Why claims fail: An autoethnographic investigation of claims management under gcc construction contracts

This paper explores some of the central issues faced by practitioners when managing claims under construction contracts, with a focus on the GCC region. The paper firstly reviews two primary streams of claims management literature to determine their utility to practice. The first stream describes contractor approaches to claims management through largely quantitative study, and confirms that contractors often fail to prepare detailed claims, and habitually delay in submitting claims for determination. The second stream comprises multiple examples of normative claims management research, which suggests that the academic community’s primary response to poor claims practice is the development of management models aimed at streamlining or automating claims, with little attempt to understand issues underlying poor practice. In support of this view, the paper presents a critical reflection on the author’s role as a claims management practitioner in Dubai, UAE. The critical reflection suggests that major barriers to effective claims management might include misconception of contractor motivation for claims, and organisational issues including lack of recognition of claims within project management processes, poor contractual expertise, and underutilisation of organisational knowledge with respect to claims. Based on the review, the research argues that there is a need to develop claims management theory from a new perspective. This will be research that addresses procedural deficiencies inherent in traditional project management systems, but that also examines the “people issues” inhibiting effective claims management by influencing decision making in practice. The practice based perspective of this research therefore has value by identifying critical research needs of claims management practitioners.