Development of an effective claim management framework for the UK construction industry

The global contribution of construction industry is approximately 13% of the world’s GDP with a 1% increase in annual productivity growth over the past 20 years, meeting half of the world’s infrastructure need i.e., US$ 1.6 trillion. Undeniably, claim management has upgraded substantially in the UK construction industry; nevertheless, the industry is even now positioned as one of the most vulnerable, accountable for 11% of disputes in 2019. Regrettably, the UK construction leadership council report in 2021 illustrated that there has been an escalation in the number of claim notifications across small, medium, and large firms within all tiers of the supply chain inheriting non-existent of an effective claim management framework. Furthermore, it was noted that claims usually escalate up to 25% of the actual contract value. Though, some may declare albeit not at zero claims, big construction organizations are persuaded once it comes to investments in claim management. Potentially, the average effectiveness of claim management is frequently eroded by an inflexible dichotomy. Some advocates that effective claim management opines that keeping claim management paramount exercise is, without suspicion, the utmost critical financing that can be produced. Although, there is significant skepticism by several practitioners as to this claim and this is normally the case that economic burden and distrust concerning dividend on claim management processes forge contractors seek litigation. Efforts through previous research to quantify the effectiveness of claim management, appear to be rare. Therefore, this research aim is to explore the share of the effectiveness of claim management in the UK construction industry. Committed construction companies may reap the benefits from effective claim management such as: having substantiated claims, reduced cost, reduced duration, avoidance of unanticipated cost of claims, improved yield, and thus improved cost-effectiveness. The research utilised a mixed methods research convergent design. First, seventy-six respondents on behalf of numerous organisations duly filled in a questionnaire. Secondly, semi-structured interviews were executed from fourteen industrial experts and two scholars from academics. Thirdly fifteen case studies have been selected from the UK construction industry to assist the growth of discussion and conclusion. The research outcomes exhibit that claim management processes are perceived fair to an extent but decline short of being very upright, exceptional, or magnificent. The research concluded that there is a very weak relationship (does not linearly increase or decrease) between effective claim management and strategy development probably a confirmation that signifying measurable returns can be very problematic for claim management-related framework. Additionally, the study inferred that the lack of fairness of claim management processes probably negatively impacts the claim management effectiveness.