Tembo, C K (2018) Risk allocation on building projects in the Zambian construction industry. PhD thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Abstract
Desirable project delivery is normally hampered by risks; when risks eventuate they make it difficult for a project to be delivered within time, budgeted cost and to the expected quality. This is exacerbated by risk misallocation between contracting parties in the form of incomprehensive allocation or inappropriate allocation, or wrong or inappropriate resources or methods of allocation. The literature is unclear as to why misallocations persist in the construction industry and the discourse of this research is the identification of reasons of why this persists and the rectification thereof. This research is an exploratory and explanatory study aimed at uncovering why risk misallocation is recurrently contributing to project failure in the Zambian building sector, with a view of devising a mechanism for aiding risk allocation. To achieve this, purposeful semistructured interviews, a questionnaire survey and document analysis across building projects using different contract forms were used to uncover sources for risk misallocation, using structuration and Gilbert’s management theory as theoretical lenses. The approach used was both inductive and deductive to varying extents. The nature of misallocation in the industry includes resource misallocation, unbalanced and unfair allocation, and inappropriate allocation mechanisms. It was found that current contract practice (reflected in selection criteria and contract conditions) and risk practice (reflected in unsystematic and un-formalised risk management practices) are contributing to risk misallocation, resulting in poor performance of the building sector. This realization led to the devising of a systematic process model to serve as an interventionist tool to ameliorate this challenge. This deemed to be useful in providing guidance for desirable risk allocation outcomes. The mechanism was validated by using a questionnaire with purposively sampled industry professionals in the Zambian construction industry and Delphi expert panel using a questionnaire which took an introductory round and 2 main rounds.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Thesis advisor: | Khatleli, N |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | contract conditions; document analysis; failure; management theory; project delivery; questionnaire survey; risk management; selection criteria |
| Index terms: | interview, survey, management theory, questionnaire, contract condition, project failure, document analysis, contracting party, risk management, risk allocation, construction industry, selection criteria, project delivery |
| Subjects: | risk assessment, data collection methods, data science, project delivery, contract structure, management, industry analysis, project completion, practitioner, tendering, financial risk |
| Topics: | Project Management, Procurement, Risk Management, Contract Administration, Research Practice, Cost Management, Business Strategy, Roles and Professions |
| 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