Determinants of Construction Project Success in India

238 Pages·2013·3.882 MB·English

by  Kumar Neeraj Jha (auth.)

Topics in Safety, Risk, Reliability, and Quality
Kumar Neeraj Jha
Determinants
of Construction
Project Success
in India
Topics in Safety, Risk, Reliability, and Quality
Volume 23
Series Editor
Adrian V. Gheorghe
For furthervolumes:
http://www.springer.com/series/6653
Kumar Neeraj Jha
Determinants
of Construction Project
Success in India
123
KumarNeeraj Jha
Department of CivilEngineering
Indian Instituteof TechnologyDelhi
New Delhi
India
ISSN 1566-0443
ISBN 978-94-007-6255-8 ISBN 978-94-007-6256-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-6256-5
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Preface
Itgivesmeimmensepleasureinpresentingthisbooktoyou.Constructionindustry
in most of the countries is infamous for schedule and cost overrun, poor quality,
large number of disputes, and many other ills. This is truer in case of developing
countries such as India. Not many researches have been conducted to understand
the reasons behind poor performances in a scientific manner. Even the rare suc-
cesses achieved in some of the projectsimplementation are not well documented.
ThisbookhasbeenaresultofresearchconductedattheIITDelhiaspartofmy
Ph.D. work and my subsequent supervisions of Ph.D.s and Masters Dissertations.
The research systematically attempts to find out the critical success and failure
attributes/factors across the four performance criteria: schedule, cost, quality, and
dispute. It also shows which success factor(s) is (are) more relevant at a given
projectperformancelevel.Thebookalsopresentsthesuccesstraitsforthesuccess
of a project. It reinforces the importance of commitment, coordination, and
competence (3Cs) in achieving the desired project performance. The readers will
also find ways in which a project’s performance can be predicted. The need of a
project coordinator is felt increasingly in large modern projects. The book also
presents the required traits of a project coordinator.
Theresearchisbasedonanempiricalsettingandsoundresearchmethodology.
It utilizes various appropriate techniques, such as factor analysis, multinomial
logistic regression, structural equation modeling, and neural network suitable for
achieving a particular objective. Further most of the materials presented in the
book are peer reviewed.
Construction industry contributes a lot in a country’s GDP and is a prime
employment generator. Growth in construction propels growth in many other
industries. It is imperative to achieve good performance in this industry by
implementing projects successfully. The book is an attempt to understand the
performance enablers and retarders.
v
vi Preface
Each chapter begins with an abstract and is then organized into well-defined
sections and subsections. Each chapter is summarized and concluded and at the
end the relevant references are provided. Summary of relevant literature is also
cited in each chapter. The book will be useful to different stakeholders of con-
struction. It would also prove to be helpful to research students of different
streams, I am eager to receive the comments from the readers of the book.
Kumar Neeraj Jha
Acknowledgments
A book of such nature would not have been possible without the support and
assistance ofa number ofpeople.IwouldliketothankmysupervisorProf. K.C.
IyerandmystudentsinparticularDr.S.Z.S.TabishandMr.C.T.Chockalingam.
I am thankful to the publishers mentioned below for granting me permission to
produce from my earlier works published by them.
Volume,
S. Issue,and
No Title JournalName Publisher Year
(1) CriticalFactorsAffectingSchedule Journalof American 132(8),
Performance:EvidencefromIndian Construction Societyof 2006
ConstructionProjects Engineeringand Civil
Management Engineers
(2) SuccessTraitsforaConstruction Journalof American 138(10),
Project Construction Societyof 2012
Engineeringand Civil
Management Engineers
(3) Commitment,coordination, InternationalJournal Elsevier 25(5),
competenceandtheirontriangle ofProject 2007
Management
(4) Criticaldeterminantsofproject InternationalJournal Elsevier 24(4),
coordination ofProject 2006
Management
(5) Whatattributesshouldaproject Construction Taylor& 24(9),
coordinatorpossess? Management& Francis 2006
Economics
(6) Predictionofscheduleperformanceof Construction Taylor& 29(9),
Indianconstructionprojectsusingan Management& Francis 2011
artificialneuralnetwork Economics
(continued)
vii
viii Acknowledgments
(continued)
S. Title JournalName Publisher Volume,
No Issue,and
Year
(7) Rankingandclassificationof Construction Taylor& 25(4),
constructioncoordinationactivities Management& Francis 2007
inIndianprojects Economics
(8) CriticalFactorsAffectingQuality TotalQuality Taylor& 17(9),
PerformanceinConstructionProjects Management& Francis 2006
BusinessExcellence
I am thankful to Nathalie Jacobs and Cynthia Feenstra of Springer in guiding
and supporting me throughout the review and publication process. I am also
thankfultothetypesettingteamfortheirhard work.Iamthankfultomyresearch
scholars Dilip, Amit, and Manish for the help extended in proof reading process.
My sincere thanks to Prof. Anupam Dewan for all the help extended during the
publication process. I am thankful to my colleagues at the Department of Civil
Engineering—Indian Institute of Technology Delhi.
I am thankful to my friend and philosopher Prof. Lalit Manral—Assistant
Professor of Strategic Management at University of Central Oklahoma for
inspiring me to take up the academic profession. I am always motivated by his
maverick approach in different walks of life. No words can suitably express my
gratitudetowardmyparentsforwhattheyhavedoneallthroughtheseyears.Last
butnottheleast;IamthankfultoArti(wife),Srijan(elderson)andSajal(younger
son) for their continued support.
Kumar Neeraj Jha
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 A Construction Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Phases of a Construction Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 Understanding Project Success. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.4 Criteria for Project Performance Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.5 Need for the Study. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.6 Research Objectives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.7 Organization of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2 Research Method. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2 Need for Questionnaire Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.3 Development of First Stage Questionnaire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.3.1 Respondent’s Personal Details and Professional
Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.3.2 Project Details and Traits of a Project Coordinator . . . 17
2.3.3 Relative Importance of Various Project Stages . . . . . . 21
2.3.4 Relative Importance of Project Performance
Evaluation Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.3.5 Project Performance Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.3.6 Coordination Activities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.3.7 Parameters Influencing Coordination . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.4 Development of Second Stage Questionnaire. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.4.1 Personal and Project Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.4.2 Project Performance Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.4.3 Important Coordination Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.5 Responses Received. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.5.1 First Stage Questionnaire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.5.2 Second Stage Questionnaire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.6 Analysis Techniques. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.6.1 Univariate Analyses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.6.2 Multivariate Analyses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
ix
x Contents
2.6.3 Artificial Neural Network. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.6.4 Structural Equation Modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3 Major Attributes of Project Performance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.2 Success Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.3 Failure Attributes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.4 Identification of Relative Importance of Project
Performance Attributes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.5 Intrinsic Characteristics of Success and Failure Attributes. . . . . 56
3.6 Success Factors: Schedule Criterion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
3.6.1 Project Manager’s Competence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
3.6.2 Top Management Support. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3.6.3 Monitoring, Feedback, and Coordination. . . . . . . . . . . 59
3.6.4 Favorable Working Condition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.6.5 Commitment of All Project Participants . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.6.6 Owners Competence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.7 Failure Factors: Schedule Criterion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.7.1 Conflict Among Project Participants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.7.2 Project Manager’s Ignorance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
3.7.3 Hostile Socio-Economic Environment. . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
3.7.4 Owner’s Incompetence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
3.7.5 Indecisiveness of Project Participants. . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
3.7.6 Harsh Climatic Condition at Site. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
3.7.7 Project Specific Factor and Aggressive
Competition at Tender Stage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.8 Success Factors: Cost Criterion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.8.1 Project Manager’s Competence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.8.2 Top Management Support. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.8.3 Project Manager’s Coordinating
and Leadership Skill. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.8.4 Monitoring and Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
3.8.5 Coordination Between Project Participants . . . . . . . . . 66
3.8.6 Commitment of Project Participants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
3.8.7 Owner’s Competence and Favorable
Climatic Condition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.9 Failure Factors: Cost Criterion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.9.1 Conflict Among Project Participants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.9.2 Ignorance and Lack of Knowledge
of Project Manager. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.9.3 Project Specific Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
3.9.4 Hostile Socio Economic and Climatic Condition . . . . . 69
3.9.5 Reluctance in Timely Decision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69