Stewart, L (2022) Business strategies for reducing professional labor shortages within the u.S. Construction industry. DBA thesis, Walden University, USA.
Abstract
The U.S. construction industry is faced with skilled labor shortages that have made it more challenging, especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic, for project and business managers to meet industry quality standards and complete projects within budget and on time. Grounded in transformational leadership theory, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies staffing managers use to hire and retain skilled labor. The data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with six successful staffing managers within the southeastern United States and then analyzed using thematic analysis. The themes that emerged were (a) employee retention, (b) recruitment of skilled labor, (c) mitigation of barriers, (d) effectiveness of strategy, and (e) strategies used to address the skilled labor shortage. A key recommendation for hiring managers is to ensure the advancement of skill labors through the development and continuous application of positive reinforcement. The implications for positive social change include the potential to benefit communities by providing employment and tax revenues.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Thesis advisor: | Nattress, D |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | standards; employment; leadership; recruitment; employee; professional; United States; thematic analysis; case study; interview |
| Index terms: | retention, quality standard, case study, pandemic, employment, effectiveness, labour shortage, reinforcement, transformational leadership, recruitment, construction industry, skilled labour, COVID-19, manager, United States, interview, revenue, strategy, business strategy, thematic analysis, mitigation, shortages |
| Subjects: | quality assurance, Geography, financial risk, economic analysis, practitioner, industry analysis, health risk and incident analysis, management, economics, performance management, methods and analysis, building materials, data collection methods, business |
| Topics: | Roles and Professions, Research Practice, Construction Materials, Cost Management, Business Strategy, Organizational Design, Human Resources, Geographical Context, Health and Safety, Quality Management, Supply Chain 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