Share:


How to get international construction projects delivered on time: from Chinese contractors’ perspective

    Hongxin Sun Affiliation
    ; Wenzhe Tang Affiliation
    ; Colin F. Duffield Affiliation
    ; Lihai Zhang Affiliation
    ; Felix Kin Peng Hui Affiliation

Abstract

67.9% of Chinese international construction projects are seriously delayed, which creates the potential for instability in its rapidly growing share of global contracting markets. A greater understanding of the reasons behind the challenges confronting international contractors is urgently required such that improvements can be developed that ultimately will benefit many countries. This study aims to investigate the time performance of international projects in developing countries and to explore the root causes of time overrun. Based on both quantitative and qualitative analysis of 112 case study projects, collected from 12 of the largest Chinse state-owned enterprises (SOEs), this study identifies the distinctive characteristics of three types of projects (late, acceptable, early) classified based on their time performances. It is established that time performance is significantly related to the contractor’s adaptability and project complexity. The results reveal the root causes of construction delays in international project delivery, which provides a structured and in-depth understanding of both internal and external time performance influential factors. The above findings provide sound basis for guiding practitioners in choosing appropriate strategies to improve project time performance, such as encouraging cross-cultural dialogues, integrating global resources and establishing long-term global partnerships with stakeholders.

Keyword : time performance, international construction, project management, construction delays, project environment, developing countries, Chinese contractors

How to Cite
Sun, H., Tang, W., Duffield, C. F., Zhang, L., & Hui, F. K. P. (2022). How to get international construction projects delivered on time: from Chinese contractors’ perspective. Journal of Civil Engineering and Management, 28(2), 134–149. https://doi.org/10.3846/jcem.2022.16381
Published in Issue
Feb 2, 2022
Abstract Views
1118
PDF Downloads
878
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

References

Abd El-Razek, M. E., Bassioni, H. A., & Mobarak, A. M. (2008). Causes of delay in building construction projects in Egypt. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 134(11), 831–841. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9364(2008)134:11(831)

Adekunle, O., & Ajibola, W. K. (2015). Factorial causative assesments and effects of building construction project delays in Osun state, Nigeria. Journal of Architectural Engineering Technology, 4(3), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.4172/2168-9717.1000150

Ahmed, S. M., Azhar, S., Castillo, M., & Kappagantula, P. (2002). Construction delays in Florida: An empirical study. Department of Community Affairs, Florida, US.

Akinsiku, O. E., & Akinsulire, A. (2012). Stakeholders’ perception of the causes and effects of construction delays on project delivery. Journal of Construction Engineering and Project Management, 2(4), 25–31. https://doi.org/10.6106/JCEPM.2012.2.4.025

Al-Sultan, A.S. (1989). Determination of construction contract duration for public projects in Saudi Arabia [Doctoral dissertation]. King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals.

Al‐Kharashi, A., & Skitmore, M. (2009). Causes of delays in Saudi Arabian public sector construction projects. Construction Management and Economics, 27(1), 3–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/01446190802541457

Al Tabtabai, H. M. (2002). Causes for delays in construction projects in Kuwait. Engineering Journal of Qatar University, 15, 19–37.

Ali, F., Dissanayake, D., Bell, M., & Farrow, M. (2018). Investigating car users’ attitudes to climate change using multiple correspondence analysis. Journal of Transport Geography, 72, 237–247. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2018.09.007

Alinaitwe, H., Apolot, R., & Tindiwensi, D. (2013). Investigation into the causes of delays and cost overruns in Uganda’s public sector construction projects. Journal of Construction in Developing Countries, 18(2), 33–47.

Alotaibi, N. O. M. (2018). Managing critical factors causing delays in public construction projects in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia [Doctoral dissertation]. Curtin University.

Ameh, O. J., Soyingbe, A. A., & Odusami, K. T. (2010). Significant factors causing cost overruns in telecommunication projects in Nigeria. Journal of Construction in Developing Countries, 15(2), 49–67.

Anastasopoulos, P. C., Labi, S., Bhargava, A., & Mannering, F. L. (2012). Empirical assessment of the likelihood and duration of highway project time delays. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 138(3), 390–398. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0000437

Anderson, G., Anderson, G. J., & Arsenault, N. (1998). Fundamentals of educational research. RoutledgeFalmer.

Arditi, D., Akan, G. T., & Gurdamar, S. (1985). Reasons for delays in public projects in Turkey. Construction Management and Economics, 3(2), 171–181. https://doi.org/10.1080/01446198500000013

Asnaashari, E., Knight, A., Hurst, A., & Farahani, S. S. (2009). Causes of construction delays in Iran: Project management, logistics, technology and environment. In Proceedings of 25th Annual ARCOM Conference, Nottingham, UK.

Bhandari, S., & Hallowell, M. R. (2021). Identifying and controlling biases in expert-opinion research: Guidelines for variations of Delphi, Nominal group technique, and focus groups. Journal of Management in Engineering, 37(3), 04021015. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)ME.1943-5479.0000909

Chen, Y. Q., Liu, J. Y., Li, B., & Lin, B. (2011). Project delivery system selection of construction projects in China. Expert Systems with Applications, 8(5), 5456–5462. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2010.10.008

Cho, K. M., Hong, T. H., & Hyun, C. T. (2009). Effect of project characteristics on project performance in construction projects based on structural equation model. Expert Systems with Applications, 36(7), 10461–10470. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2009.01.032

Cox, R. F., Issa, R. R. A., & Ahrens, D. (2003). Management’s perception of key performance indicators for construction. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 129(2), 142–151. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9364(2003)129:2(142)

Dhalmahapatra, K., Shingade, R., Mahajan, H., Verma, A., & Maiti, J. (2019). Decision support system for safety improvement: an approach using multiple correspondence analysis, t-SNE algorithm and K-means clustering. Computers & Industrial Engineering, 128, 277–289. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cie.2018.12.044

Engineering News-Record. (2014). The global sourcebook. McGraw Hill.

Engineering News-Record. (2015). The global sourcebook. McGraw Hill.

Engineering News-Record. (2016). The global sourcebook. McGraw Hill.

Engineering News-Record. (2017). The global sourcebook. McGraw Hill.

Engineering News-Record. (2018). The global sourcebook. McGraw Hill.

Faridi, A. S., & El‐Sayegh, S. M. (2006). Significant factors causing delay in the UAE construction industry. Construction Management and Economics, 24(11), 1167–1176. https://doi.org/10.1080/01446190600827033

Frimpong, Y., Oluwoye, J., & Crawford, L. (2003). Causes of delay and cost overruns in construction of groundwater projects in a developing countries: Ghana as a case study. International Journal of Project Management, 21(5), 321–326. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0263-7863(02)00055-8

Gillham, B. (2000). Case study research methods. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Gonzalez, P., González, V., Molenaar, K., & Orozco, F. (2014). Analysis of causes of delay and time performance in construction projects. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 140(1), 4013027. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0000721

Gunduz, M., & AbuHassan, M. H. (2016). Causes of construction delays in Qatar construction projects. International Journal of Civil Engineering, 10(4), 531–536.

Gunhan, S., & Arditi, D. (2005). Factors affecting international construction. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 131(3), 273–282. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9364(2005)131:3(273)

Hasan, R. A. M. (2014). An investigation into the delays in road projects in Bahrain [Doctoral dissertation]. University of Bahrain.

Haseeb, M., Bibi, A., & Rabbani, W. (2011). Problems of projects and effects of delays in the construction industry of Pakistan. Australian Journal of Business and Management Research, 1(5), 41–50. https://doi.org/10.52283/NSWRCA.AJBMR.20110106A05

Hossain, M. S., Rahim, N. A., Aman, M. M., & Selvaraj, J. (2019). Application of ANOVA method to study solar energy for hydrogen production. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 44(29), 14571–14579. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2019.04.028

IBM. (2020). Transforming variable to normality for parametric statistics. https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/transforming-variable-normality-parametric-statistics

Javernick-Will, A. N., & Scott, W. R. (2010). Who needs to know what? Institutional knowledge and global projects. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 136(5), 546–557. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0000035

Jobson, J. D. (2012). Applied multivariate data analysis. Volume II: Categorical and multivariate methods. Springer Science & Business Media.

Kadry, M., Osman, H., & Georgy, M. (2017). Causes of construction delays in countries with high geopolitical risks. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 143(2), 04016095. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0001222

Kaka, A., & Price, A. D. F. (1991). Relationship between value and duration of construction projects. Construction Management and Economics, 9(4), 383–400. https://doi.org/10.1080/01446199100000030

Kaliba, C., Muya, M., & Mumba, K. (2009). Cost escalation and schedule delays in road construction projects in Zambia. International Journal of Project Management, 27(5), 522–531. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2008.07.003

Kazaz, A., Ulubeyli, S., & Tuncbilekli, N. A. (2012). Causes of delays in construction projects in Turkey. Journal of Civil Engineering and Management, 18(3), 426–435. https://doi.org/10.3846/13923730.2012.698913

Khoshgoftar, M., Bakar, A. H. A., & Osman, O. (2010). Causes of delays in Iranian construction projects. International Journal of Construction Management, 10(2), 53–69. https://doi.org/10.1080/15623599.2010.10773144

Kikwasi, G. (2012). Causes and effects of delays and disruptions in construction projects in Tanzania. Australasian Journal of Construction Economics and Building (Conference Series), 1(2), 52–59. https://doi.org/10.5130/ajceb-cs.v1i2.3166

Kim, Y.-M., Kim, S.-Y., & Luu, T.-V. (2008). Causes of construction delays of apartment construction projects: Comparative analysis between Vietnam and Korea. Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 9(5), 214–226.

Koushki, P. A., & Kartam, N. (2004). Impact of construction materials on project time and cost in Kuwait. Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, 11(2), 126–132. https://doi.org/10.1108/09699980410527867

Latham, S. M. (1994). Constructing the team. HSMO, London.

Le-Hoai, L., Dai Lee, Y., & Lee, J. Y. (2008). Delay and cost overruns in Vietnam large construction projects: A comparison with other selected countries. KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering, 12(6), 367–377. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12205-008-0367-7

Lei, Z., Tang, W., Duffield, C., Zhang, L., & Hui, F. K. P. (2017). The impact of technical standards on international project performance: Chinese contractors’ experience. International Journal of Project Management, 35(8), 1597–1607. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2017.09.002

Liu, A., Lu, C., & Wang, Z. (2020). The roles of cultural and institutional distance in international trade: Evidence from China’s trade with the Belt and Road countries. China Economic Review, 61, 101234. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chieco.2018.10.001

Mahalingam, A., & Levitt, R. E. (2007). Institutional theory as a framework for analyzing conflicts on global projects. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 133(7), 517–528. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9364(2007)133:7(517

Male, S. (2003). Faster building for commerce: NEDO (1988). In M. Murray, & D. Langford (Eds), Construction reports 1944-98 (pp. 130–144). Blackwell Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470758526.ch10

Marzouk, M., El-Dokhmasey, A., & El-Said, M. (2008). Assessing construction engineering-related delays: Egyptian perspective. Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice, 134(3), 315–326. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)1052-3928(2008)134:3(315)

Merrow, E. W. (2011). Industrial megaprojects. Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119201045

Mezher, T. M., & Tawil, W. (1998). Causes of delays in the construction industry in Lebanon. Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, 5(3), 252–260. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb021079

Molugaram, K., Rao, G. S., Shah, A., & Davergave, N. (2017). Statistical techniques for transportation engineering. Butterworth-Heinemann.

Odeyinka, H. A., Oladapo, A., & Dada, J. O. (2004). An assessment of risk in construction in the Nigerian construction industry. In International Symposium on Globalisation and Construction (pp. 359–368).

Ogunlana, S. O., Promkuntong, K., & Jearkjirm, V. (1996). Construction delays in a fast-growing economy: comparing Thailand with other economies. International Journal of Project Management, 14(1), 37–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/0263-7863(95)00052-6

Orozco, F. A., Serpell, A. F., Molenaar, K. R., & Forcael, E. (2014). Modeling competitiveness factors and indexes for construction companies: Findings of Chile. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 140(4), B4013002. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0000462

Othman, A. A., Torrance, J. V., & Hamid, M. A. (2006). Factors influencing the construction time of civil engineering projects in Malaysia. Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, 13(5), 481–501. https://doi.org/10.1108/09699980610690756

Pourrostam, T., & Ismail, A. (2011). Study of methods for minimizing construction delays: Evidences from a developing country. Advanced Mate-rials Research, 201–203, 2939–2942. https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.201-203.2939

Ramcharran, H. (1998). Obstacles and opportunities in international engineering services. Journal of Management in Engineering, 14(5), 38–47. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0742-597X(1998)14:5(38)

Rahman, I. A., Memon, A. H., Nagapan, S., Latif, Q. B. A. I., & Azis, A. A. A. (2012). Time and cost performance of construction projects in southern and central regions of Penisular Malaysia. In 2012 IEEE Colloquium on Humanities, Science and Engineering (CHUSER) (pp. 52–57), Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. https://doi.org/10.1109/CHUSER.2012.6504280

Richards, G., & van der Ark, L. A. (2013). Dimensions of cultural consumption among tourists: Multiple correspondence analysis. Tourism Management, 37, 71–76. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2013.01.007

Rwelamila, P. D., & Hall, K. A. (1995). Total systems intervention: an integrated approach to time, cost and quality management. Construction Management and Economics, 13(3), 235–241. https://doi.org/10.1080/01446199500000027

Sambasivan, M., & Soon, Y. W. (2007). Causes and effects of delays in Malaysian construction industry. International Journal of Project Management, 25(5), 517–526. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2006.11.007

Sambasivan, M., Deepak, T. J., Salim, A. N., & Ponniah, V. (2017). Analysis of delays in Tanzanian construction industry. Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, 24(2), 308–325. https://doi.org/10.1108/ECAM-09-2015-0145

Santoso, D. S., & Soeng, S. (2016). Analyzing delays of road construction projects in Cambodia: Causes and effects. Journal of Management in Engineering, 32(6), 05016020. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)ME.1943-5479.0000467

Seboru, M. A. (2006). An investigation into factors causing delays in road construction projects in Kenya [Doctoral dissertation]. University of Nairobi.

Seboru, M. A. (2015). An investigation into factors causing delays in road construction projects in Kenya. American Journal of Civil Engineering, 3(3), 51–63. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajce.20150303.11

Semple, C., Hartman, F. T., & Jergeas, G. (1994). Construction claims and disputes: causes and cost/time overruns. Journal of Construction Engi-neering and Management, 120(4), 785–795. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9364(1994)120:4(785)

Smalheiser, N. (2017). Data literacy: How to make your experiments robust and reproducible. Academic Press.

Talukhaba, A. A. (1999). An investigation into factors causing construction project delays in Kenya [Doctoral dissertation]. University of Nairobi.

Toor, S., & Ogunlana, S. O. (2008). Problems causing delays in major construction projects in Thailand. Construction Management and Economics, 26(4), 395–408. https://doi.org/10.1080/01446190801905406

Walker, D. H. T. (1995). An investigation into construction time performance. Construction Management and Economics, 13(3), 263–274. https://doi.org/10.1080/01446199500000030

World Bank. (2019). Belt and road economics: Opportunities and risks of transport corridors. Washington, DC, USA.

Wright, J. N. (1997). Time and budget: The twin imperatives of a project sponsor. International Journal of Project Management, 15(3), 181–186. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0263-7863(96)00059-2

Yin, R. K. (2017). Case study research and applications: Design and methods. SAGE Publishing.