Ogbeifun, E; Mbohwa, C and Pretorius, J H C (2018) Fragmentation of capital development projects: A tool for job creation and skill development. In: Gorse, C and Neilson, C J (eds.) Proceedings of 34th Annual ARCOM Conference, 3-5 September 2018, Queen’s University, Belfast, UK.
Abstract
Unemployment in developing economies generally and the built environment professionals deserves attention and pragmatic attention. In the same vein, unemployment has negative influence on skill acquisition of graduates from the built environment professions. Advocates of relationship-based procurement system, over the traditional procurement system, lay emphasis on timely delivery of capital projects, with high quality and reasonable cost, but give less consideration to the need for reasonable employment to the teeming population of unemployed youths. Relating this topic to the theme of this conference: “Productive Relationship: Balancing Fragmentation and Integration”, we suggest the use of a variant of the traditional method of project procurement which focuses on the fragmentation of mega capital projects into smaller lots and using multiple contractors, instead of a single contractor. This concept, appropriately managed, can be used as a tool to ameliorate the problem of unemployment and skill development. This research adopted a comparative methodology, where the human capital employed, at the tactical level of leadership, in a fragmented mega project, which engaged multiple contractors, was compared to the human capacity in a similar position in a capital development which employed a single contractor. The findings revealed that the fragmented mega project had seven lots and each lot had at least three built environment professionals (engineers, builders, architects and quantity surveyors) at the tactical level of leadership, resulting in at least twenty-one employment opportunities. Comparatively, the similar mega project executed through the single contractor had one set of the built environment professionals (a project manager, electrical engineer, structural engineer, builder, quantity surveyor, and architect), which is about the ratio of 3:1. Thus fragmentation of capital development projects can be used as a valuable tool for job creation and skill development.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | employment opportunities; fragmentation of mega projects; skill development; technical personnel; unemployment |
| Index terms: | unemployment, project procurement, methodology, integration, profession, capital project, population, structural engineer, built environment, architect, employment, conference, skills development, engineer, fragmentation, relationship-based procurement, acquisition, traditional procurement, builder, developing economy, personnel, quantity surveying, project manager, human capital, electrical engineer |
| Subjects: | infrastructure and transport systems, organizational analysis, demography, personnel development, economics, research methods, economic development, management, economic analysis, strategic project management, contractual arrangements, institututions, practitioner, business, profession, research dissemination and communication |
| Topics: | Roles and Professions, Procurement, Business Strategy, Research Practice, Project Management, Organizational Design, Urban Studies, International Construction, Human Resources |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCT |
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