Impact of culture on construction procurement

In the traditional societies of Botswana and in many such societies, construction activities were carried out by the members of the community which owned the work. These members shared the same ways of thinking, feeling and acting, and there was general harmony in construction activities because the actions of each member of the construction team could be predicted fairly accurately. Over the years, the situation in Botswana has changed. Construction is no longer the domain of the members of the community where the work is being carried out. International finance, scarcity of skilled labour and sophistication of the works, have made it necessary to seek solutions wherever they are available. This has brought about situations in which the members of the construction team are assembled from different countries, with different cultures and hence different ways of thinking, feeling and acting. A study was undertaken in Botswana to determine the impact of cultural backgrounds of the project team members on innovations in the procurement systems adopted. The empirical findings of Hofstede (1984, 1991) and other researchers on dimensions of culture were used to predict the behaviours of team members in projects procured through the traditional procurement system (TIPS). It was found that in the projects in which the team members were from different cultural backgrounds, there were inhibitions to innovation compared to the ones in which the team members had similar cultural backgrounds. It was concluded that, cultural backgrounds of project team members should be taken into consideration in project management, to create a conducive environment for innovation.