholder Management, Roles and Professions, International Construction, Legal Issues, Digital Applications, Time Control, Site Management |
| 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