scholarly journals Construction Risks in Developing Countries: A Vietnam Case Study

Author(s):  
Nguyen Le ◽  
Oswald Chong ◽  
Kenneth Sullivan

Most construction projects in the developing countries are marred with delays, cost overruns and low satisfaction levels. This paper focuses on analysis of the data collected from a survey that include the twenty-three (23) common risk factors that cause non-performance in construction projects in developing countries. The factors were consolidated from an extensive literature review, and inputs were solicited from 103 construction practitioners in Vietnam. The study reveals the top five risk factors as the bureaucratic administrative system, financial difficulties of owner, slow payment of completed works, poor contractor performance, financial difficulties of contractor. Spearman’s rank-order correlation tests determined no significant differences between the participating groups. Factor analysis explored the correlations among the risks and yielded four outcomes – Lack of Site and Legal Information, Lack of Capable Managers, Poor Deliverables Quality, and Owner’s Financial Incapability. The findings lay the foundation for stakeholders in the developing countries’ construction industry to better plan and manage the risks for their projects and investment and develop innovative solutions to improve their construction project performances.

Author(s):  
Nguyen Le ◽  
Oswald Chong ◽  
Dean Kashiwagi

Despite being one of the oldest industries in human history, the modern construction industry is still suffering from delays, cost overruns, and low satisfaction levels. As construction activities greatly contribute to economic growth for any nation, the study of how to achieve success in construction projects should be continuously developing and attracting scholars’ attention. The Vietnam Construction Industry (VCI) is no exception. The economy in Vietnam has been growing fast and steady with significant contributions from construction activities. The VCI also faces unique risks pertaining to the conditions of developing countries that require a separate study on project risk management strategies. This paper focuses on a survey that is adopted from 23 Critical Success Factors (CSFs) pertaining to common construction risks in the VCI. Factors were found through extensive literature reviews, and inputs were solicited from 101 VCI participants. The participants ranked those CSFs with respect to impact to project success. The study reveals the top five impactful CSFs such as all project parties clearly understand their responsibilities, more serious consideration during contractor selection stage, test contractors’ experience and competency through successful projects in the past, project team members need to be well matched to particular projects, and promote pre-qualification of tenders and selective bidding. Spearman’s rank-order correlation tests determined no significant differences between the participating groups. Factor analysis was conducted to explore the principal success factor groupings and yielded four outcomes – Improving Management Capability, Adequate Pre-Planning, Stakeholders’ Management, and Performance-based Procurement. The findings lay the foundation to understand project management in developing countries and assist project managers in planning and forming strategies to ensure high performance in their projects.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 846-861 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mukhtar A. Kassem ◽  
Muhamad Azry Khoiry ◽  
Noraini Hamzah

Purpose This study aims to investigate the risk factors in construction projects in oil and gas processing facilities in Yemen and serves as a case study for developing countries. Design/methodology/approach By using a questionnaire, data were collected from 201 project managers and engineers employed in different sectors in the oil and gas industry in Yemen. Findings The survey analysis based on Kruskal–Wallis test method shows a high degree of agreement on the perceptions of risk factors depending on categories of companies. In other words, the tested risk factors exist in all sectors of oil companies in Yemen and are valid as a measure of risk factors in construction projects in oil and gas organizations in general. Although no evidence suggests that the risk factors differ significantly according to job title, the result of identifiable risk factors according to experience shows a statistically significant difference among participants in terms of their experience. The relative importance of the ranking of risk factors was obtained by the statistical analysis of responses on the impact and likelihood of occurrence of these risks. Findings show that internal risks are the greatest influential factors in construction projects in the oil and gas sector, followed by changes during construction project, government instability, incorrect project cost estimation, government delay in decision making, incorrect project schedule estimation, and political situation and war in the country. Originality/value These findings are valuable to organizations that are planning to conduct construction projects for oil and gas processing facilities in Yemen and other nations with similar environments, such as developing countries.


Author(s):  
Mostafa Namian ◽  
Mohammad Khalid ◽  
George Wang ◽  
Yelda Turkan

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have gained their prevalent recognition in construction because of their exceptional advantages. Despite the increasing use of UAVs in the industry and their remarkable benefits, there are serious potential safety risks associated that have been overlooked. Construction is one of the most hazardous industries in the United States. In addition to the ordinary hazards normally present in dynamic construction workplaces, UAVs can expose workers to a wider range of never-before-seen safety risks that must be recognized and controlled. The industry is not equipped with safety measures to prevent potential accidents, because of scarce research on drone-associated hazards and risks. The aim of this research was to (1) identify the UAV-associated hazards in construction that may expose personnel and property to potential harms, and (2) study the relative impact of each hazard and the associated safety risks. In Phase I, the researchers conducted an extensive literature review and consulted with a construction UAV expert. In Phase II, the researchers obtained data from 54 construction experts validating and evaluating the identified hazards and risks. The results revealed that adopting UAVs can expose construction projects to a variety of hazards that the industry is not familiar with. “Collision with properties,”“collision with humans,” and “distraction” were identified as the top three safety risks. Moreover, the study introduces effective strategies, such as having qualified crew members, proper drone model selection, and drone maintenance, to mitigate the safety risks. Finally, a post-hoc case study was investigated and presented in this article.


2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (8) ◽  
pp. 1045-1059 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mostafa KHANZADI ◽  
Ehsan ESHTEHARDIAN ◽  
Mahdiyar MOKHLESPOUR ESFAHANI

Cash-flow management is very important for contractors given that inadequate cash resources typically are the main causes for bankruptcy of construction companies. In comparison to most other industries, the construction industry is severely plagued by risk, and the success of construction projects usually depends on valuating all risks. However, conventional methods suggested by extant research on cash flow forecasting do not consider comprehensive identifica­tion of risk factors, interactions between the factors, and simultaneous occurrences of the factors. This study introduced a simple and appropriate probabilistic cash flow forecasting model using Bayesian Belief Networks (BBNs) to avoid bankruptcy of contractors by considering influence diagrams and risk factors that affect a project. Workability and reli­ability of the proposed approach was tested on an important building construction project in Iran as a real case study, and the results indicated that the model performed well.


2013 ◽  
Vol 684 ◽  
pp. 639-643 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alireza Ghaffari

The construction project is a complex sector which characterized with low productivity, cost and time overruns and conflicts. The major challenges in construction project risk assessment which may attributed to knowledge requirements for determining the level of uncertainty and development of complex models to predict . Portfolio theory and capital market theory stipulate that risk consists of two types, First, systematic risk, which cannot be controlled, emanates from external factors such as acts of God, natural disasters, market risk, interest-rate risk, and purchasing-power risk. Second, unsystematic risk, which can be controlled, relates to organization-specific factors such as business risk and financial risk (Fischer and Jordan 1996).) . To identifies the risk factors that influence the cost-effective management, operation, and maintenance of construction project, as well as how and when in the project life cycle the identified risk factors impact to the associated costs . The identification and design of risk is the first step of risk management. It contain the recognition of potential risk event conditions in a project and the clarification of risk responsibilities. A total of 50 risk factors on construction for stake holders (client , contractor ,consultant ) share projects were identified after conducting an extensive literature survey. A questionnaire survey was conducted from 60 project managers(20 from each category) in all three proficiencies with background experience in buildings ,road and bridges with minimum 15 years experience , to identify the most significant risk factors impact in construction projects . Interviews were conducted face to face, ensuring a 100 percent response rate. The questionnaire was amended by incorporating feedback of the experts to suit the local environments of the construction industry. The weight or rate of each risk factor gained by using a five-point Liker scale from a consolidated conceptual framework of all 50 risk factors identified from the deep literature work . The main aim of these research is to identify ,categorize and ranking common risks, exert management techniques to address those risks , effective risk management and risk status in the construction industry and to help stakeholders to take stock of their ongoing and future projects, with a focus on important risks, their management techniques and barriers to effective implementation of risk management systems.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 5237-5241 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. T. Nguyen ◽  
P. C. Nguyen

The constant demand for construction in developing countries like Vietnam causes more and more challenges and difficulties to Project Management Units (PMUs) in carrying projects to completion on schedule, with quality assurance and fewer costs. In order to do this, PMUs need to have better and tighter management tools and forms. However, in order to minimize risks during project implementation, the binding terms in contracts are also becoming stricter with more and more new forms of contracts. One of them is the design-build (DB) contract form. This paper presents the critical risk factors for design-build projects in the construction industry. Good identification and management of these risk factors will help projects succeed and will increase the confidence of owners and contractors who seek to use the design-build form.


2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (6) ◽  
pp. 596-621 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Ballesteros-Pérez ◽  
Maria Luisa del Campo-Hitschfeld ◽  
Manuel Alejandro González-Naranjo ◽  
Mari Carmen González-Cruz

Purpose – Construction projects usually suffer delays, and the causes of these delays and its cost overruns have been widely discussed, the weather being one of the most recurrent. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of climate on standard construction work activities through a case study. Design/methodology/approach – By studying the extent at which some weather variables impede outdoor work from being effectively executed, new maps and tables for planning for delays are presented. In addition, a real case regarding the construction of several bridges in southern Chile is analyzed. Findings – Few studies have thoroughly addressed the influences of major climatic agents on the most common outdoor construction activities. The method detailed here provides a first approximation for construction planners to assess to what extent construction productivity will be influenced by the climate. Research limitations/implications – Although this study was performed in Chile, the simplified method proposed is entirely transferable to any other country, however, other weather or combinations of weather variables could be needed in other environments or countries. Practical implications – The implications will help reducing the negative social, economic and environmental outcomes that usually emerge from project delays. Originality/value – Climatic data were processed using extremely simple calculations to create a series of quantitative maps and tables that would be useful for any construction planner to decide the best moment of the year to start a project and, if possible, where to build it.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roswitha Heinrich-Weltzien ◽  
Carsten Zorn ◽  
Bella Monse ◽  
Katrin Kromeyer-Hauschild

In the present study, we determined whether there is a delay in the eruption of permanent teeth (PT) among Filipino adolescents with stunting or thinness. Height, weight, and number of PT were recorded in 1554 Filipino 10- to 13-year-olds (711 boys; 843 girls).z-scores for height (HAZ) and body mass index (BMI) were calculated according to the WHO growth reference, and their correlations to the number of PT were assessed. 54.9% of the children have at least one form of malnutrition. Significantly, more boys (22.9%) than girls (16.5%) were thin, while no sex difference in stunting was noted (boys 48.5%; girls 44.0%). The number of PT was significantly correlated to HAZ and BMI-z-score. Stunted and thin students had significantly fewer PT than their nonaffected peers. These differences tended to be the result of delay in tooth eruption in thin and stunted adolescents. In 13-year-old girls, all PT were erupted regardless of their nutritional status indicating a catch-up. Thin and stunted boys had one tooth less than normal boys at this age. Impaired physical growth and dental development seem to have common risk factors. Therefore, regular monitoring of growth and dental development might be helpful for targeting support programmes in developing countries.


2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roya DERAKHSHANALAVIJEH ◽  
Jose Manuel Cardoso TEIXEIRA

Cost overrun in construction projects is a common issue affecting project performance, and Gas-Oil con­struction projects in Iran are no exception. This paper presents the results of a questionnaire conducted to identify and evaluate the relative importance of the significant factors contributing to the Gas-Oil construction industry of Iran as a case study for developing countries. The survey respondents included project owners, contractors and consultants in­volved in Iranian Gas-Oil construction projects. The results of the survey revealed that the main causes of cost overrun in this industry include inaccurate cost estimations, improper planning, frequent design changes, inadequate labour/skill availability, inflation of costs of machinery, labour, raw material and transportation prices. The first three factors are the project consultants’ responsibility and the appointment of qualified consultants and personnel training are strongly recommended to alleviate cost overrun. The paper also reviews and compares findings of a set of similar researches in a number of developing countries.


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