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Nigeria has recently renewed efforts towards stamping out corruption in every area of its national life. Given that construction procurement is particularly prone to corrupt practices, this study investigated the prevalence of unethical tendering practices in the Nigerian public sector. In particular, a comparison to bare the similarities or differences in the prevalence of unethical tendering practices at national and subnational levels is scarcely available in literature. This study’s objective was to determine and compare the prevalence of unethical tendering practices at the national and subnational levels in Nigeria. The data analysis was based on 120 acceptably filled questionnaires obtained from contractor, client and consultant organisations previously involved in public sector projects. The unethical tendering practices were analysed using prevalence indices and Mann–Whitney U tests. Findings include that the three most prevalent unethical tendering practices are contractor-based, namely: (1) competitors offer bribes to gain access to confidential tendering information (C1); (2) competitors overstate their capacity, experience and qualifications to secure construction contracts (C2); (3) the same owner(s) use different firms to tender for the same project (C3), in descending order of prevalence. No significant difference exists between unethical tendering practices in federal and state government projects. The findings of the study will help the Nigerian government and other stakeholders to better understand unethical practices at the tender stage of construction procurement in the public sector and to evolve better strategies for dealing with them. The study contributes to existing knowledge by separately identifying the prevalent unethical tendering practices in the Nigerian context and comparing unethical tendering practices at national and subnational levels within a country

Purpose Globally, road projects are notorious for riskiness, which often results in cost overruns. In developing countries, these risks are amplified by economic instabilities and institutional failures. Majority of road projects in these countries are awarded to notedly inept indigenous contractors. Currently, research on the relationship between risks and cost performance of road projects has predominantly focussed on the client’s perspective. Effects of risks on contractors’ cost performance (profit) are inadequately investigated in literature. The purpose of this paper is to determine the relationship between direct risks and cost performance of road projects by indigenous contractors of developing countries from the contractors’ perspective. Design/methodology/approach The multivariate structural equation modelling technique was used to analyse purposively obtained data from indigenous contractors that recently completed road projects in Nigeria. Findings It was observed that a significant positive relationship exists between the aggregate project risk, i.e. project risk index of cost (PRIC) and cost performance of the projects. Significant positive relationships were also found to exist between identified cost risk centres and PRIC and between risk factors and cost risk centres. The risk centre site environment and location contributes the most to PRIC. Research limitations/implications Indigenous contractors of developing countries are to analyse the identified risk factors and centres prior to bidding for road projects and carefully manage them during project execution. Originality/value Future studies of risks in road project should aim to obtain project risk indices of costs for the projects.

Despite increased competition, construction firms are generally known to be lagging in the adoption of marketing strategies. The performance of indigenous construction firms (ICFs) in Nigeria has been severally criticised without commensurate research efforts to address the problem. This study focused on the influence of marketing strategies on the performance levels of ICFs in South-South Nigeria. Study questionnaires were purposively issued to CEOs and managers of ICFs (n = 87) in the research area. Maintaining a pool of professionals to boost company image ( x =3.79) ranks highest among the identified marketing strategies. The Kruskal-Wallis H test of difference in the opinions of the different firm groups showed that a significant difference exists in the frequency of use of the marketing strategies by the different firm groups. A significant difference (p = 0.013) exists in the frequency of use of the marketing strategies by average performers (mean rank = 57.84) and high performers (mean rank = 78.03). The groups of marketing strategies that influence ICF level of performance are third-party-based, client-based, firm-based, and publicity-based strategies. Average-performer ICFs should make more frequent use of marketing strategies, and the use of project performance-based marketing strategies by ICFs should be increased.

Organisational effectiveness (OE) theory provides a veritable framework for examining organisational performance. This theory has, however, made a very little inroad into construction management literature, and there are limited discussions on the domains within which construction firms can measure their OE. Besides this, the extent to which corporate OE determines a contractor's project performance is not fully understood, primarily, in the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) contractor context. Based on data from 53 projects in higher institutions in Nigeria, this study evaluated the measures of corporate OE of SME contractors and examined the contributions of the corporate OE of the firms to their project performance. By factor analysis, it was discovered that the SME contractors' corporate OE can be measured using corporate advantage, firm experience, firm certification and firm owner background. Using canonical correlation, a significant relationship was found between the OE of the firms and the measures of project performance. The analysis further revealed that project cost and quality performances are bettered by increases in firm certification and experience, although time performance tends to worsen as a result. In addition to identifying the domains for measuring an SME contractor's OE, this study shows that better firm experience does not necessarily improve a contractors' project time performance. Construction stakeholders and the public should beware of firms that only boast of an excellent corporate advantage and ownership by prominent persons in the society, but without adequate experience and certification.   Keywords: Corporate Advantage, Firm Experience, Project Performance