Collaboration in the Ghanaian construction industry: perceived barriers and benefits

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Date
NOVEMBER 2016
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Abstract
The construction industry involves high risk-taking activities that result in cost overruns, low productivity, litigation, ineffective communication and construction delays. However, the introduction of collaboration in the construction industry has been frequently used as an inventive approach towards the achievement of quality in project delivery and as a remedy for the pitfalls of the conventional approaches of procurement in the industry of construction. This is a quantitative study that was carried out in some construction firms in the Kumasi Metropolis with an aim of exploring the perceived barriers and benefits of collaboration in the Ghanaian construction industry. The primary research was conducted using design survey questionnaires. These were structured questionnaires used to obtain data to ascertain the barriers and benefits of collaboration in the Ghanaian construction industry. A total number of seventy questionnaires were administered and sixty were retrieved representing a response rate of 85.71%. Relative Importance Index rankings was the main tool used for analysis. The findings of the research revealed that fear of micromanagement, lack of common goals, complacency in collaboration, past negative experience with collaboration and lack of trust among partners were the main barriers to collaboration in the Ghanaian construction industry. However, the main benefits associated with collaboration in the Ghanaian construction industry were also disclosed as total cost perspective in collaboration, technical expertise by partners, availability of resources in collaborations, equal empowerment in collaboration and productive conflict resolution strategy. Future studies to promote collaboration in the construction industry such as strategies to improve collaboration in the construction industry were also proposed
Description
A thesis submitted to the Department of Building Technology, College of Art and Built Environment in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science,
Keywords
Construction, Ghana, Benefits, Barriers, Collaboration
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