An exploratory study into relationship types between building contractors and material suppliers in the Ghanaian Construction Industry

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Date
November, 2016
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Buyer-supplier relationship can enhance competitive market amongst the participants and thus increasing their economic performance. Different projects may exhibit different relationships that exist between the contractors and suppliers and as such the construction field has been exposed to various challenges and conflicts resulting from misunderstandings about the roles and obligations of the players. This research study therefore focused on the exploration of relationship types that exist between building contractors and material suppliers in the Ghanaian construction industry. In order to achieve the above stipulated aim, three main objectives were carved out. This research work made use of survey questionnaires to acquire the appropriate desired data among D3K3 and D4K4 contractors in the Greater Accra Region. Adopting a purposive and convenience sampling technique a total of 60 questionnaires was distributed among the targeted population. The results of the survey showed that transactions relationship was the most often engaged relationship type with the second ranked relationship type being project collaboration. The analysis further showed that delays was a major factor influencing the selection of relationship types in the construction industry. The second most important variable influencing relationship type was trust. The findings indicate that the in terms of quality, the ideal relationship type is ‘project collaboration’. As project collaboration is touted to be one of the relationships considered to engender growing relationship, this type of relationship is recommended for the Ghanaian construction industry. It is recommended that further research work may explore innovative relationship types between contractors and suppliers in the Ghanaian construction industry.
Description
A thesis submitted to the Department of Building Technology, College of Art and Built Environment in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science.
Keywords
Relationships, Contractors, Suppliers, Types
Citation