The impact of contractors' management capability on cost and time performance of construction projects in Nigeria

Abstract

Purpose -Management capability is one of the major criteria for evaluating construction contractors during prequalification and tender evaluation This paper aims to investigate the impact of contractors' management capability as a prequalification criterion on cost and time performance of selected building projects. Design/methodology/approach -Prequalification assessments of management capability of wining contractors as well as cost data relating to 77 completed building projects executed between 2004 and 2007 are obtained. The data obtained from a questionnaire and archival data are analyzed using one-way analysis of variance and multiple regression. Findings -The results reveal that contractors' management capability has significant impact on cost and time performance of building projects as evidenced by p-values of 0.042 and 0.039, respectively. Practical implications -The research could be of significant benefit at the research implementation stage of public procurement practice especially in relation to the construction industry in Nigeria. Construction practitioners involved in prequalification and tender evaluation should continue to seek relevant information relating to management capability from the candidate contractors during prequalification and tender evaluation. Originality/value -Models capable of predicting the final cost and duration of building projects are eventually derived based on prequalification assessment of contractors on management capability, proposed contract duration and the initial contract figure. The goodness of fit of the models as defined by the value of R 2 is found to be 96.2 percent and 90.01 percent for cost and time, respectively; thus signifying high predictive efficacy of the models.

Relevance of Contractors’ Prequalification Criteria to Time Performance of Civil Engineering Project

“…Thus indicated that time performance of civil engineering project was independent of contractors' management ability. Hence, this study believed that relying on contractors' managerial capability in respect of civil engineering project could lead to failure as far as time performance is concerned contrary to the opinions expressed in [41,42].…”

“…This implied that a strong relationship existed between time performance of civil engineering project and contractors' reputation. Besides, the outcome of this research quite negated the result in [41]. Despite [41] placing construction projects on same platform, management capability emerged the criterion that impact most on time performance.…”

“…Despite [41] placing construction projects on same platform, management capability emerged the criterion that impact most on time performance. It should be noted that [9] focused on building and housing construction projects while [41] based its research on construction projects. This signaled a kind of difference in their research areas.…”

“…The area of concentration in [41], which could be viewed to include civil engineering project, was obviously more encompassing compared to that in [9], yet share same view by rating management capability high. Similarly, the research effort revealed in [42] confirmed that management capability impacted most on time performance of construction project in line with the result in [41]. It solicited that due recognition be accorded management capability having stressed its importance to achieving timely completed project.…”

Statybos projektų įgyvendinimą lemiančių sėkmės veiksnių daugiakriterė analizė

“…Statybų sektorius -vienas svarbiausių gamybos sektorių tiek Lietuvoje, tiek visoje Europos Sąjungoje (ES). Tai pagrindinis sektorius, kuris skatina augti ekonomiką besivystančiose šalyse (Aje et al 2009), didina vidaus paklausą ir užimtumą kituose sektoriuose (Ye at al. 2009), juo remiantis kuriamos tiesioginės ir netiesioginės darbo vietos, o į biudžetą surenkami mokesčiai.…”