n4577302 cover page - Core

IT Enhanced Communication Protocols for Building Project Management By Small and Medium Enterprises In The Indian Construction Industry

By

Vanita Ahuja Bachelor of Architecture Masters in Building Science and Construction Management

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2007

QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

School of Urban Development Faculty of Built Environment and Engineering

ABSTRACT AND KEY WORDS

The Research has developed protocols for effective adoption of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) for Building Project Management by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the Indian construction industry.

Project Managers are required to facilitate the integration of work of all the agencies and project team organizations are geographically separated beyond national boundaries or in context of large countries like India, within the national boundaries. In doing so, there is a need to make better use of information and knowledge generated in all stages of development. The key to project information management is the information flow associated with inter-organizational communication and the effectiveness of the project manager to communicate with and feedback to the rest of the project team throughout the project life cycle. Better communication can be achieved by using computer tools for effective

data

processing

and

information

management,

through

Information

Communicatio n Technologies (ICT). As the majority of the construction organizations are Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), the communication management research is required to address management and communication processes adopted by SMEs. These issues can be addressed by global research, but also require clear understanding of the management and communication processes followed by SMEs of each distinct regional area or country.

The research was conducted through a sequential mixed methods approach focusing on collecting and analyzing both quantitative and qualitative data in the study in a sequential manner. To develop a balance check mechanism, the research was divided into four phases: Interpretive analysis of perceived benefits of use of ICT for building project management, conducted by Interpretive Structural Modeling analysis; Questionnaire survey data collection and empirical analysis of data including Structural Equation Modeling analysis (quantitative method); Semi-structured interview survey data collection and analysis including Data Envelopment Analysis (quantitative and _______________________________________________________________________ i

qualitative method) and case studies analysis conducted by SAP-LAP analysis (qualitative method) leading to synthesis of the results of the four phases. The purpose of this four-phase, sequential mixed methods study was to start with the pragmatic assumptions; obtain statistical, quantitative results from a broad sample of organizations to analyze or study research variables at industry and organization levels and then follow up with a few organizations and projects to study the research variables at the level of the organization and people.

Synthesis of the knowledge enhancement from the literature survey, data analysis results and their interpretation led to the proposed ‘IT Enhanced Communication Protocols for Building Project Management’. The protocols are proposed as a ‘Strategic Model for Enhancing ICT Diffusion in Building Projects’. The model is based on Everett Rogers’s ‘Diffusions of innovations theory’ and is formulated at three levels of study i.e industry, organization and people. It is discussed as a generic framework of five stages of Roger’s ‘Diffusions of innovations theory’ i.e Knowledge, Persuasion, Decision, Implementation and Confirmation.

Keywords: building project management, ICT, Indian construction industry, SMEs

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Title Page Abstract and Key Words Table of Contents List of Figures List of Tables List of Abbreviations and Acronyms Acknowledgement Publications Statement of Original Authorship

Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Research Background 1.1.1 Building Project Management and ICT 1.1.2 ICT Adoption in the Construction Industry and Research Requirements 1.1.3 IT Enhanced communication protocols 1.2 Research Problem, Aim and Objectives 1.2.1 Research Aim 1.2.2 Research Objectives 1.3 Research Overview 1.4 Delimitation of Scope 1.5 Outline of the Thesis 1.6 Summary

Chapter 2: Literature Review 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Construction Information and ICT 2.3 ICT and Building Project Management 2.4 ICT Tools and Technologies 2.5 Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and the Indian Construction Industry 2.5.1 Definition of SMEs 2.5.2 SMEs and the construction Industry 2.5.3 Characteristics and Specific Requirements of SMEs 2.5.4 Indian Construction Industry 2.6 Characteristics of Global Research and Research in India 2.7 Strategic Adoption of ICT in the Construction Industry 2.7.1 Requirement of Strategic Adoption of ICT by the Construction Industry at the Level of each Organization and at the Industry Level 2.7.2 Benchmarking a Strategic Tool 2.7.2.1 Benchmarking Definition 2.8 Factors Affecting ICT Adoption for Building Project Management

i iii x xiii xvi xviii xx xxi

1 1 2 4 5 5 6 7 10 11 13

15 16 17 19 23 23 24 25 27 29 32

33 36 39 43

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2.8.1 2.8.2 2.8.3 2.8.4 2.8.5 2.8.6

Strategic Adoption and Diffusion of ICT Cultural Factors Available Technology Training and Education Organization Level Factors Perception Based Factors 2.8.6.1 Perceived Benefits 2.8.6.2 Perceived Barriers 2.8.7 Industry Drivers 2.8.8 Summary of Factors 2.9 Strength of the Contemporary Research 2.10 Gaps in Contemporary Research and Identification of Research Areas 2.11 Summary

Chapter 3: Research Methodology 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Research Variables 3.2.1 Justification of the Chosen Research Variables 3.3 Hypotheses Formulation 3.3.1 Hypotheses Determining Dimensions of Qualitative Factors 3.3.2 Hypotheses of Causal Relationships 3.3.3 Supplementary Hypotheses 3.4 Research Design 3.4.1 Understanding of the Characteristics of Research Problem 3.4.2 Unit of Analysis 3.4.3 Data Collection and Analysis Approach 3.5 Research Methods 3.5.1 Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) 3.5.2 Questionnaire Survey (Industry Level) 3.5.2.1 Questionnaire Design 3.5.2.2 Survey Population 3.5.2.3 Validation of Questionnaire 3.5.2.4 Pilot Survey 3.5.2.5 Survey Administration 3.5.2.6 Data Analysis 3.5.3 Semi-Structured Interview Survey (Organization level) 3.5.3.1 Benchmarking Structure Attributes 3.5.3.2 Benchmarking Framework Administration 3.5.3.3 Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) Technique 3.5.4 Case Studies (Organization and Project level) 3.5.4.1 SAP-LAP Analysis 3.6 Data Analysis Results Synthesis Methodology and Framework for Results Formulation 3.6.1 Categorization of Organizations and People Based on ICT Adoption 3.7 Justification of the Methodology 3.8 Summary

44 46 48 48 49 50 50 51 53 54 56 57 59

61 61 62 64 64 64 65 65 65 67 67 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 82 83 85 88 94 95 99 101 105 106

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Chapter 4: Interpretive Structural Modeling Analysis 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) 4.3 Analysis 4.3.1 Research Variables 4.3.2 Structural Self-Interaction Matrix (S SIM) 4.3.3 Reachability Matrix 4.3.4 Level Partitions 4.3.5 Developing Conical Matrix 4.3.6 ISM Based Model 4.4 MICMAC Analysis 4.5 Discussion and Hypotheses Formulation 4.6 Further Analysis 4.7 Summary

Chapter 5: Questionnaire Survey Data Analysis 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Respondents’ Profile 5.3 Data Reliability 5.4 Hypothesis Testing 5.4.1 Hypotheses Determining Dimensions of Qualitative Factors 5.4.1.1 Hypothesis HD1 5.4.1.2 Hypothesis HD2 and HD3 5.4.1.3 Hypothesis HD4 5.4.1.4 Hypothesis HD5 5.4.1.5 Hypothesis HD6 5.4.2 Hypotheses of Causal Relationships – Hypothesis HR1 5.4.3 Supplementary Hypotheses 5.4.3.1 Hypothesis HS1 5.4.3.2 Hypothesis HS2 5.4.3.3 Hypothesis HS3 5.4.3.4 Hypothesis HS4 5.5 Status of ICT Adoption in the Indian Construction Industry 5.6 Perception Based Data Analysis 5.6.1 Perceived Barriers 5.6.2 Perceived Enablers 5.6.3 Perceived Benefits 5.6.4 Scenario Building for the Industry 5.7 Cultural Factors 5.8 Issues Identified from the Open Ended Questions 5.9 Findings of Data Analysis and Further Analysis Requirement 5.9.1 Identified Issues for Actions Required at the Level of Industry, Organization or People 5.9.2 Cultural Factors that are required to be Considered 5.9.3 Issues that require Further Study 5.10 Summary

109 109 111 111 111 113 116 118 119 123 124 126 126

127 127 130 131 131 131 132 133 134 136 137 140 140 141 144 145 146 153 154 156 159 161 163 168 169 169 174 175 176

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Chapter 6: Structural Equation Modeling Analysis on Questionnaire Survey Data 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Structural Model Derived from the Hypotheses of Causal Relationships 6.3 Model Specification 6.4 Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) 6.5 Data Collection 6.6 Analysis 6.6.1 Data Validity 6.6.2 Statistical Results and Analysis of the Hypothesized Model 6.6.3 Model Modification – Step 1 6.6.4 Model Modification - Step 2 6.6.5 Model Modification – Step 3 (Final Model) 6.7 Discussion and Findings 6.7.1 Discussion 6.7.2 Findings 6.8 Summary

177 177 178 181 183 183 184 184 187 188 190 192 192 195 198

Chapter 7: Benchmarking Framework Development and Case Study Analysis 7.1 Introduction 199 7.2 Benchmarking Framework Development 199 7.2.1 Objectives of the Required Benchmarking Framework 200 7.2.2 Benchmarking Framework Development, Structure and Measurement System 201 7.2.3 Benchmarking Framework and the Organization Management Information Systems 205 7.2.4 Benchmarking Framework Attributes 207 7.3 Benchmarking Process 208 7.4 Benchmarking Framework Administration and Finalization 209 7.4.1 Benchmarked Organizations 209 7.4.2 Benchmarking of Organizations and Analysis 212 7.4.3 Benchmarking Framework Validation and Finalization 225 7.4.4 BenchMeasurement 226 7.4.5 Benchmarking and BenchMeasurement Discussion 230 7.5 Bench Learning - Case Study Analysis 231 7.5.1 Actors 234 7.5.2 Processes 234 7.5.3 Case Study 1: Real Estate Organization (REO) 234 234 7.5.3.1 Introduction 7.5.3.2 ICT Adoption for Building Project Management – 236 Strategic Issues 7.5.3.3 Extent of ICT Adoption for Building Project 236 Management 7.5.3.4 Perceptions of the Senior Managers and Project 237 Managers 7.5.3.5 Factors Perceived as affecting use of ICT for Building 238 Project Management 238 7.5.3.6 Situation ____________________________________________________________________ vi

7.5.3.7 Learning Case Study 2: Project Management Consultancy Organization (PMCO) 7.5.4.1 Introduction 7.5.4.2 ICT Adoption for Building Project Management – Strategic Issues 7.5.4.3 Extent of ICT Adoption for Building Project Management 7.5.4.4 Perceptions of the Senior Managers and Project Managers 7.5.4.5 Factors Perceived as affecting use of ICT for Building Project Management 7.5.4.6 Situation 7.5.4.7 Learning 7.5.5 Case Study 3 – Architectural Organization (AO) 7.5.5.1 Introduction 7.5.5.2 ICT Adoption for Building Project Management – Strategic Issues 7.5.5.3 Extent of ICT Adoption for Building Project Management 7.5.5.4 Perceptions of the Senior Managers and Project Managers 7.5.5.5 Factors Perceived as affecting use of ICT for Building Project Management 7.5.5.6 Situation 7.5.5.7 Learning 7.5.6 Action and Performance 7.5.7 SAP-LAP Synthesis of Case Studies 7.6 Synthesis of the Case Study Analysis Results and Framework for BenchAction and BenchMonitoring 7.7 Discussion 7.8 Suggested Benchmarking Framework with Reference to The Existing Benchmarking Studies 7.9 Summary

240

7.5.4

241 241 242 243 244 244 245 246 248 248 249 249 250 251 252 253 253 257 260 264 266 267

Chapter 8: Interpretation of Data Analysis and Discussions 8.1 Introduction 269 8.2 Synthesis of the Study 269 8.2.1 Status of ICT Adoption for Building Project Management 270 8.2.2 Perceived Barriers, Benefits and Enablers for Effective ICT Adoption 272 8.2.3 Causal Relationships between Factors 275 8.2.4 Cultural Factors 276 8.2.5 Benchmarking Framework Analysis 278 8.3 Model of IT Enhanced Communication Protocols for Building Project Management 285 8.3.1 Industry Level Framework for Planning, Designing and Implementing ‘Strategic Model for Enhancing ICT Diffusion for Building Project Management’ 286 ____________________________________________________________________ vii

8.3.2 Organization Level Framework for Planning, Designing and Implementing ‘Strategic Model for Enhancing ICT Diffusion for Building Project Management’ 8.3.2.1 Step 1: Knowledge, Persuasion and Decision 8.3.2.2 Step 2: Finalization and Implementation of the Strategy for ICT Adoption for Building Project Management 8.3.2.3 Step 3: Planning 8.3.2.4 Step 4: System Design and preparation of organization for the new system 8.3.2.5 Step 5: Familiarizing associating organizations with the system adopted 8.3.2.6 Step 6: Pilot Implementation 8.3.2.7 Step 7: System Implementation 8.3.2.8 Step 8: Post Implementation System Monitoring 8.3.3 Framework at the Level of Construction Professionals or People 8.3.4 Discussio n 8.4 Summary

Chapter 9: Summary and Conclusions 9.1 Introduction 9.2 Summary of Research Findings 9.2.1 Summary of Research Process 9.2.2 Summary with Respect to Research Objectives 9.2.2.1 Research objectives (i,ii) 9.2.2.2 Research objective (iii - v) 9.2.2.3 Research objective (vi) 9.2.2.4 Research objective (vii) 9.2.2.5 Research objective (viii) 9.2.3 Summary of Data Analysis 9.3 Significant Research Contributions 9.4 Implications and Relevant Research Audience 9.4.1 Implications for National level bodies and Academic Institutions 9.4.2 Implications for Construction Organizations 9.4.3 Implications for People or Project Managers 9.4.4 Implications at International Level 9.5 Limitations of the Research Study 9.5.1 Limitations with respect to the Questionnaire Survey and Data Analysis 9.5.2 Limitations with respect to the Benchmarking Framework Analysis 9.6 Recommendations for Future Research 9.7 Summary

290 292 293 296 296 296 297 297 297 298 299 300

301 301 301 303 304 305 307 307 308 310 313 315 315 316 316 317 317 317 317 318 319

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321

References List of Appendices Appendix A: Appendix B: Appendix C: Appendix D: Appendix E:

Questionnaire Survey Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) Calculations Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) Analysis Data Benchmarking Framework Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) Data

345 363 367 373 379

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LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: Figure 1.2: Figure 2.1: Figure 2.2: Figure 2.3: Figure 3.1: Figure 3.2: Figure 3.3: Figure 3.4: Figure 3.5: Figure 3.6: Figure 3.7: Figure 3.8: Figure 3.9: Figure 3.10: Figure 4.1: Figure 4.2: Figure 5.1: Figure 5.2: Figure 5.3: Figure 5.4: Figure 5.5: Figure 5.6: Figure 5.7: Figure 5.8: Figure 5.9: Figure 5.10: Figure 5.11: Figure 5.12:

Relation between Industry, Organization and People Research Overview Relation of ‘Strategy for ICT Adoption’ with the other Strategies of the Organization Classification of Types of Benchmarking Factors Affecting ICT Adoption for Building Project Management Benchmarking Process Model Graph Explaining the Concept of Efficiency Frontier Graph Showing Production Function of CRS and IRS SAP-LAP Paradigm SAP-LAP Paradigm Synthesizes Analytic as well as Synthetic Mode of Inquiry Rogers’s Five-Stage Model for D iffusion of Innovation Rogers’s Technology Adoption Curve Geofrey Moore’s Modified Technology Adoption Curve Relation between Difficulty of Changing Versus Cost of Change Research Framework ISM Based Model MICMAC Analysis (Driving Power and Dependence Diagram) Distribution of the Respondent Organizations with respect to the Type of Organization Distribution of the Respondent Organizations with Respect to the Size of Organizations Mode of Project Execution by the Respondent Organizations (in last 5 years) Distribution of the Respondents with Respect to Number of Years of Experience Distribution of organizations (in %) for variable ICT adoption on Building Projects Distribution of Respondent Organizations as per the Turnover in Indian Rupees (INR) Percentage of office and site staff with access to computers Distribution of Respondent Organizations for Rate of Increase of IT based Communication in last 5 years Distribution of Organization for the Method of Receiving Bids Distribution of Organizations for formal Time and Cost Management Processes Adoption Mean and Std. Deviation Values of Respondent Organizations for Scores for Formal Time and Cost Management Processes Adoption Method of Communicating Electronic Information within Office and with Project Sites

5 9 33 41 55 87 90 92 98 98 100 102 102 103 107 120 124 128 129 129 130 135 138 146 147 148 149 150 151

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Figure 5.13: Figure 5.14: Figure 5.15:

Figure 5.16: Figure 6.1: Figure 6.2: Figure 6.3: Figure 6.4: Figure 6.5: Figure 6.6: Figure 6.7: Figure 6.8: Figure 7.1: Figure 7.2: Figure 7.3: Figure 7.4: Figure 7.5: Figure 7.6: Figure 7.7: Figure 7.8: Figure 7.9: Figure 7.10: Figure 7.11: Figure 7.12: Figure 7.13: Figure 7.14: Figure 7.15: Figure 7.16: Figure 7.17: Figure 7.18: Figure 8.1: Figure 8.2:

Method of Communicating Electronic Information between Office and other Project Agencies Relation between the groups in which the perceptions are studied Matrix with the Distribution of Organizations for Different Levels of Perceptions of Barriers and Benefits and Results of Scenario Building Identified Issues and Cultural Factors Structural Model Derived from the Hypotheses of Causal Relationships Hypothesized Model to be tested Modified Structural Model – Step 1 Modified Structural Model – Step 2 Standardized Path Coefficients and Factor Loadings of Model Modification - Step 3 (Final Model) Final Structural Model Aggregate Scores of Respondent Organizations for Tools used for Identified Project Management Processes Mean and Std. Deviation of Respondent Organizations for Scores for Tools used for Project Management Processes Relationship between Performance/Measurement Indicators Construction Project Management Organization Structure with Respect to Decision Making and Information Management Benchmarking Framework Indicators Spanning all the Levels of the Organizations Comparison of Performance Measures Values of MI1 Comparison of Performance Measures Values of MI2 Comparison of Performance Measures Values of MI3 Comparison of Performance Measures Values of MI4 Comparison of Performance Measures Values of MI5 Comparison of Performance Measures Values of MI6 Comparison of Performance Measures Values of MI7 Comparison of Performance Measures Values of MI8 Comparison of Measurement Indicator Values for Three Organizations Reference Comparison Values of PMCO with respect to REO Reference Comparison Values of AO with respect to REO Reference Contribution Values of PMCO and AO for Determining Potential Improvement Values of REO Relation between Rating and Efficiency of Analyzed Organizations Relation between all Data Analysis Components Suggested Benchmarking Process Salient Features of the Suggested Benchmarking Framework Categorization of Building Project Management Organizations for ICT Adoption as Derived from the Benchmarking Framework

152 154

162 175

179 181 187 188 192 194 197 197 204 206 207 213 214 215 216 217 219 220 221 222 228 229 230 231 232 263 279

284

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Figure 8.3: Figure 8.4:

Figure 8.5: Figure 9.1: Figure 9.2: Figure 9.3:

Industry Level Framework for Planning, Designing and Implementing ‘Strategic Model for Enhancing ICT Diffusion in Building Projects’ Organization Level Framework for Planning, Designing and Implementing ‘Strategic Model for Enhancing ICT Diffusion in Building Projects’ Schematic Diagram of Model for Diffusion of ICT in the Indian Construction Industry for Buildin g Project Management Categorization of Data Collection and Analysis Techniques and their Relation Input Research Constructs and Output analysis Results at Each Stage of Study Proposed Parameters for Measuring ICT Adoption for Building Project Management by Construction Organizations

287

291 299 303 311 312

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LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: Research Papers Discussing Research Conducted in India for IT Adoption by the Construction Industry Table 2.2: Research Papers Discussing National Level Research Initiatives Table 2.3: Research Papers Discussing International Research in Formulating Methodologies for Evaluating Information Systems in the Construction Industry Table 2.4: Definitions and Salient Features of Benchmarking Table 2.5: Research Papers Discussing Strategic Adoption of ICT in the Construction Industry Table 2.6: Research Papers Discussing Synergy between Technology, Process and Cultural Issues Table 2.7: Research Papers Discussing Perceived Benefits and Barriers of ICT Adoption in the Construction Industry Table 2.8: Summarization of Research Conducted, Research Required and Validation of the Research Objectives Table 3.1: Identification of Micro Variables for the Macro Variables and Type of Study Required for Each Variable Table 3.2: Categorization of Organizations With Respect to Adoption of ICT and the Type of Change Required in the Process Table 4.1: Perceived Benefits of ICT Adoption for Building Project Management Table 4.2: Structural Self Interaction Matrix Table 4.3: Initial Reachability Matrix Table 4.4: Final Reachability Matrix with Transitivities (1 ) Table 4.5: Iteration I Table 4.6: Levels of Benefits Table 4.7: Conical Form of Reachability Matrix Table 5.1: Cronbach’s Alpha Values Table 5.2: Non Parametric Friedman Test for Ranking Extent of Use of ICT between Different Groups Table 5.3: Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test for Comparing Internal and External/collaborative use of ICT for Building Project Management Table 5.4: Descriptive Statistics of Test Variables of Hypotheses HD2 and HD3 Table 5.5: t-test results for Hypotheses HD2 and HD3 Table 5.6: Organizations having Communication Management Strategy within the Organization Table 5.7: Extent of ICT Adoption Varies between Different Projects Table 5.8: Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test for Comparing Reasons for Differential ICT Adoption on Building Projects Table 5.9: Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test for Comparing scores of Personal Meetings and Teleconferences Table 5.10: Oneway ANOVA Test for Testing Relation between Turnover of the Organization and Extent of Use of ICT Table 5.11: Descriptive Statistics for Hypothesis HR1

32 37 38 39 45 47 54 57 63 104 112 114 115 115 117 118 119 130 132

132 133 133 134 134 136 137 139 140

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Table 5.12: Descriptive Statistics of test variable 'benefits' 141 Table 5.13: t-test Results for Perceived Importance of Benefits of use of ICT for Building Project Management 141 Table 5.14: Mean and Std. Deviation of the Perceived Industry Drivers 142 Table 5.15: Descriptive Statistics of Test Variable 'drivers' 143 Table 5.16: t-test Results for Perceived Industry Drivers for Increased Use of ICT for Building Project Management 144 Table 5.17: Descriptive Statistics for Hypothesis HS3 144 Table 5.18: Oneway ANOVA Test for Difference in Use of ICT for Different Groups of Sample Organizations 145 Table 5.19: Correlation Between Four Groups of Benefits 145 Table 5.20: Oneway ANOVA Test for Testing Relation between 'Percentage of Site Staff with Access to Computers' and 'Extent of ICT Adoption' 146 Table 5.21: Descriptive Statistics of 'Extent of ICT Adoption' for Distribution of 'Percentage of Site Staff with Access to Computers' 147 Table 5.22: Software used for Building Project Management 153 Table 5.23: Descriptive Statistics – Perceived Barriers 155 Table 5.24: Descriptive Statistics – Perceived Enablers 157 Table 5.25: Descriptive Statistics – Perceived Benefits 160 Table 5.26: Mean and Std. Deviation for Test Variable ‘emailpho’ 163 Table 5.27: t-test Results for Communication in which e-mail is followed by Phone Call 163 Table 5.28: Mode of Information Storage 164 Table 5.29: Response of Organizations for Methodology Most Often Used for Communicating Information for General Administration Processes (80%-100% times) 165 Table 5.30: Response of Organizations for Methodology Most Often Used for Communicating Information for Building Project Management Processes (80%-100% times) 166 Table 5.31: Descriptive Statistics for the Perceived Factors 167 Table 5.32: Identified Issues that are required to be Addressed 169 Table 6.1: Model Specification 180 Table 6.2: Regression Weights/Path Coefficients and Factor Loadings 185 Table 6.3: Covariance between Exogenous Variables 186 Table 6.4: Estimates 189 Table 6.5: Model Fit Indices 190 Table 6.6: Squared Multiple Correlations 191 Table 7.1: Identified Gaps in Practice and Trends 223 Table 7.2: Categorization of Identified Trends 225 Table 7.3: Inputs and Outputs for DEA Analysis 226 Table 7.4: Data Values for Three Analyzed Organizations 227 Table 7.5: Efficiency Scores for Analyzed Organizations 227 Table 7.6: Potential Improvement Required in REO 229 Table 7.7: Gaps in Practice and the Identified Reasons (REO) 241 Table 7.8: Gaps in Practice and the Identified Reasons (PMCO) 247 Table 7.9: Gaps in Practice and the Identified Reasons (AO) 254 Table 7.10: Actions Required to Increase ICT Adoption for Building Project Management in the Studied Organizations and Expected Performance Changes 255 ____________________________________________________________________ xiv

Table 7.11: Relation between Identified Trends and Collective Actions Table 7.12: Relation between Identified Trends, Gaps in Practice and Suggested Actions Table 8.1: Relation between the Suggested Scenario Building framework and the Benchmarking Framework Table 8.2: Required Strategic Industry Level Implementation Actions

257 262 275 288

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS 3D 4D AEC AMC AMOS ANOVA AO ASEAN B2B CD CDT CEO EDM CFI CIC CII CORENET CRC CI CRS CSCW DEA DISR DMU DRS DTI ERP FM GDP GFI GIS GPS HR HVAC I-O ICPM ICT IFC IM INR IRS IS ISM ISO IT KPI LAN

3 Dimensional 4 Dimensional Architecture Engineering Construction Annual Maintenance Contract Analysis of Moment Structures Analysis of Variance Architectural Organization Association of South East Asian Nations Business to Business Compact Disc Corporación de Desarrollo Tecnológico Chief Executive Officer Electronic Document Management Comparative fit index Computer Integrated Construction Construction Industry Institute Construction and Real Estate NETwork Cooperative Research Center for Construction Innovation Constant Returns to Scale Computer Supported Collaborative Work Data Envelopment Analysis Department of Industry, Science and Resources Decision Making Unit Decreasing Returns to Scale Department of Trade and Industry Enterprise Resource Planning Facilities Management Gross Domestic Product Goodness of Fit index Geographical Information System Global Positioning System Human Resource Heating Ventilating and Air Conditioning Input-Output Integrated Construction Project Management Information Communication Technologies Industry Foundation Classes Interactive Management Indian Rupees Increasing Returns to Scale Information Systems Interpretive Structural Modeling International Standardization Organization Information Technology Key Performance Indicators Local Area Network

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M&E MI MIS MS NFI ORCM PM PMBOK PMCO PMI R&D REO RFI RFID RMSEA SAP-LAP SEM SME SPSS SSIM STD. STEP TPC UK US USA USB VRS WAN

Material and Equipment Measurement Indicator Management Information Systems Microsoft Normed fit index Online Remote Construction Ma nagement Project Management Project Management Book of Knowledge Project Management Consultancy Organization Project Management Institute Research and Development Real Estate Organization Request for Information Radio Frequency Identification Device Root Mean Square Error of Approximation Situation Actor Process – Learning Action Performance Structural Equation Modeling Small and Medium Enterprise Statistical Package for Social Sciences Structural Self- Interaction Matrix Standard Standard for the Exchange of Product data Technology-process-culture United Kingdom United States United States of America Universal Serial Bus Variable Returns to Scale Wide Area Network

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The journey of my research study has been challenging, exciting, apprehensive and a novel experience for me. Research was primarily conducted in India, but I never felt alien to the administrative and education system of QUT.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude and thanks to my principal supervisor, Associate Professor Jay Yang for having faith in me and giving me an opportunity to conduct research under his supervision, as an external student. His insightful advice and constant support was always a great help. I would like to thank my external supervisor, Assistant Professor Ravi Shankar for his invaluable and enriching comments, for spending lot of his valuable time in supervising me and for providing structure to my research. The rigorous analysis in this research has been possible due to the infrastructure support that I received from his institute, IIT Delhi. I am grateful to my associate supervisor, Professor Martin Skitmore for his invaluable suggestions in the early stages of the research, as they provided a direction to the research. I would like to thank administrative staff of BEE research office as well as of other departments of QUT with whom I have communicated during these three years. They helped me in having a smooth research journey and I never felt that I was so much geographically away from QUT.

I am grateful to all the respondents of questionnaire survey for taking out time from their busy routine to answer the questionnaire and to Dr. Tulsi Adhikari for providing necessary help.

My husband Punit and my parents have always been there for me as a rock support. Last but not the least I want to thank my children Satvik and Bhumika who at their ____________________________________________________________________ xviii

tender age understood the importance of this research for me. In the beginning it was difficult for them to comprehend it, but by the end of the research period they were keeping a check on my timeline and helping me in every possible way that they could. This research would not have been possible without their support. I dedicate this thesis to them.

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PUBLICATIONS

Papers Published Yang, J., Ahuja, V. and Shankar, R., 2007. Managing Building Projects through Enhanced Communication – An ICT Based Strategy for Small and Medium Enterprises, Proceedings of the CIB World Building Congress 2007, Cape Town, South Africa, May, 2007.

Ahuja, V., Yang, J. and Shankar, R., 2006. Strategic Use of ICT for Construction Organisations - Requirements and Implementation Issues, Proceedings of INCITE / ITCSED 2006 Conference, Organized by Construction Industry Development Council India and Glasgow Caledonian University, November 2006, New Delhi, India, 1 , pp.235-250. Ahuja. V., Yang, J. and Shankar, R., 2006. Web Based Communication for Construction Projec t Management, Proceedings of the World Conference on Accelerating Excellence in the Built Environment, Birmingham, UK, October, 2006.

Yang, J. and Ahuja, V., 2006. Communication Protocol for Building Project Management - ICT Enhanced Approaches for the Indian Building Practice, Proceedings of the CIB W089 Conference: BEAR 2006, Hong Kong, China, April, 2006. Ahuja. V. and Yang, J., 2005. Towards ‘IT’ Enabled Supply Chain Communication in Construction Project Management, In Ribeiro, F.L., Love, P.E.D., Davidson, C.H., Egbu, C.O. and Dimitrijevic, B. Ed. Proceedings of CIB Conference on Information and Knowledge Management in Global Economy, Lisbon, Portugal, 1 , pp.289-302.

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Chapter 1: Introduction

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1

Research Background

1.1.1 Building Project Management and ICT

Building construction projects involve many stakeholders or agencies at all the stages of the projects from design to construction and for each project the supply chain is different. Projects are managed by designated Project Managers, Architects, Contractors on behalf of the Client or by the Clients themselves depending upon the contract and the project type. Project Managers are required to facilitate the integration of work of all the agencies and project team organizations are geographically separated beyond national boundaries or in the context of large countries like India, within the national boundaries. Also, there is increased demand to complete the projects within estimated time, cost and as per the specified quality. One of the building industry’s answers to increased demands is to make better use of information and knowledge that is generated in all stages of development because communication or data handling often takes about 75% to 90% of a project manager’s time in the construction industry (Fisher and Yin 1992; Alshawi and Ingirige 2002). Also, two-thirds of the construction problems are caused by inadequate communication and exchange of information and data, where 85% of commonly associated problems are process related and not product related (Smit et al. 2005). The key to project information management consists of the information flows associated with inter-organizational communication (Stewart et al. 2005) and the effectiveness of the project manager to communicate, evaluate and feedback to the rest of the project team during each stage of the project life -cycle determines how efficiently the project’s goals will be achieved (Alshawi and Ingirige 2002). Thus, there is a requirement of a system that provides; shared project information, analysis tools to analyze the information, a collaborative infrastructure to handle the flow of information, a multi device access to the pertaining information and a system that

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ensures the persistence of the underlying information among the participants (PenaMora and Dwivedi 2002). Collection, analysis and real time communication of information is essential for the quick detection of time, cost, scope and quality deviations from planned performance and timely decision making for responding to problems, disputes and deviations detected from the planned performance. At present, the communication problem between the team members is often a cause for project delay, expensive reworking and building defects (Huang et al. 2002) and with traditional tools of communication, the project managers often lose the ability of timely change management. Required communication can be achieved by using IT for effective data management and information communication or by using Information Communication Technologies (ICT). ICT provides opportunities for real time access of information to all and improves coordination and collaboration between project team members. Benefits of ICT adoption include an increase in the quality of documents and speed of work; better financial control and communications, and simpler and faster access to common data as well as a decrease in documentation errors (Nitithamyong and Skibniewski 2006). ICT is required not only to free up project managers for more decision making tasks but also to deliver the required levels of ‘consistency and reliability’ of information in the construction supply chains because use of incorrect data can compromise the scheduled completion of a project and lead to wastage of resources (Sturges and Bates 2001).

1.1.2 ICT Adoption in the Construction Industry and Research Requirements The construction industry has been slow in embracing IT tools and techniques and compared to other sectors, available and often easily accessible technology is not being utilized to the full. This is reflected both, in the literature and in practice ( Opfer 1997; Egbu et al. 2001; Love et al. 2004). This is due to a number of historical, industrial and market forces that perpetuate the industry’s culture, thus affecting the extent of ICT adoption in day-to-day business processes (Baldwin et al. 1999). Effective adoption or diffusion of ICT through organizations is required to be __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 2


effectively managed to better prepare for future ICT applications adoption (Peansupap and Walker 2005) and issues for slow adoption of ICT are required to be studied. The issues can be categorized as technical, managerial, cultural and socio/political due to differing perceptions of project team members. The requirement is to match technological innovation with the perceived needs and preparedness for change on the part of the industry (Weippert and Kajewski 2004).

ICT adoption research is a component of research dealing with IT adoption in the construction industry. A review of the literature review indicates that IT research in construction until now has predominantly had a technical rather than a managerial focus such as investment justification, strategy and strategic information systems planning (Love et al. 2004). Little consideration has been given to the ‘human factors’ associated with IT exploitation, like issues of team working, culture and motivation of the workforce to embrace IT for team working through different approaches, including training and education (Egbu et al. 2002). But, in a technology driven change of any kind, the technology itself is only one of the several interrelated components that potentially ensure improved performance (Cabrera et al. 2001 cited in Weippert and Kajewski 2004). With respect to ICT, its implementation will inevitably be unsuccessful if the organization’s culture is not properly aligned with, and supportive of an overall business strategy (Schneider 2000 cited in Weippert and Kajewski 2004). So, research should also consider strategic as well as managerial issues (Back and Moreau 2000). It should become a business objective of the construction industry and should give equal prominence to technology, people and processes involved in construction projects. Only in such a scenario will it be adopted by the industry as a whole.

(SMEs) as 97% of the organizations employ less than 20 persons, and can be classified as Small and Medium enterprises (SMEs) (Katranuschkov et al. 2001). So, the communication management research is required to address management and communication processes adopted by SMEs. These issues can be addressed by global research, but also require clear understanding of the management and communication processes followed by SMEs of each distinct regional area or country.

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1.1.3 IT Enhanced communication protocols ‘Protocol’ is defined as an accepted behavior in a situation. IT enhanced communication is a component of a computerized information system which includes generating, coding, processing, storing and communicating information (Chitkara 2001, p.529-550). Thus, IT enhanced communication protocols are required to define accepted methods of conducting these processes. In a construction project, all the supply chain members are brought together to achieve one main objective i.e to develop and build a particular project (Villagarcia and Cardoso 1999) to meet desirable goals and standards. At all stages of the project, information is generated, stored and communicated by all the supply chain members. So, to have effective communication, all the supply chain members should follow the accepted methods or the communication protocols. Also, at any time, each construction organization is involved in more than one project and is a part of more than one supply chain (Dainty et al. 2001). This unique nature of the construction industry necessitates that the communication protocols are adopted by the industry as a whole and do not remain project specific. With the advent of ICT, communication protocols that support the effective adoption of ICT by the whole industry are required to be developed. As per McDonagh (1995) the potential of the new technologies including IT would be fully realized and optimized only if frameworks or principles are developed and adopted for comprehensive, integrated information systems which permit consistency and ease of exchange of information be tween different users of the same information in different combinations for different purposes and across the whole range of projects and programs. People, who are a part of different project team organizations, manage projects and the project team organizations are a part of the construction industry (Fig. 1.1). In an organization, adoption of ICT is primarily initiated by top management, but effective adoption of ICT is still dependent on project managers who have the main responsibility for managing the construction projects (Peansupap and Walker 2005). So, the protocols have to address technical, managerial, social and cultural issues and be implemented at the level of industry, organization and project or people.

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INDUSTRY ORGANIZATION PEOPLE

Fig. 1.1

1.2

Relation between Industry, Organization and People

Research Problem, Aim and Objectives

Based on the discussed research background, the research problem is defined as below: Building project management requires collaboration and coordination between all the project team organizations, which can be achieved by effective communication management. When project team organizations are geographically separated, such effective communication can be achieved by IT enabled communication or by ICT. Construction industry has been slow in adopting ICT and research is required to study the factors affecting ICT adoption for building project management and to develop communication protocols to be adopted by the construction industry. But, majority of the organizations in the construction industry are SMEs and research is required to address the specific requirements and management and communication processes followed by SMEs of each distinct regional area or country.

1.2.1 Research Aim The Research Aim is to develop protocols for effective adoption of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) for Building Project Management by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the Indian construction industry.

The Oxford dictionary defines the word ‘effective’ as ‘producing the intended result’. In the context of this research, effectiveness of ICT adoption can be assessed __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 5


by the extent to which ICT tools and technologies replace manual methods in the information system supporting building project management processes. Research would identify the critical success factors that can help SMEs overcome the technical, managerial, social and cultural barriers for effective ICT adoption for building project management i.e getting the intended results or maximum benefits of ICT adoption in the industry. The research is in the context of the Indian construction industry. As shown by the preliminary literature study conducted, the requirement is to develop technical and managerial protocols to be adopted at industry, organization and people/project levels so that in the industry, ICT becomes an integral part of the building project management process. Such research requires an understanding of the basic project management processes executed by SMEs in Indian Construction Industry; method of communication adopted; perceived drivers, barriers and enablers affecting ICT adoption and perceived benefits of ICT.

1.2.2 Research Objectives Research Objectives in support of the Research Aim are discussed below: i.

To identify generic project management processes adopted by SMEs in India for building project management.

ii.

To identify the extent of Information communication technologies (ICT) adopted by SMEs for building project management.

iii.

To identify perceived barriers and associated enablers for IT enhanced communication management by SMEs and to develop model for establishing structural relationships amongst them.

iv.

To assess perceived industry requirements driving adoption of ICT by SMEs.

v.

To identify perceived benefits of ICT adoption.

vi.

To identify factors other than perceived enablers, barriers, benefits and industry drivers affecting adoption of ICT.

vii. To study the causal relationships between all the identified factors. viii. To provide a framework for increasing effective ICT adoption for Building Project Management and suggest method of validation of the framework.

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1.3

Research Overview

Research Aim and Objectives conceptualized the focus of this study, projecting factors and issues that underpin effective ICT adoption by SMEs for building project management. This section provides an overview of the research process. Research methodology is described in detail in Chapter 3, which presents a description of the research methods that addressed the issues related to this study. The research endeavor was not to automate the current communication process, but rather to align it for adoption of the unique capabilities of computers over those of humans. As ICT adoption is to be based on the principle that technology adoption should be business driven, ICT facilitated communication protocols should play a part in and be integral with construction development phases and business processes.

Research Framework A research framework helps to structure the research process into logical steps and appropriate stages. The establishment of an action plan helps to guide and direct the research so that there is a clear connection between all the stages, i.e formulation of research aim and objectives, literature review, data collection and analysis and the findings and conclusions identified in the course of the analysis. Fig. 1.2 provides an overview of the research framework that encompasses the research processes, which were applied and were suitable for this research.

The research process was supported at all stages by a detailed literature review and study of conceptual as well as empirical literature. The literature was reviewed at four separate stages in the research process. The first stage review was a preliminary exploration of the communication system adopted for building project management, structure of the construction industry and related issues that required consideration and further study. Thus, it involved a review of the conceptual literature concerning the concepts and theories and the empirical literature consisting of earlier studies, which are similar to the one proposed. This material is presented mainly in Chapter 1 as an introduction to the research and led to the formulation of research problem and objectives. The second stage of the review was conducted to study the research __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 7


background in context of research objectives. This helped in identification of research variables and research areas. It validated the research objectives. This part of the literature review is presented in Chapter 2. The third stage of the literature review was related to the study of research methodologies. It was an important stage of literature study as only by using appropriate methodologies and methods of research, applied with rigor, can the body of knowledge for construction be established and advanced with confidence (Fellows and Liu 2003). This study led to the formulation of research design and finalization of research methodology. This part of the literature review is presented in Chapter 3 and subsequently discussed in detail in related chapters. The fourth stage of the literature review or advanced literature review was conducted after the questionnaire survey. It helped in the formulation of research construct for the semi-structured interview survey and case studies analysis and was drawn upon for discussion and formulation of results. It is presented intermittently from Chapter 7. The whole process of literature review facilitates continuous knowledge building that is required for the research process.

The research design is concerned with making the research problem researchable by setting up the study in a way that will produce specific answers to specific questions (Oppenheim 1992). The Research Methodology was designed to achieve the research objectives by way of including effective data collection, analysis and their validation methodologies. The study required an understanding of the present status of ICT adoption for building project management by SMEs, measure of identified factors affecting ICT adoption and causal relationships between these factors. Some of the factors could be measured quantitatively, but some factors like human or cultural factors required qualitative assessment. Thus, the research methodology divided the research into quantitative and qualitative research. Data for quantitative analysis was collected through a questionnaire survey. The organizations that were included in the survey sample, were either managing building projects after being appointed as Project Managers or had the authority to manage their projects if a Project Manager had not been appointed formally. Therefore three groups of organizations were included in the sample: builders including contractors who construct and manage their own projects; project management consultancy organizations which are formally appointed as project managers on building projects and architectural organizations which manage small to medium size building projects since for __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 8


majority of such projects, project managers are not formally appointed. Interpretive structural modeling was used to assess the importance of perceived benefits and their driving power and dependence on other benefits. Quantitative analysis was conducted through empirical analysis of data using Structural Equation Modeling and other parametric and non-parametric statistical analysis tools. A semi-structur ed interview survey was conducted at the organization level leading to quantitative analysis of data including Data Envelopment Analysis and knowledge enhancement through qualitative analysis. Case studies were conducted at organization and project levels and analyzed through SAP-LAP analysis forming the qualitative component of research.

Research Aim Research Objectives

Research Hypotheses

Research Methodology

Questionnaire for the Survey Questionnaire Survey (industry level)

Literature Review (Stage 3)

Parametric and Non-parametric Statistical Analysis


Structural Equation Modeling Analysis


Literature Review (Stage 4) Semi-structured Interview Survey (organization level) Benchmarking Framework Development and Analysis incl. Data Envelopment Analysis Case Studies (organization and project levels) SAP-LAP Analysis

Interpretive Structural Modeling Analysis

Discussion and Results Formulation Fig. 1.2

Research Overview

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1.4

Delimitation of Scope

This section helps to identify a planned, justified scope of the study beyond which generalization of the results was not intended. The identified delimitations are additional to the limitations and key assumptions. ‘Delimitations’ are within the control of the researcher and ‘limitations’ are not. Limitations caused by the methods used are identified and explained in Chapter 9 as summary of all the limitations that became evident throughout the course of the study. Key assumptions are described in relevant sections.

The identified delimitations are discussed below: •

The research is conducted for building project management and data is collected from organizations responsible for the management of building projects. The results could be generalized for heavy civil construction, but after due consideration of the characteristics of supply chain issues, the size of participating organizations, management procedures and contract conditions relevant for heavy civil construction.

•

The research is conducted from the perspective of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The results can be generalized for larger organizations, but some of the identified factors affecting ICT adoption for building project management might not be relevant for large organizations.

•

Research data was collected from the Indian construction industry and the results are applicable for India. However, these results can be generalized for other countries after studying the extent and characteristics of similarities between the construction industries of these countries.

•

Suggested communication protocols are arrived at after studying technical, managerial and social/cultural factors affecting ICT adoption for building project management. But, the technical issues are studied in terms of the applicability, usage and standardization of features and not with respect to development of technical features.

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1.5

Outline of the Thesis

The chapters in this thesis are so structured that each chapter can be read and understood autonomously. They are presented sequentially as an integral part of the whole thesis with relevant referencing and linking information to the preceding and succeeding chapters. Each chapter encapsulates elements of the design process that satisfy the aim and objectives of this research and demonstrates an understanding and appreciation of research processes, methodologies, analysis, writing up, discussion and summarization of results based on analysis and acquired knowledge. Each chapter starts with an introduction and ends with the summary of research discussed in the chapter. In each chapter intermediate results or issues that are studied in subsequent chapter are shown in a highlighted box. Chapter 1 introduces the research background related to the importance of effective communication for building project management and ICT adoption to achieve this. Based on this research background, the research problem, aim and objectives are formulated. This chapter also presents a brief overview of the research framework and research scope.

Chapter 2 presents a review of the literature related to ICT adoption for building project management, characteristics and specific requirements of SMEs and the characteristics of the Indian Construction Industry. Factors affecting ICT adoption have been identified at the level of industry, organization and people. The study of global research conducte d in this area helped in the identification of the gap in literature and research areas.

Chapter 3 provides discussions on the processes by which the research objectives are achieved. It examines in detail the issues pertaining to the research design and methodology, data collection and analysis methods, key research activities and validation methods. Research hypotheses are formulated and after discussion about research methodology, the framework for synthesis of the research components and results formulation is discussed.

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Chapter 4 presents Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) analysis of the relationship between the perceived benefits of adopting ICT for building project management. Analysis results identify the dependence and driving power of each benefit with respect to other benefits. A developed ISM model is then presented and additional hypotheses are formulated. Chapter 5 presents empirical analysis of data collected through the questionnaire survey. Analysis is conducted through parametric and non-parametric statistical techniques. Hypotheses are tested, discussion on perception based data is presented and the analysis is summarized.

Chapter 6 presents a structural model of causal relationships between quantifiable factors affecting ICT adoption for building project management, derived from ‘Hypotheses of causal relationships’. This structural model is tested through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) technique and the final model is presented.

Chapter 7 presents a framework for benchmarking ICT adoption for building project management. It further discusses finalization and validation of the framework through semi-structured interviews conducted at the organization level in three organizations which had also responded for the questionnaire survey. It includes measurement of efficiency of organizations in implementing their strategies for ICT adoption. It is conducted through Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) technique. This chapter also discusses case studies of these three organizations conducted at organization and project levels. Case studies are analyzed through SAP-LAP analysis and social, cultural and behavioral factors affecting ICT adoption are studied.

Chapter 8 synthesizes the results of research studies conducted for achieving the research aim and objectives. The results or the IT enhanced communication protocols are discussed as a generic framework of a ‘Strategic Model for Enhancing ICT Diffusion in Building Projects’. Chapter 9 summarizes the research study. It presents a summary of findings, significant research contributions, implications of research at the level of industry, __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 12


organization and people and also discusses the limitations of the research study. It also identifies future research scope emanating from the research study conducted.

1.6

Summary

This chapter discussed the basic premise for the research and the thesis. It first introduced the research background, which helped in the identification of the research problem. The research aim and objectives were established. An overview of the research process was briefly discussed and the research scope was identified. An outline of the thesis structure was also presented. This chapter leads to the detailed discussion of the research process, with the next chapter presenting the literature review.

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Chapter 2: Literature Review

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1

Introduction

The construction industry is a data based and information dependent industry. The amount of information generated and exchanged during all the stages of a project can be substantial (McIntosh and Sloan 2001) and in various formats: drawings, contract documents, analysis results, planning schedules, photographs, reports. Further, the project participants are changed with every project and the information generated by many sources, at many levels of abstraction and detail, and retained by the creator of that information contributes to fragmentation of the industry (Smit et al. 2005). Construction projects involve large capital investments, multi-disciplines, widely dispersed project participants, tighter schedules, and stringent quality standards and these factors coupled with high-speed developments in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) have influenced the project management practices to take a new turn (Alshawi and Ingirige 2002). But, the literature survey and the study of the construction industry reflect that the available technology is not being utilized to its full potential (Egbu et al. 2001). This can be achieved by giving careful consideration to the human touch (Weippert and Kajewski 2004) i.e. cultural issues and strategic adoption of ICT in the industry.

In construction industry, majority of the construction organizations can be categorized as Small and Medium enterprises (SMEs) and the communication management research is required to address management and communication processes adopted by SMEs. Also, by virtue of the number of organizations, greatest strategic scope exists at this level (ed. Betts 1999, p. 58). Thus, strategic adoption of ICT by the construction industry is defined by the strategic and operational requirements of SMEs. These issues can be addressed by global research, but also require clear understanding of the management and communication processes followed by the SMEs of each distinct regional area or country.

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2.2

Construction Information and ICT

Information in a construction organization can be grouped under three categories: •

Information required for managing internal operations of the organization.

•

Information required for assessing the construction industry, organization’s position in the industry and the policy decisions required for future direction.

•

Information required for managing construction projects.

For the first category of information, ICT is required to integrate the communication between all departments or engineering groups, branch offices or organizational subunits and levels within the organizations.

For the second category of information, ICT is required to bring agility into the information system. A constant flow of information from internal and external sources allows informed decision making and improves the environmental scanning and the co-ordination of a response (Retik and Langford 2001). The third category of information is generated due to the communication between the organizations and the multiple agencies which are a part of the project team. Project information is usually considered as the processed and presented data in a given situation, and is the data that enables effective action (Marsh and Flanagan 2000 cited in Smit et al. 2005).

The significance of the scale of project information management and the requirement to adopt ICT in projects can be understood by the following information reported in an Australian Government report: “A $10 million project with monthly cash-flows of $500,000 might have as many as 50 contracts, 5 different consultants, 200 tenders, 600 final drawings, 3,000 amended drawings, 150 contract variations, 600 site instructions, and 6 meetings per week” (Fujitsu Center Report 1998 cited in Weippert et al. 2002).

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2.3

ICT and Building Project Management

In a building project, various stakeholders are involved at all the stages and project managers are required to integrate efforts of all the stakeholders. The Egan report stresses the requirement for project managers to integrate the projects’ phases (from conception to final delivery) leading to performance improvement (Alshawi and Ingirige 2002). Intense integration of alliance partners requires excellence in communication at all levels, i.e. at Application level, System level and Business level or Industry level (Fischer and Froese 1996; Alshawi and Ingirige 2002; Walker et al. 2002). As per Walker et al. (2002) this generally requires a quantum leap in the adoption of shared IT systems and information processing integration. Thus, individual information systems developed by individual functional managers or construction managers are required to be integrated for a project.

Integration strategies on the construction projects include managerial and technical strategies. Technical integration focuses on workplace technology to improve integration, particularly computer-integrated construction (CIC), which strives to share the information among computer applications (Fischer and Froese 1996). For managerial integration, Internet and Intranet related Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) applications and especially Web-related applications are one of the major concerns of CSCW research (Zhu et al. 2001). Study of the literature identifie s that there is research being conducted with respect to information/communication

management

to

enhance

collaborative

project

management on construction projects (Rezgui et al. 1998; Construct IT for Business Report 2000b; O’Brien, 2000; Pena -Mora and Dwivedi 2002). The collaboration among the diverse participants in a project is essentially measured by how effectively the communication channels were managed. The effectiveness of the project manager to communicate, evaluate and feedback to the rest of the project team during each stage of the life cycle determines how efficiently the project’s goals will be achieved (Alshawi and Ingirige 2002). A Project Manager managing multiple projects typically shares resources with team members working on many projects over a shorter time. In such a situation, the key management issues could be resolved __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 17


by good communication management (Haugan, 2002, p.12-18). Also, in this scenario it is essential not only to support the communication processes within a project, but also to consider the multi-project work and the individual requirements of the players as well (Katranuschkov et al. 2001). The communication system should be: Sufficiently flexible so that it can be modified to suit the unique requirements of the individual project managers; Adaptable to many different projects; and Adaptable to differing customer information requirements.

Research has highlighted the importance of effective communication for the success of a project (Thomas et al. 1998; Tam 1999). It was concluded in a study that the top thirty potential problems contributing to poor project performance could be classified under five categories, out of which communication problems were listed as the third category and all the five categories involve communications to some extent (Thomas et al. 1998).

The time delays and increased cost of construction projects can be traced back to poor coordination caused by inadequate information, insufficient, inappropriate, inaccurate, inconsistent, or late information or a combination of them all (Tam 1999). Communication has also been linked to team effectiveness, the integration of work units across organizational levels, characteristics of effective supervision, job satisfaction, and overall organizational effectiveness (Green 2001).

The extensive physical distance between project participants, extending over national boundaries is one of the main causes leading to delays in decision-making (Deng et al. 2001 cited in Alshawi and Ingirige 2002). In such a scenario, communication problems, ranging from delays to distortion of messages, impose strains on project management in construction (Alshawi and Ingirige 2002). In the construction industry, supply chains are typically formed by all the project team organizations. SMEs occupy a critical role in these supply chains and given the number of specialist firms operating within the construction industry, there are considerable challenges in terms of improving project performance through better supplier integration and ensuring process conformity and alignment (Dainty et al. 2001). Alshawi and Ingirige (2002) identified that communication often takes about __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 18


75% to 90% of a project manager’s time in the construction industry and computer based systems are required not only to free up the managers for more decisionmaking tasks but also to deliver the required levels of ‘consistency and reliability’ of information in the supply chains.

The specific characteristics of Supply Chain communication management for building projects can be summarized as under (Ahuja and Yang 2005): •

The total information structure is required to be integrated in terms of generation and flow of information and associated decision-making.

•

Throughout the project lifecycle, team organizations are required to obtain real time information, as they are required to coordinate and collaborate for project execution. Availability of real time information also helps in change management, which is an intrinsic part of construction projects.

•

To achieve integrated information processing, there should be an automated flow of information between all the software used by project team organizations. Appropriate categorization of information and the streamlining of reporting requirements is necessary.

•

At various points in the supply chain, information is collected from various team organizations and then collated and processed for shared use. Standardization of data handling processes as well as project information is required to ensure maximum efficiency.

Adoption of ‘IT enhanced communication’ or ‘Information Communication Technologies’ (ICT) can help in achieving required communication in building projects. Jaafari and Manivong (1998) summarize the research in this area by stating that effective implementation of ICT within projects, as well as the entire industry, would improve the communication processes by an order of magnitude, and would thus benefit the delivery of all the phases and functions on projects.

2.4

ICT Tools and Technologies

ICT is being adopted for building project management. Internet is the worldwide system for exchanging and distributing free-format information and is regarded as an __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 19


ideal platform for building up Information Systems (Smit et al. 2005). It has evolved from being a scientific ne twork only, to a platform that is enabling a new generation of business (Li et al. 2003a) or e-business that includes electronic project information exchange, e-commerce and e-tendering (Construct IT for Business Report 2000b) . Internet and its object-orie nted client/server applications can be explored in various formats for the communication purposes. Internet is also increasingly being adopted for project management within the construction industry and has shown to help in timely, well-integrated and effective project delivery (Construct IT for Business Report 2000b).

Internet as the communication platform facilitates speedy transmission of information and also saves money in communication with overseas construction sites through the computer network. The system offers many benefits such as improved efficiency, better management and decision-making and enhanced performance of construction organizations (Tam 1999). Common Internet services or shared use of common databases can be utilized for information sharing (Construct IT for Business Report 2000a). Thus, Internet helps to communicate information more effectively during the construction process.

Web-based applications greatly help in solving the problems caused by geographic fragmentation. As cited by Zhu et al. (2001), in reality, the Internet and Web-related technologies penetrated into the daily operation of project construction in the early and mid 1990s (Wright 1993; Setzer 1994; Angelo 1995; Shearer 1995 cited in Zhu et al. 2001). Using a web-based database as a centralized repository of project information has several distinct advantages including: Reduced manual distribution costs; Integration of project information; Simple management of access rights; Document storage & archiving; Continuous access to project information; and Minimal software requirement (Construct IT for Business Report 2000b). Integrating organization database and world wide web (www) functions, supports the decisionmakers in conducting long-distance evaluations at various project sites and upgrades the effect and efficiency of the decision-making process (Hsueh et al. 2007).

The project web sites hold the promise of promoting truly collaborative work approaches, and offering an open and non-hierarchical approach to managing project __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 20


information (O’Brien 2000). Combining 4D visualization with web-based information management facilitates dispersed project team partners to make collaborative decisions for construction planning and scheduling (Kang et al. 2007). Researchers have identified twelve critical factors affecting performance of web based project management systems as: project type, project duration, Internet access availability, type of Internet connection, level of internal support, ability of project managers, usage frequency of advanced features, level of support provided by a service provider, functionality and reliability of the web based system, data security and reliability, external integration ability of the system and the unique characteristics of the organization using the system (Nitithamyong and Skibniewski 2007). Supply chain software are also evolving towards Internet applications that communicate with the Enterprise Resource Planning systems (Green 2001). Internet has also provided a rich environment for deve loping ‘e-commerce’ applications in construction and among the different types of e-commerce, business-to-business (B2B) is the most widely used (Li et al. 2003a). For e-commerce, Internet can host a domain – specific search tool specialised in retrieving product-related online information (Lin and Soibelman 2007). Researchers have also discussed web based GIS systems for e -commerce (Li et al. 2003b).

Videoconferencing combines a simple way to hold meetings and share documents live over the Internet, with the ability to view and annotate documents, drawings and models and to share applications. Videoconferencing dramatically improves the efficiency, productivity and accountability within a construction organization (Sahai 2004). Tools providing services of groupware, remote access, file sharing and whiteboard discussions can be used individually or together, to provide customized solutions for design coordination and site-to-office communication.

Intranets aid internal organizational collaboration. The role of Intranets has changed significantly from a passive role of providing organization information to its employees to a more dynamic role to share and capture knowledge and some organizations leverage them as tools for achieving sustainable competitive advantage (Ingirige and Sexton 2007). Extranets promote project collaboration, team working and e-commerce. They also enable users to red line drawings and control work through auditable paper trails (Tayeh and Gil 2007). Both help in standardization of __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 21


the communication processes and improve data flows (Construct IT for Business Report 2000a). Timeliness, accuracy and multi-locational availability of information and formal flexibility are the defining elements of improved information quality enabled by EDM technologies (Back and Bell 1995).

Using a 3D model for more than a visual study allows the development team to gain strategic insights, minimize cost and schedule risk, improve supply chain management and improve constructability. The visual presentation of complex information coming from various disciplines permits more time at project meetings to be spent on solving problems and making decisions (Henderson 2002). Virtual Reality is an enhanced communication tool, which conveys design ideas and design problems to all the members of the team more effectively (Koh et al. 2002). It allows planners to intuitively interact with the virtual environment and objects as if they were real by immersing them in a 3D computer-generated simulation and facilitates the evaluation of different scenarios with limited expense and effort (Li et al. 2003c).

‘nD modelling’ approach is also being utilised. It refers to information about building projects that includes 3 dimensional geometry (3D), plus the additional “dimensions” of time, cost, organizations etc. (an additional “nD”). nD modelling tools are a series of multi-disciplinary ICT based design and analysis applications that access an nD model through an interoperable standard (Construct IT Initiative Report 2003). Materials tracking system called Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID) couples radio frequency identification technology with highly miniaturized chips that enable materials to be identified and tracked at any point along the supply chain. Li et al. (2005) have studied application of an integrated Global Positioning System (GPS) and Geographical Information System (GIS) technology to the reduction of construction waste. The study is developed from automatic data capture system such as the barcoding system for construction material and equipment (M&E) management onsite, whilst the integrated GPS and GIS technology is combined to the M&E system based on the Wide Area Network (WAN).

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2.5

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and the Indian Construction Industry

The construction industry predominantly consists of SMEs. It is a heterogeneous sector encompassing small, unorganized enterprises as well as modern and more organized ones.

2.5.1 Definition of SMEs The small and medium enterprises, both in size and shape, are not uniform across the globe. There is no generally agreed definition of SMEs (ASEAN Report 1997; University of Strathclyde Library Services Report 2005). “The best description of the key characteristics of a small firm remains that describe d by the Bolton Committee in its 1971 Report on the Small Firms. This stated that a small firm is an independent business, managed by its owner or part-owners and having a small market share. It recognised that size is relevant to sector i.e. a firm of a given size could be small in relation to one sector where the market is large and there are many competitors; whereas a firm of similar proportions could be considered large in another sector with fewer players and/or generally smaller firms within it. Similarly, it recognised that it may be more appropriate to define size by the number of employees in some sectors but more appropriate to use turnover in others” (DTI Report 2005). Similar concept is utilised in USA and as per their classification, small orga nizations of most general and heavy construction industries have annual receipts of $28.5 million or less each (University of Strathclyde Library Services Report 2005).

For statistical purposes, the Department of Trade and Industry of UK usually uses the following definitions: small firm: 0 - 49 employees; medium firm: 50 - 249 employees; large firm: 250 employees or more (DTI Report 2005).

In the ASEAN region few informal definitions are observed. In Thailand for example, various administrative organizations classify SMEs based on the measure of fixed assets, registered capital, sales or number of employees (ASEAN Report 1997). The guidelines of Infocomm Development authority of Singapore define SMEs as entities with: fixed assets less than S$15 million; and, number of full time __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 23


employees less than 200. The “Very small” SMEs are on the lower spectrum of the above criteria and constitute a very large number of SMEs (Huin 2004). The definition adopted by the Indian government is based on the level of investment in plant, machinery or other fixed assets whether held on an ownership, lease or hire purchase basis. It seeks to keep in view the socio-economic environment in India, where the capital is scarce and the labour is abundant. “However, a definition exists only for small-scale industry and the medium enterprise definition is of more recent origin. At present, a small-scale industrial unit is an industrial undertaking in which the investment in plant and machinery does not exceed INR 10 million, except for some trades. A comprehensive legislation, which would enable the paradigm shift from small-scale industry to SMEs is under consideration in the parliament” (Balasubramanian 2006). The organizations which are neither small nor large are treated as medium enterprises.

In the literature, researchers have defined SMEs for construction industry. As per Laufer and Tenah (1985) a medium sized firm is considered to be one handling 5-10 projects simultaneously, each representing a total of 200,000 t o 1 million man-hours. Based on the number of employees, Dainty et al. (2001) define a small firm as having 24 or less workers and a medium size firm as having 25-114 workers; Sturges and Bates (2001) identify SMEs as having staff upto 299 and Love et al. (2004) identify SMEs as employing less than 250 people.

2.5.2 SMEs and the construction Industry In the construction industry, majority of the organizations can be categorized as SMEs. While the US construction industry includes large companies, statistics indicate that over two-thirds construction firms have less than five employees (Halpin and Woodhead 1987 cited in Hegazy and Ersahin 2001). The majority of these small firms are specialist subcontractors working with the general contractor (Hegazy and Ersahin 2001). In Australia, there are approximately 158,000 firms and the overwhelming majority are micro-businesses, employing an average of 2.3 people (DISR Report 1999 cited in Love et al. 2004). Dainty et al. (2001) report that in UK construction industry, almost 97.6% firms employ 24 or less workers and can __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 24


be categorized as small firms, almost 2% firms employ 25-114 workers and can be categorized as medium size firms, and only about 0.4% firms employ 115 or more workers. In Portugal, the small and medium enterprises were responsible for 72% of the total output in 1998 (Ribeiro and Lopes 2002).

The construction organizations in India had their origins as start up ventures by entrepreneurial individuals and over a period of time, they grew in size (Sreepuram and

Rao

2006).

Still,

most

of

the

organizations

are

SMEs

and

proprietary/individualistic in nature with 90% of the total construction work being executed by them (Nehru 2001). Moreover, Indian private companies are wary of forming consortiums (Mejie and Punia 2004), and it restricts size of these organizations. Infrastructure projects require large investments and project teams from contractors and other project team organizations. Thus it is assumed that on such projects large organizations are important part of the project teams, but on the building projects, majority of the project team organizations are SMEs.

2.5.3 Characteristics and Specific Requirements of SMEs Small and medium-sized enterprises are socially and economically important as the majority of the workforce is employed by SMEs (University of Strathclyde Library Services Report 2005). A huge pool of SMEs exists to service the huge and fairly large enterprises respectively or to provide specialty or outsourcing services to these corporations (Huin 2004). There is a growing recognition worldwide that the SMEs have an important role to play in the present context due to their greater resource-use efficiency, capacity for employment generation, technological innovation, promoting inter-sectoral linkages and raising exports. They help in developing entrepreneurial skills and innovation (Enterprise and Industry Report 2005) and their locational flexibility is also an important advantage in reducing the regional imbalances. The SMEs do not function as a collection of formal structural departments and their requirements including operating requirements, logistics fulfillment and the financial capabilities are vastly different from those of the large organizations, leading to the __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 25


requirement of a closer understanding of their strategic and operational requirements (Huin 2004). “The CEO of an SME is involved in most of the strategic decisions and major operational decision-making. At the middle level there are two distinct groups of direct operational managers, the professionals and ‘upgraders’. Majority of the latter group managers have years of related work experience and intimate knowledge of the operational tasks, sometimes across different departments in the organization. This knowledge is very useful to the SMEs as it allows cross-checking and networkdecision-making. At the execution level there are the professionals who are usually IT literate (e.g., the planners, buyers, production supervisors etc.)” (Huin 2004). Thus, in the SMEs, strategic planning for ICT adoption would be done at the top or middle level, but, it would be supported, executed and defined by the ICT capabilities of the staff at the execution level. In a survey, 25 of the 30 SMEs reported staff turnover rate exceeding 20%. This high turnover rate adversely impacts how SMEs manage their labor resource (Huin 2004). It also impacts the level of ICT usage in the SMEs.

One of the most important issues that hinders the growth of SMEs in a globalised scenario is that of access to appropriate technology when technology upgradation is the key to facing global competition (Balsubramanian 2006). It is easier for large firms to be involved in the development and adoption of the emerging technology (Froese 1996) , whereas SMEs have difficulty in dedicating resources to research, development and training (Acharya 2006). So, with respect to the SMEs, it is necessary to develop means to get the information about innovations out rapidly and in a form that will interest the potentially concerned decision makers. It has been discussed that there has to be a link between any technology watch service and the deep knowledge of the ‘client’ SME (Davidson 2001).

The projects can require involvement of a great number of small and large enterprises with varying collaborations (Goodman and Chinowsky 2000). Larger organizations view the contract organizations as an extension of their facility and it is usual for them to ensure that the operational procedures and quality standards of their contract organizations are compatible with theirs (Huin 2004). So, when the SMEs __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 26


are managing the projects as contract organizations, their ICT adoption is determined by the requirements of large organizations. In the manufacturing industry, an SME would primarily be an extension of a large organization as its contract organization. But, in the construction industry, an SME may also be independently managing the building projects. In such a situation, the extent of ICT adoption would be determined by the ICT capability of the SME and its staff.

Decentralization of the information, the resources and the decision-making processes is commonly found in SMEs and there are low levels of management structures in SMEs (Huin 2004). So, they have to struggle hard to break the barrier of traditional management and administration to enter the computerized era (Laufer and Tenah 1985). It cannot be expected that SMEs would have an Internet strategy or a person with the required knowledge (Katranuschkov et al. 2001). Also, they cannot afford the complicated conversion from paper to electronic processes, which often requires expensive information exchange technology (Ribeiro and Lopes 2002). With respect to subcontractors or SMEs, an information system should be easy to use, transparent and low cost (Hegazy and Ersahin 2001). SMEs also seem to be risk averse regarding IT investment due to the perceived budget constraints (Peansupap and Walker 2005) and there is still a long way to go for ICT adoption by SMEs.

2.5.4 Indian Construction Industry

The Indian construction industry is an important part and second largest activity of the Indian economy. Apart from its large size, it acts as a vanguard and sets pace for the growth of all other sectors (Vaid 2000 cited in Ranadive and Gaikwad 2006). It employs over 31 million people (Nehru, 2001) increasing at over 1 million per year (Mejie and Punia 2004), contributes 5.2% of GDP and constitutes of 40% of the investment in India (Ranadive and Gaikwad 2006).

There has been a substantial growth in the Indian construction industry. Mejie and Punia (2004) report that in 5 years prior to 2004 (the period of reporting), India was hovering between INR 30,000 million to 120,000 million in the global overseas construction market. But, recently there has been a sudden growth to about INR 200,000 million. At the time of reporting, 167 export contracts (construction, turnkey __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 27


and consultancy) valued at INR 200,000 million (approx. US$ 4445 million) were under execution in 43 countries by 36 Indian companie s. Further growth is also being observed. With the sudden growth in the construction activity in the country, most of the organizations have substantial projects to execute. With globalization, increasing competition and awareness of the clients, there is a requirement to deliver projects successfully and to build up the organizations. Typically the senior management of the organization is caught up in a conflict of building up the organization for future requirements versus the current fulfillment of the contractual obligations (Sreepuram and Rao 2006).

In the Indian construction industry, projects are primarily executed on the item rate contract arrangement and contractors join the project team from the execution stage. Contractors of major components of works like civil works, plumbing works, electrical works, HVAC or mechanical works, interiors and other works like installation of lifts, aluminium doors and windows, termite treatment, water filtration and softening plant etc. have direct contract with the clients. Thus, communication between clients and other agencies is also substantial.

The strengths of the Indian construction industry are (Mejie and Punia 2004): its manpower strength including manpower with high level technical and management skills, and construction experience of every type of construction in all types of terrains and climates; government initiatives for providing financial incentives to construction organizations; manufacturing of varied construction materials and equipment in the country; agility and adaptability to the changing global construction scenario and working with overseas organizations.

One of the identified weaknesses of the Indian construction industry is that it is not seen as an IT savvy sector (Mejie and Punia 2004; Nehru 2001). It is felt that the information age has done little to transform the SMEs in the construction industry as IT benefits users in the automation of processes, systems, data collection – all of which are issues faced by the larger organizations. The requirement is that organizations should realize the true value of IT and of reengineering of traditional systems of working (Ranadive and Gaikwad 2006). With respect to ICT, one of the major barriers is that formal reporting is not practised in these organizations __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 28


(Sreepuram and Rao 2006). The requirement is to have an industry level initiative for studying the factors affecting present ICT adoption in the industry, and building up the industry for future requirements. But, the literature review did not indicate any such industry-wide initiative.

2.6

Characteristics of Global Research and Research in India

The initial research in the area of ICT adoption in the construction industry primarily had a technical focus. Research was undertaken for development of open, high-level, computer interpretable communication between project participants resulting in the development of standard product models including the Standard for the Exchange of Product data (STEP) (Luiten and Tolman 1997; Han et al. 1998) and the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) (Han et al. 1998); shared project models and object oriented models were developed for storing and managing design documents and information (Fisher and Froese 1996; Stumpf et al. 1996; Mokhtar et al. 1998) and managing design changes (Hegazy et al. 2001) leading to the model based approaches to information representation and structuring as a shift from the document based approach to the model based approach (Rezgui and Cooper 1998); integrated, networked working environments were developed for the wider business processes of communication, cooperation, collaboration, information exchange, triggering of activities (Platt 1996); and decision support systems were developed for management functions (Yang 1997). Tekes, the National Technology Agency of Finland conducted Vera program addressing IT for the AEC/FM industries. The technological vision of the program was centered on the integration of all AEC/FM information throughout the lifecycle of the projects using information modeling standards – specifically the Industry Foundation Classes (IFCs) and many issues related to the work processes and services associated with the adoption of IFC related technology in practice. In an evaluation report for the program, Froese (2002) identified that a strong and specific technological vision is extremely beneficial in focusing and directing the research and development efforts. If vision provides the direction for technology development, perceived benefits of the new technology pr ovide the motivation for its __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 29


adoption. However, with respect to ICT, the perceived benefits of its application are defined qualitatively. Good quantitative data would go a long way towards the justification of the use of the technology. Evaluation of benefits of use of a technology is essential for the adoption of the technology. “Kiviniemi, the program manager of Vera program also noted that the IFC technology is not the only component of a collaborative information system. Enabling technologies and specifications, an ICT infrastructure, software applications, processes, education, people, and the development of various databases are all necessary parts of the culture” (Henderson 2002). By the start of the 21st century, the global research community identified that inspite of the high level technical research in this area, ICT adoption by the construction industry was slow as compared to the other industries (Egbu et al. 2001). Reasons for the same were studied and it was realized that the ICT adoption appr oach should be goal-centered and based on the premise that one must plan based on the objectives of the system, not only on the technology available (Smith et al. 2001). In addition to creating the technology itself, there is a requirement to create servic es and work processes related to the new technology (Froese 2002). Internal systems for use of IT have been developed in various agencies in the construction industry, but information sharing between the agencies and joint utilization of this information are a bottleneck (Kiviniemi 2001). The IT director of an organization stated: “We should pay 90% attention to the organization and 10% to the technical side of IT” (ed. Betts 1999, p.211). In the construction industry where work is project centric and involves multiple enterprises for each project, majority of which are SMEs, equal consideration is required to be given to the technology, the process and the culture or people (Egbu et al. 2001; Huang et al. 2002; Alshawi and Ingirige 2003). Further research is required to identify ways to overcome industry related cultural ‘barriers’, ‘modifying’ traditional work ‘habits’ and improving procedures for ICT implementation and application opportunities within the construction industry (Weippert et al. 2003). Also, utilization of networking techniques is contingent upon broad utilization of IT in the whole value chain (Kiviniemi 2001) or supply chain of construction projects.

__________________________________________________________________________________ Page 30


In the evaluation report of the Vera program conducted by VTT of Finland, Froese (2002) has noted that the development of new technology should be led by a vision that has been developed for the development efforts and a high priority should be placed on studies that provide qualitative evidence of the benefits of the technology.

Consequently, the research in previously focused technical areas has been taken ahead (Katranuschkov et al. 2001; Yang and Peng 2001; Zhu et al. 2001; Tuncer et al. 2002; Brilakis and Soibelman 2005) and new technical issues like real time information capture (Akinci et al. 2006; Song et al. 2006), artificial intelligence (AlJibouri and Mawdesley 2002), mobile computing (Ward et al. 2004; Kimoto et al. 2005; Reinhardt et al. 2005), 4D planning (Liston et al. 2001; Wang et al. 2004; Chau et al. 2005), virtual reality (Li et al. 2003c; Savioja et al. 2003), networked environments for present technology (Liston et al. 2001; O’Brien et al. 2002; Finne 2003; Nuntasunti and Bernold 2006), e-commerce (Li et al. 2003a,b) etc. are also being studied.

Soft issues or management issues for effective implementation of ICT in the construction industry are also being studied. Further sections critique significant findings of research in these issues and identify and highlight the important variables.

Research in India In India, the research has been conducted for IT adoption by the construction industry, but literature review has not identified the research with focus on ICT for the construction industry. Table 2.1 chronologically lists some of the research papers discussing the research conducted in India. These research papers show that the research in India is at a nascent stage and also at individual levels.

__________________________________________________________________________________ Page 31


Table 2.1: Research Papers Discussing Research Conducted in India for IT Adoption by the Construction Industry Author

Nehru

Appa Rao and Narasaiah

Dhargalkar and Joshi Bhattacharya

Kishore et al. Ranadive and Gaikwad

Sreepuram and Rao

2.7

Abstract The paper highlights the scope of e-commerce as a business medium and discusses its spread and advantages. It is discussed with respect to Indian construction industry. The report summarizes the results of a survey carried out to assess the use of computers and IT by the construction industry in India. The sample size was 22 organizations and survey was conducted in 2002. The paper describes "ProMonitor", an MIS that is interfaced with a computer database. It is suggested that such real time data would help the project management consultancies immensely to identify the lapses in the execution of work and to take corrective measures during monitoring and control of the remaining work. The paper discusses the role of IT in construction industry The paper discusses a methodology to estimate potential benefits of IT in construction industry. The methodology looks at direct cost savings. The paper discusses a methodology to study relation between IT adoption and increase in productivity in construction organizations. The research is still to be carried out. The paper articulates the requirement for building organizational capabilities in the construction industry coupled with IT infrastructure-building to face the competition from global sources and also to venture out into the global market place.

Year 2001

2003

2003

2004 2006

2006

2006

Strategic Adoption of ICT in the Construction Industry

‘Strategy for IT adoption’ for all functions of an organization defines the ‘Strategy for ICT adoption’ by the organization, and ‘Information Strategy Plan’ of the organization has to be supported by its strategic adoption of ICT (Fig. 2.1).

Strategy is derived from the organization’s vision. ‘Vision for ICT adoption’ is defined as creating the context and direction for ICT adoption within the organization. It creates common objective and approach across the organization (Bunyan et al. 2002). ‘Strategic ICT adoption’ is defined as the process of planning and coordinating ICT systems for medium to long term, to support its business aim and objectives defined in the vision. The strategic plan is for a 3-5 years horizon (Purba et al. 1995, p.33) and is detailed.

Information strategy planning deals with the whole ‘information resource’ of an organization i.e. the information it generates and receives and the systems it uses to do so. This includes basic raw data, information that has been analyzed and is used to make decisions, and the systems and computer technologies that deliver the

__________________________________________________________________________________ Page 32


information i.e. ICT. It also examines how these systems relate to the organization’s general business environment (Construct IT for Business Report 2000a).

STRATEGY FOR ‘IT’ ADOPTION IN ALL FUNCTIONS OF THE ORGANIZATION Information Strategy Plan

Strategy for ‘ICT’ Adoption

Fig. 2.1 Relation of ‘Strategy for ICT Adoption’ with the other Strategies of the Organization Researchers have highlighted the requirement to align ‘Information strategy plan’ supported by ‘Strategic adoption of ICT’ with the business strategy of the organization (Construct IT for Business Report 2000a; Leuven and Voordijk 2001; Retik and Langford 2001, p.125-144). It helps in estimating cost of the new IT systems and includes cost of hardware, software and support (Construct IT for Business Report 2000). It also helps business managers to gain a greater understanding of the potential of ICT and helps to improve their understanding of the organization’s business requirements by the IT staff, thus enhancing the efficiency of the system. It also ensures adequate consideration of those areas where technology itself may be an underlying change agent (Purba et al. 1995). Consequently, it supports and shapes an organization’s competitive strategy.

2.7.1 Requirement of Strategic Adoption of ICT by the Construction Industry at the Level of Each Organization and at the Industry Level Construction organizations have different departments or engineering groups and researchers have highlighted that departmentally isolated approaches to the technology implementation in construction organizations have often led to “islands of automation” or “functional silos” in many of the present organizations (Back and Moreau 2000). In such a scenario the users may be satisfied with their individual __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 33


systems. However, chaos arises when the users are required to share information (Construct IT for Business Report 2000a). ICT can be adopted strategically, if the organizations and industries can find ways of applying it to either improve individual activities, or alter the linkages between them to make the overall value chain or value system more efficient. Full efficiency will not be achieved through the adoption of well designed but incompatible systems handling differing requirements and purposes of each user (McDonagh 1995).

In the construction projects, data generated at each stage of the project is utilized at all the successive stages upto the facilities management stage. Researchers have highlighted the requirement to bridge the gap between design and planning stages of projects (Yang and Lin 1998). Effective and seamless transfer of information between all the stages and between project team agencies requires strategic adoption of mutually compatible software, hardware and communication capabilities. It is more relevant in the present scenario, since many of the technologies today are dependent on the use and proper functioning of other technologies. For example, the potential of an expert system is limited by the breadth and accuracy of the database from which it draws information (Back and Moreau 2000).

In the context of the construction industry where inter-organization communication is important, strategic ICT adoption is required at the industry level and organizational strategies are required to be aligned with the industry wide strategy. The project level strategies are required to be aligned with the organization level strategy of the clients and the project management agencies. Industry wide strategic ICT adoption would require the understanding, participation and support of all the concerned professions, enterprises and government agencies. Such a national, industry-wide approach is what is now being undertaken in the Construct IT initiative in the UK, the Vera program in Finland, the CORENET project in Singapore (ed. Betts 1999, p.124-131) and the CRC CI initiative in Australia.

The Construct IT initiative in UK was started in 1995 to improve competitive performance of the UK construction industry by promoting research in the use of IT in construction through an industry led network of major clients, consultants, contractors, suppliers, IT and communications organizations and universities __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 34


(Construct IT Report 1998). Objectives of the program include initiating master’s level industry-oriented learning programs, coordinating research, promoting innovation, continuous redefinition of an industry vision, forming links with similar international initiatives and establishing best current practices (DOE 1995 cited in Construct IT Report 1998). The ‘Vera Technology Program’ was launched by Tekes, the National Technology Agency of Finland, in 1997. The target of the program was to promote the implementation of IT adoption and enabled networks and to make it possible to manage the information flows during the entire life cycle of the buildings, so that the project team members share project data instead of paper documents. In the Vera project,

construction

processes

and

information

systems

were

developed

simultaneously. The aim of the program was to achieve: improvement in return on investments; improved quality and overall profitability of construction; and increased construction exports (Vera Program Report 2000).

The CORENET project is the acronym for ‘Construction and Real Estate NETwork’ project of Singapore, commenced in 1993. Singapore Building and Construction Authority drives the project in partnership with the relevant industry bodies. It is a major IT initiative undertaken in Singapore to re-engineer and streamline the business processes of the construction industry to integrate the fragmented work processes of a building project life cycle. The aim was to ac hieve a quantum leap, especially in the quality and productivity aspects. Since the commencement of the CORENET national program, key IT initiatives have been identified and appropriate incentive schemes including capital grants for IT development have been put in place to help the industry adopt IT (Hua 2005).

The CRC CI initiative is a research and development program initiated by ‘Cooperative Research Center for Construction Innovation’ in Australia. Its vision is to lead the Australian property and construction industry in collaboration and innovation, with the three objectives of (Brewer et al. 2003): •

enhancing the contribution of long-term scientific and technological research and innovation to Australia's sustainable economic and social development.

__________________________________________________________________________________ Page 35


•

enhancing the collaboration between researchers, industry and government, and improving efficiency in the use of intellectual and research resources.

•

creating and commercially exploiting tools, technologies and management systems to deliver innovative and sustainable constructed assets to further the financial, environmental and social benefit to the construction industry and the community.

Under this initiative, the research projects measuring ICT adoption in the construction industry and studying factors for the effective adoption of ICT are being undertaken (Brewer et al. 2003; Kajewski et al. 2004).

All these initiatives are industry led initiatives undertaken to combine research and practice and aim to enhance sustained and effective adoption of IT/ICT in the construction industry. Table 2.2 chronologically lists some more research papers discussing such national level research initiatives.

2.7.2 Benchmarking a Strategic Tool Measurement is one of the first steps in any improvement process (Lee et al. 2005). So, to strategically increase effective adoption of ICT in the construction industry, a system of evaluation of the ICT based Information Systems is required to be developed. There is also a consensus among researchers and practitioners that ICT related investments should be carefully justified, measured and controlled (Milis and Mercken 2004) and a strong correlation exists between the control and measurement of IS and higher effectiveness of IS, however measured (Shank and Govindarajan 1992 cited in Milis and Mercken, 2004). Researchers have serious doubts about the efficacy of using traditional capital investment appraisal techniques for the appraisal of ICT adoption and a multi-layer evaluation process is suggested (Milis and Mercken 2004).

__________________________________________________________________________________ Page 36


Table 2.2: Research Papers Discussing National Level Research Initiatives Reference Howard et (1998)

al.

Clark et al. (1999) Carter et al. (2001)

Howard and Petersen (2001)

Froese (2002)

Mui et al. (2002)

Svidt and Christiansson (2006)

Initiative The paper summarizes IT barometer survey, which compares results from Denmark, Finland and Sweden on the use of computer hardware, software and communications. A network linking national IT centers is planned to exchange experience and coordinate this work, so that there can be greater integration of systems between different types of organizations in construction, and within international projects. The paper follows an element of the research program of the Construct-IT Center of Excellence, a UK-based organization responsible for promoting the strategic awareness of IT within construction enterprises. The program planned to benchmark IT adoption within ten mission-critical business processes including supplier management and cost and change management. The paper presents a view on the application of ICTs to construction and typical contractual relationships within the industry, before introducing the eLEGAL project. eLEGAL is a European cooperative research and development project, which is focusing on legal conditions and contracts regarding ICT adoption in project business. The paper reports on a two year research project carried out by the IT byg group at BYG.DTU for the Danish government agencies Erhvervsfremmestyrelsen and By- og Bolig-ministeriet. The objectives of the project were to collect data on IT adoption by the PPB housing consortia, a development project to test out various innovations, to map communications between the partners, and compare IT adoption with their original proposals. Tekes, the National Technology Agency of Finland conducted Vera program addressing IT for the AEC/FM industries. The technological vision of the program was centered on the integration of all AEC/FM information throughout the lifecycle of projects using information modeling standards – specifically the Industry Foundation Classes (IFCs) and many issues related to the work processes and services associated with the adoption of IFC related technology in practice. The paper describes a survey done to establish the actual level of Internet usage in the Malaysian construction industry. It also discusses perceived benefits and barriers for the same. The paper summarizes experiences from the process of implementation of ICT based systems for resource management in SMEs. The findings are derived from the Danish project 'IT at the Construction Site' started in 2003 and ended in May 2005. The project has involved a number of small to medium sized construction enterprises and institutions within the building domain as well as ICT tools providers.

In the multi-enterprise scenario of the construction industry, effective adoption of ICT for building project management requires measurement and improvement of the system in the total supply chain of the projects and in the whole industry but, to date, a methodology has not been developed to examine the potential contributions of information management strategies in reducing overall project schedules and cost (Back and Moreau 2000).

Table 2.3 chronologically lists some more papers discussing international research in formulating methodologies for evaluating information systems in the construction industry. __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 37


Table 2.3: Research Papers Discussing I nternational Research in Formulating Methodologies for Evaluating Information Systems in the Construction Industry Authors Back and Bell

Fowler and Walsh Leuven and Voordijk

Stewart and Mohamed

Stewart and Mohamed

Skibniewski and Zhang

Yu et al.

Abstract The paper discusses research that shows that time and cost process benefits attributable to EDM technologies are significant. The paper discusses through case studies the differing perceptions of various stakeholders regarding the success of information systems projects. The paper discusses evaluation of ERP implementation in construction industry with reference to Nolan growth curve. The paper looks at potential applications and benefits of using the Balanced Score Card as a framework to evaluate the performance improvement resulting from IT/IS implementation by a construction organization. To illustrate the application of the proposed framework, a project tier example is provided. The paper builds upon the framework discussed by the authors in the earlier paper listed above. It investigates the interrelationship between the framework perspectives and indicators, in an attempt to validate the link between them. Using information collated from 82 professionals representing large construction contracting and project management organizations located within Australia, results from the study provide support for the proposed framework. The paper reviews IT investment evaluation methods and concludes that a single economic analytical method or a simple combination thereof is insufficient to justify or decline an investment in Web based Project Management. Authors put forward a multidimensional decision-making approach that the authors believe is closer to the style of decision-making in the construction business world. The paper suggests an evaluation model for IS benefits in construction management processes. The model is based on the evaluation of IS implementation benefits at the construction management task level, and it is postulated that the benefits are composed of the effect and the possibility of IS implementation.

Year 1995 1999

2001 2001

2004

2005

2006

Researchers have suggested balanced scorecard approach (Stewart and Mohamed 2001; Milis and Mercken 2004) and benchmarking as systems for the evaluation of construction systems.

Lee et al. (2005) presented a benchmarking system developed by the Construction Industry Institute (CII) for broad application in the construction industry; Ramirez et al. (2004) have discussed a benchmarking system that has been recently established in the Chilean construction industry by incorporating qualita tive management aspects in addition to performance indicators; Love and Smith (2003) have proposed a generic framework for benchmarking rework at the interfaces of a project’s life cycle; Clark et al. (1999) have discussed benchmarking for studying the supplier management system with respect to IT; Love et al. (2004) have reported a series of __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 38


benchmark metrics for benefits, costs and risks of IT and posit that these metrics can serve as a reference point for initiating benchmarking, which should form an integral component of the IT evaluation and learning process; Brewer et al. (2003) have discussed a study commissioned by CRC CI in Australia to study the development of a benchmarking tool to measure ICT uptake in the construction industry.

2.7.2.1

Benchmarking Definition

Benchmarking is a formal method and as per Fong et al. (1998) some researchers (Camp 1989a; Mittelstaedt 1992) have suggested that a systematic method would lead to outstanding performance while other informal methods would not.

Benchmarking has been defined in literature with different perspectives. Table 2.4 lists in chronological order some definitions and salient features of benchmarking as defined in the literature.

Table 2.4: Definitions and Salient Features of Benchmarking Reference Construct IT Report (1998)

Definition and Salient Features • Benchmarking is the means for identifying performance levels and provides the basis for continuous improvement. • Benchmarking studies are used to reveal the gap in performance in one organization, between different organizations and best practice. • It is intended to lead an organization to identify and adopt improved business processes by identifying actions that are needed to match and exceed best practice. • It forces issues out into the open so that they can be dealt with according to the goals of the organization.

Bendell et al. (1998)

Benchmarking approach is one of prevention of errors and faults rather than of detection and correction. • Benchmarking methodologies are primarily a tool for organizational continuous improvement. • Benchmarking is ‘an external focus on internal activities, functions or operations in order to achieve continuous improvement’ (Leibfried and McNair 1994). • It is one of the responses to competitive threats and includes studying internal and external practices of efficient companies with a view to learning and implementing superior processes that will contribute to a strategic competitive advantage (Leibfried and McNair 1994). • Benchmarking through objective competitor analysis allows companies to measure products or services against competitors and best-in-class companies in other industries. • Benchmarking can be viewed as an operational process of continuous learning and adaptation that results in development of an improved organization.

Clark et al. (1999)

Love and (2003)

Smith

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Table 2.4 Continued • •

• •

Costa et al. (2006)

•

• • •

• • •

Benchmarking focuses on the importance of understanding the tasks and activities in a process that produces an outcome and how improvements in the processes can take place (Schaffer 1992). A benchmark can be: anything taken or used as a point of reference or comparison; something that serves as a standard by which others may be observed or compared; anything or something that is comparatively measurable and a physiological or biological reference value against which performance is compared (Zairi 1996). Benchmarking is a suitable starting point for construction organizations embracing change and for learning, as it is a process that can be used to systematically acquire knowledge. For benchmarking to be effective at a project, at industry, or at competitive level, organizations should view it as a process of improvement rather than of exposing an organization’s weakness. Benchmarking is a systematic process of measuring and comparing an organization’s performance against that of the other similar organizations in key business activities. Then, lessons learned from other organizations are used to establish improvement targets and to promote changes in t he organization (KPI 2000; Barber 2004). Benchmarking adds value to performance measurement because it allows companies to compare their data; it also allows for better decision making based on these comparisons (Beatham et al. 2004). The general purpose of benchmarking and its function as an assessment process is to encourage continuous learning for both managers and organizations (Barber 2004). Benchmarking must be an integral part of the planning and ongoing process of improvement to ensure a focus on the external environment as well as to strengthen the use of factual information in developing plans (Camp 1995). Although the major focus of benchmarking is usually on planning and organizing, one of its main objectives is to introduce new ideas to an organization (Spendolini 1994). Benchmarking of managerial practices helps to accelerate and manage organizational changes by creating a culture of continuous improvement (Barber 2004). Benchmarking process can lead to benefits beyond productivity, if it is used for encouraging innovation.

These references help in summarizing benchmarking as a tool: to measure mission-critical processes or the processes under study of an organization against those of the other similar organizations in the same sector and similar sectors; to establish a benchmark or a standard for comparison and help in continuous improvement in the processes by helping organizations in measuring differences, conducting objective competitor analysis, systematically acquiring knowledge, improving productivity, introducing new ideas and encouraging innovation.

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The above definition of benchmarking indicates that benchmarking results in an industry wide measurement and improvement of the benchmarked system, by facilitating comparison between different organizations.

Researchers have classified benchmarking with different perspectives. Lewis and Naim (1995) have identified four types of benchmarking: internal, competitive, parallel industry and best practice (Clark et al. 1999). Fong et al. (1998) have classified benchmarking as per the nature of referent, content of benchmarking and purpose for the relationship (Fig. 2.2).

This figure is not available online. Please consult the hardcopy thesis available from the QUT Library

Fig. 2.2: Classification of the Types of Benchmarking Sourced from (Fong et al. 1998)

Internal benchmarking is a comparison between different operating divisions, departments or business units of the orga nization where data is often readily available and accessible. Competitive or competitor benchmarking occurs between organizations within the same industry sector that sell an identical or similar goods or service. It is quite difficult to achieve, as the competitors may not divulge private knowledge or other key productivity data (Fong et al. 1998). In this benchmarking, two factors with

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respect to methodology and content of benchmarking define the success of the process: •

It should be performed in partnership by a third party benchmarking agency and the focus should be on organizations learning from each other’s practices (Fong et al. 1998). Independence of the benchmarking agency from all the participating organizations increases willingness of the organizations to be included or interviewed for the benchmarking process (Clark et al. 1999).

•

Benchmarking should be directed at technical or general managerial processes so that the commercially sensitive information is unlikely to be exposed (Construct IT report 1998).

Industry benchmarking is similar to competitor benchmarking, so is the generic or global benchmarking (Cox et al. 1997 cited in Fong et al. 1998). Industry benchmarking is different from competitor benchmarking because it involves more number of benchmarking or comparison parties and may also include noncompetitors. Thus it is more feasible. Generic or Parallel Industry benchmarking occurs between organizations from different sectors that undertake a similar process of production or service (Clark et al. 1999). It also introduces an element of innovation in the benchmarking process. Global benchmarking involves the comparison with an organization from a global perspective (Watson 1993 cited in Fong et al. 1998) where geographical location of the organizations extends beyond country boundaries. Process benchmarking pertains to the discrete work processes and operating systems (Bogan and English 1994) while performance benchmarking is concerned about outcome characteristics, such as elements of price, speed, and reliability (Cox et al. 1997 cited in Fong et al. 1998). Functional benchmarking applies the process benchmarking for the comparison of particular business functions among two or more organizations (Camp 1989b cited in Fong et al. 1998). Strategic benchmarking involves the assessment of organizational strategies, such as the long-term development of organizational infrastructure, rather than key operational practices (Bogan and English 1994 cited in Fong et al. 1998). Benchmarking is likely to be competitive when an individual “benchmarking organization” initiates it and it is likely to be collaborative when it is initiated by a respected third-party agent (Fong et al. 1998). Collaborative benchmarking __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 42


emphasizes the sharing of knowledge and conveys a learning atmosphere (Cox et al. 1997 cited in Fong et al. 1998). Best practice benchmarking suggested by Lewis and Naim (1995) considers the merits of a comparison with a particular market leader who is known to have an exemplary process that is similar to the process under study (Clark et al. 1999). While all of the operations of the process may not be totally transferable between organizations due to different industry structures, there will often be important lessons that can be learnt (Clark et al. 1999). Best practice benchmarking is called innovation benchmarking by Davenport and Short (1990) as the target processes are often borne out of innovative thinking and bold managerial implementation (Clark et al. 1999).

As per Costa et al. (2006), a strategic performance measurement system for SMEs must be very resource effective and should produce noticeable short-term results. In addition, it must be dynamic and flexible enough to accommodate strategic changes, since these organizations tend to experience sudden contingencies.

As per Bendell et al. (1998, p.163), all management and service areas are candidates for benchmarking. Thus, a consistent ICT evaluation framework would allow benchmarking ICT adoption for building project management by the SMEs. It can provide organizations with the opportunity to document and review their business processes so that the added value that the ICT adoption can provide is identified.

2.8

Factors Affecting ICT Adoption for Building Project Management

Peansupap and Walker (2005) state that effective ICT diffusion success could be perceived in terms of factors that influence technology adoption and the way in which successful adoption of technology by potential users could be sustained. They have classified factors affecting ICT diffusion in an organization as static and dynamic

factors,

where

static

factors

like

technological

characteristics,

communication channel etc. fundamentally affect initial ICT diffusion and dynamic factors like motivation, and training and technical support sustain ICT diffusion __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 43


changes. These factors have been discussed by researchers and are studied and discussed below.

2.8.1 Strategic Adoption and Diffusion of ICT

Rogers (1962) defines that the diffusion process occurs within a soc iety as a group process whereas the adoption process pertains to an individual. To achieve ICT diffusion at the industry level, strategic adoption of ICT is required at the organization level and also strategic initiatives are required at the industry level.

At the industry level, research should include SMEs and support should also be provided to SMEs for training in and adoption of the developed technology (Froese 2002). Organizations require a realistic and reliable knowledge base which is to be transmitted in the organization at a fast pace and made easily and instantly available to engineers/managers at all the levels (Pandit and Munshi 1999). However, SMEs do not see justification in spending money on large databases in isolation and require help from large organizations and government bodies for the same. Standardization of information transfer is very important at the national as well as international levels and can also be achieved by the industry level initiatives. Effective adoption of ICT would be achieved if appropriate ICT tools and technologies are adopted and work processes are adapted for use of the technology. Thus following factors are required to be considered strategically at the organization level for effective adoption of ICT: •

ICT development in an organization should be business driven and should play a part in and be integral with construction activities and business processes of the organization (Construct IT for Business Report 2000a). Thus a construction organization’s ‘Strategy for ICT adoption’ should be aligned with its business objectives.

•

CEOs and top managers’ perceptions of the importance of IT, help to align IT strategies and goals with those of the organization as a whole. Equally important, it sends a strong signal throughout the company that IT is being taken very seriously (Bawden and Blakeman 1990 cited in ed. Brandon and

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Betts 1995, p.21). Similarly CEOs, and top managers’ perceptions of the importance of ICT adoption is also an important factor. •

Identification of the organizational changes required for effective adoption of ICT (Froese 1996; Mitropoulos and Tatum 2000) and the measurement of benefits accrued by its adoption (Mitropoulos and Tatum, 2000) are important.

•

Strategic communication at project level is important. As per Froese (2002), to manage the information flow and to be able to develop integrated information systems, it is necessary to agree on content, structure, format and presentation of the data. These factors are required to be considered at the project level.

•

The project scope should require ICT adoption (Root and Thorpe 2001) as technology improvement in the construction industry is usually driven by necessity rather than by the desire to be at the cutting edge (Rivard 2000 cited in Ranadive and Gaikwad 2006).

Table 2.5: Research Papers Discussing Strategic Adoption of ICT in the Construction Industry Author Haniff and Kaka Ribeiro and Lopes

Nitithamyong and Skibniewski

Rebolj and Menzel Peansupap and Walker

Andrews et al.

Abstract The paper discusses the use of a framework for development of a knowledge database for use within the construction industry. The paper makes an analysis of the web based value chains in construction. The paper identifies factors determining success or failure of webbased construction project management systems, particularly through the use of application service providers utilized by construction firms without in-house expertise to develop such systems for exclusive company use. The paper stresses that effective adoption of mobile technologies strongly depends on appropriate adoption scenarios, embedding it in our work processes and integrating it into the existing ITenvironments. The paper focuses on ICT diffusion at the actual implementation stage of construction projects. The paper proposes a framework, which can be used to analyze the potential of applying ICT for the implementation of new standards in the construction industry.

Year 2001 2002 2004

2004

2005 2006

Table 2.5 chronologically lists some more papers discussing the issue of strategic ICT adoption.

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2.8.2 Cultural Factors Effective implementation of ICT in the construction industry requires the study of cultural issues. It has been reported that traditional practices and culture continue to succeed in maintaining incapacity to use appropriate IT (Construct IT Initiative Report 1998). The study is required to modify the working processes for increased adoption of ICT. Cultural issues are required to be studied at the industry, organization and project levels.

Culture is pervasive, not simply a variable that affects the organization, group or team, but indistinguishable from these (Pepper, G.L. 1995 cited in Weippert and Kajewski 2004). Every organization within the industry has its own unique culture, sub-culture, character, nature and identity (Weippert and Kajewski 2004) and this refers to the deeper level of basic assumptions, values, beliefs and practices that are shared by most members of an organization. In a survey, it was found that high ICT adoption by the organizations was influenced by an open discussion environment, support from the colleagues and support from the supervisors (Peansupap and Walker 2005). It is also reported that there is a tendency to accept electronic data more readily than the written word, which is typically checked more thoroughly. This is seen as a cultural problem, rather than a specific disadvantage of IT (Construct IT Initiative Report 1998). Other researchers have also brought forward these issues for further study.

The project culture is closely related to the organizational culture. It is defined by the organizational design, structure and processes conducted in a particular context or environment to achieve specific goals and objectives within a certain time frame and budget allocation. These factors create a culture, which is unique to that project although influenced by experiences from other similar projects (Cleland and Ireland 2002 cited in Tone 2005).

Recognizing the type of culture that exists in the organizations and the project environments is particularly useful to enable the managers to determine the approach and the strategies that facilitate interaction and communication (Tone 2005). Van Oudenhoven (2001) claimed “that culture as found in the organizations within a __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 46


country should partly reflect the national culture.” It would be the national culture of that industry. When organizational culture is ‘weak’ and appears to have little influence, workplace values and behavior provide a clear reflection of the national culture and values (Tone 2005). Also, in the case of a ‘weak’ organizational culture, changes in policies, rewards, tasks and structures are likely to “modify organizational behavior and cause a cultural shift” (Weippert and Kajewski 2004).

Many organizations decide to change their existing culture, based on the requirement to implement a strategically driven change, or due to a certain ‘crisis’ or ‘opportunity’ being identified – i.e. many organizations are driven to change due to the business demands and not necessarily to change the culture (Weippert and Kajewski 2004). Thus, there is a requirement of an industry level initiative to educate the organizations and people about the requirement of change in cultural issues for effective adoption of ICT as it requires continuous technological and cultural changes within the organizations. Researchers have highlighted that it can be accomplished by building an innovative and adaptive culture that enhances employees’ ability to adapt themse lves to an ever-changing work environment (Stewart and Mohamed 2001).

Table 2.6 chronologically lists some more research papers discussing the requirement to study synergy between technology, process and cultural issues.

Table 2.6: Research Papers Discus sing Synergy between Technology, Process and Cultural Issues Author

Line

Egbu et al. Sturges and Bates

Huang et al. Alshawi and Ingirige

Abstract The paper discusses a philosophical, technological and social context for a full-scale experiment of using virtual teams for project execution. The paper studies the role of social issues, organizational culture and motivation in the effective adoption of IT for teamworking in construction. The paper deals with the influences of such issues as the industry, the climate and the culture on integrated data handling system. The paper suggests an integrated Technology -process -culture model to support effective adoption of IT in the construction industry. The paper emphasizes that in order to successfully embrace web enabled PM, equal consideration should be given to technology, processes and people.

Year 1997

2001

2001 2002

2003

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2.8.3 Available Technology ICT adoption in the construction industry leads to specific requirements with respect to technology. Liberatore et al. (2001) have identified following technology related issues as enablers of effective adoption of ICT and as areas of future research: •

Integrating PM software with other software packages and with enterprise wide systems for such activities as materials management and financial control.

•

Increased flexibility of PM software.

•

Ease of use issues including making the software more user friendly.

•

Improved software capabilities to communicate project information with project sites, increased capabilities to handle project uncertainty/risk and improved methods to forecast activity duration.

A project web site provides a centralized, commonly accessible, reliable means of transmitting and storing the project information, but people require a road map to integrate the project web sites as a tool into their work on a daily basis (O’Brien 2000). Onsite work conditions may sometimes permit only the use of wireless or portable devices. However it must be recognized that portable and handheld devices simply cannot handle computationally heavy jobs due to their specific hardware configurations (Pena-Mora and Dwivedi 2002). So, at remote sites, adequate technological solutions are required. In the context of the Indian construction industry, it is seen that India has a large population using English efficiently, but still the majority in India cannot use this language. IBM, Microsoft and other IT agencies have launched web sites, web portals and software in regional languages. Availability of multilingual software could be considered as an enabler for effective adoption of ICT in the Indian construction industry.

2.8.4 Training and Education As per Froese (2002), training of construction executives is important for effective adoption of a technology, otherwise the developed knowledge is lost. It could be achieved by an industry level initiative of conducting ICT adoption training __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 48


programs in collaboration with researchers and academia. This would lead to a widespread technological change in the industry that requires a good level of awareness of the technology throughout the industry, understanding of the technology and how to work with it (Froese 1996). Liberatore et al. (2001) have identified making ICT training more accessible and less costly as an important enabler for effective adoption of ICT.

Thus training of people in the industry is important. But, this is an issue to be dealt with strategically at the industry level by providing training facilities for students and executives and at the organization level by helping their executives in availing these training facilities.

2.8.5 Organization Level Factors In a survey conducted to assess the status of ICT adoption in the Australian construction industry, it was found that the annual turnover of an organization has an effect on the uptake of ICT and the training performance in ICT for an organization (Kajewski et al. 2004). As discussed above, Liberatore et al. (2001) have identified improving capabilities of PM software as enablers of effective adoption of ICT and areas of future research. Thus, IT tools or PM software adopted for project management processes would have an effect on ICT adoption for the project management processes. But, the decision to use the PM software is to be taken at the organization level. Also, the project team members could use advanced PM software if they have high IT capability leading to high ICT capability. In an organization, effective communication is linked to the integration of work units across organizational levels (Green 2001). Integrated communication system of the organization should integrate all its project sites and the general administration team in the head office leading to a similar ICT capability, ICT infrastructure and systems across the whole organization. Thus, the level of ICT adoption for general administration works would affect ICT adoption for project management processes. __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 49


Internet as the communication platform facilitates speedy transmission of information and also saves money in communication with overseas construction sites through the computer network compared to the traditional information handling methods (Tam 1999). Thus, increased geographical separation between project team members is an important factor that drives ICT adoption for the building project management.

2.8.6 Perception Based Factors In an organization, top management primarily initiates adoption of ICT, but effective adoption of ICT is still dependent on the project managers who have the main responsibility for managing the construction projects (Peansupap and Walker 2005) and, as discussed above, to date a methodology has not been developed for the construction industry to examine the potential contributions of information management strategies in efforts to reduce overall project schedule and cost (Back and Moreau 2000). As a result the benefits and barriers of ICT adoption are primarily perception based and not quantifiable and these perceived benefits and barriers of the project managers and senior management define the extent of ICT adoption by the construction industry.

2.8.6.1

Perceived Benefits

The researchers have discussed the benefits of ICT in improving operational performance through improved productivity – at project, organizational/team and personal levels.

In a study Kajewski et al. (2004) have identified the benefits of ICT as: •

benefits to the project operations, both at the individual and at the team/organization level.

•

strategic benefits in the form of improved business opportunities that ICT may provide.

•

electronic banking and electronic archiving of documentation.

•

intangible rewards of respect and self-fulfillment.

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In a study Smit et al. (2005) have identified the benefits of ICT as: •

improved communication management due to availability of a single central repository for all project documents accessible 24hrs-a-day from anywhere

•

cost reduction in management and distribution of documents.

•

increased document control leading to increased accountability and audit capabilities.

•

considerable time saving through more efficient processes.

•

improved design development process leading to reduction in the number of errors caused due to inefficient information management.

•

fostering a more collaborative approach and providing the operators and owners of the projects with access to correct ‘as built’ information.

As per Peansupap and Walker (2005), effective adoption of ICT also reduces information re-entry by linking information between all construction processes. The ability of the system to capture data at source once, accurately and on time, provides major benefits. It helps with the consistency and reliability of the processes and reuse of information thereby giving more scope for effective manipulation of information (Construct IT Initiative Report 1998). Above discuss ion of perceived benefits indicates that these benefits are default drivers for ICT adoption by SMEs as these benefits would lead to successful completion of projects and reduced cost of communication and project management. It would be a cyclic process leading to their increased market competitiveness and business advantage.

2.8.6.2

Perceived Barriers

There is poor supply-chain management in the construction industry and communication is one of the technologies considered relevant to meet this challenge. There are however, perceived barriers to the effective adoption of ICT for achieving the required communication.

Root and Thorpe (2001) highlight lack of strategic direction within the industry, both in terms of overall direction and the standards and protocols that would inform any __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 51


IT investment decision. As per Desai (1999), Barbour report has also identified software incompatibility and lack of user education as an important barrier upon the transition from paper to electronic record keeping. Such issues require strategic initiatives at the industry level.

In collaborative working, benefits of any technology come through widespread adoption of the technology, but in the construction industry there is a lack of critical mass of construction projects requiring ICT adoption. This has resulted in organizations being unwilling to make technological advances, especially with respect to communication technologies (Root and Thorpe 2001).

Researchers have identified that organizations consider initial cost and cost of keeping up to date with the technological developments in training and hardware/software as important barriers for effective adoption of ICT (Root and Thorpe 2001; Mitropoulos and Tatum 2000). This inability of organizations to quantify process improvements and uncertainty of benefits from process and culture changes is one of the primary barriers to the effective adoption of ICT for construction project management.

In a survey it was found that not having an ICT professional on the site or within ready access was a strong influential barrier to the uptake of ICT on projects (Kajewski et al. 2004), since adequate support to the construction site processes is important for collaborative ICT adoption in the construction projects. The inability to share data in electronic form between project partners (Smit et al. 2005), organization’s perception that ICT is not part of its core business, inconsistent employee requirements on projects, not having an ICT implementation ‘champion’ on a project, demanding and inflexible workload and lack of ICT training and experience (Kajewski et al. 2004) are also identified as significant barriers. Champions are the individuals who are committed to the change and are in a position to influence their organizations (Froese 1996) or the project teams. The champion could be the project manager or the client.

Technology related barriers have also been identified. In a survey, it was found that most of the respondents agreed that the quality of IT equipment and infrastructure __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 52


made available to them was a major factor in ensuring that they used it (Egbu et al. 2001). Therefore, inappropriate and inadequate ICT infrastructure is a barrier for its effective adoption. Also, there is a fear of data security (Root and Thorpe 2001), which requires attention. Table 2.7 chronologically lists some more research papers discussing perceived benefits of and barriers to ICT adoption in the construction industry.

2.8.7 Industry Drivers In a survey it was found that amongst the identified drivers for ICT adoption, the only issue with a below average mean response was ‘to help become industry leaders in ICT adoption’ (Kajewski et al. 2004). As discussed above, Rivard (2000) has also identified that technology improvement in the construction industry is usually driven by necessity rather than by the desire to be at the cutting edge (Ranadive and Gaikwad 2006). Thus, perceived industry drivers are important factors affecting the adoption of ICT.

Some of the industry drivers identified in the literature very commonly are: increased geographical separation between project team members, increased demand to complete the projects in estimated time and cost and as per the specified quality, and increased involvement of multiple agencies in the construction projects. Some of the other discussed industry drivers are: requirement of larger organizations to ensure that operational procedures and quality standards of their contract organizations are compatible with their standards (Huin 2004) and the education of upcoming construction program graduates in ICT technologies. Opfer (1997) has identified that contractors have partly adopted computerized cost estimating and other systems due to the fact that college-educated construction graduates were familiar with these tools.

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Table 2.7: Research Papers Discussing Perceived Benefits of and Barriers to ICT Adoption in the Construction Industry Author

Love et al.

Nielsen and Sayar

Robeiro and Love

Andresen et al. Chinowsky and Rojas

Thorpe

Weippert et al. Kajewski and Weippert

Ruikar et al

Abstract The paper aims to determine the barriers that small-medium sized contractors are experiencing when confronted with the requirement to implement e-commerce to sustain their competitiveness. It also proposes strategies that may be adopted by them to leverage the benefits of e-commerce. The paper discusses a web-based case study for a building project to test a suggested information flow model. It provides a basis for automation and secures the information flow, document control and communication in construction companies. It looks at benefits of the process. The paper demonstrates how the adoption of an e-business strategy can be used to create value throughout the supply chain in construction and provides insights into the benefits and limitations of the technologies used. Paper also suggests how different Internet and Web-based technologies can be used by SMEs to gain a competitive advantage in their respective marketplaces. The paper discusses the use of web for PM in four case studies. One of the major findings is that the planning of why and how the project web should be used is often rushed, not leading to expected efficiency gains. The paper presents the findings of a research that addresses the opportunities and potential barriers to successful virtual teams in the engineering, procurement and construction industry. The paper describes research into the use of Online Remote Construction Management (ORCM) on road construction projects, from the perspective of an industry representative in the research project. Observed benefits from using ORCM and issues in implementation are discussed. The paper describes ‘Best Practice Guidelines’ formulated to help reinforce the requirement for further research and development (R&D) of (a) innovative ICT tools and ICPM systems, (b) identifying ways to overcome industry cultural ‘barriers’ and ‘modifying’ traditional work ‘habits’ and (c) identifying improved implementation procedures and application opportunities within the construction industry. The paper identifies the benefits and challenges to the adoption of e-Tender systems and considers future industry trends and recommendations. The paper highlights the drivers for adoption of extranets and its impact on end-user business processes. It also documents the enduser viewpoints on benefits and drawbacks of using project extranets.

Year 2001

2001

2003

2003

2003

2003

2003

2004

2005

2.8.8 Summary of Factors The above literature study and understanding of the construction industry has helped in the identification and categorisation of the factors at the level of industry, organization and people. Fig. 2.3 is a cause-effect diagram showing categorisation of

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Industry Level Factors

People Level Factors

Strategic Issues Cultural Factors Training and Education

Perceived Benefits

Available Technology

Training

Industry Drivers

Perceived Barriers

Cultural Factors Use of ICT for General Administration

IT Tools utilized for PM Processes Geographical Separation of Project Team Orgs.

Use of ICT for Building Project Management

Turnover of the Organization

Cultural Factors Strategic issues Training of executives

Organization Level Factors

Fig. 2.3

Factors Affecting ICT Adoption for Building Project Management

Strategic and technological co-ordination of factors at all the levels is essential for effective diffusion of ICT at the industry level. This issue rose to prominence from the work of Porter (1991) (Clark et al. 1999). Thus, a holistic study is required to assess the effect of these factors, and these factors can not be studied in isolation.

Researchers have grouped the benefits of IT for construction project management with respect to different perspectives: Serafeimedis and Smithson (2000) have classified these benefits as tangible and intangible (Stewart and Mohamed, 2001); similarly Andresen et al. (2003) have termed these benefits as economically measurable, measurable and non-measurable benefits; Farbey et al. (1995) and Irani and Love (2001) have categorized these benefits as being strategic, tactical and operational (Love et al., 2004); Stewart and Mohamed (2004) have informed these benefits as informational, automational and transformational. Peters (ed. Willcocks 1994, p.99-131) categorizes the benefits as those of enhanced productivity, business expansion and risk minimization (Love et al. 2004). __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 55


In this research, with the focus on ICT adoption for building project management, the benefits of ICT as perceived by people are categorized as benefits related to: •

Measures of Project Succes s

•

Effective Team Management

•

Effective use of Technology

•

Increased Organizational Efficiency

The barriers as perceived by people and their mitigating enablers have also been categorized as related to: •

Technology

•

Projects

•

Organization

•

Industry

The identified perceived benefits, barriers, enablers and industry drivers are discussed in detail in Chapter 4 and 5.

2.9

Strength of the Contemporary Research

Based on the review of the reported literature, following strengths of contemporary research can be cited: •

Many international research journals have published and given significant importance and thrust to the research on ‘IT adoption in the construction industry’. Some of the books have also discussed issues concerned with the strategic adoption of IT by the construction industry. These journals and books have been referred for the literature review and are indicated in the References section. Such publications provide a major boost to the research in this area.

•

Recent technological advances in the tools adopted for communication have led to the sudden and sustained scope of improvement in ICT adoption for project management and specifically by SMEs. This has drawn attention of the researchers studying technical as well as managerial and cultural issues affecting adoption of ICT in the construction industry.

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•

Construction industry has now recognised the significance of effective adoption of ICT for sustaining the global competitive environment. Workshops, seminars and conferences are frequently held to provide a forum for researchers in this area to meet and share their research findings and also to keep the managers updated with the latest research and technical developments in this area. Papers from proceedings of many such interactions are referred in the literature and are indicated in the References section.

•

As discussed in Sec. 2.7.1, national level initiatives have been taken in some countries to assess the adoption of IT/ICT in the construction industry of their country and to formulate strategies to increase its adoption.

2.10

Gaps in Contemporary Research and Identification of Research Areas

Table 2.8 identifies the research areas after identification of the gaps in literature and leads to the validation of research topics and objectives. Table 2.8: Summarization of Research Conducted, Research Required and Validation of the Research Objectives S.No

Research Conducted

Research required

1

Research conducted till date has primarily considered construction industry as a whole.

2

Research conducted till date has primarily studied adoption of IT by the construction in dustry, which would include applications for individual functions and communication technologies. Some of the later research papers do focus specifically on effective adoption of ICT by the construction industry. Research conducted till date primarily studies factors affecting IT/ICT adoption either at the industry level, organization level or at the project level.

Requirement is to study ICT adoption for building construction projects and engineering or infrastructure projects separately, as the characteristics of supply chain issues, management procedures and contract conditions are different in both the categories of projects. Research is required to further study ICT adoption separately and also to study the causal relationship between uses of advanced IT applications and adoption of ICT.

3

Requirement is to study the factors at all the three levels separately and also collectively.

Validation of research topic and objectives Identified research area validates the focus of the research topic i.e to study ICT adoption for building project management.

Identified research area validates research objectives ‘vi and vii’.

Identified research area validates research objectives ‘iii, iv, v, vi and vii’.

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Table 2.8 Continued 4

5

6

Research conducted till date primarily studies IT/ICT adoption either at the design stage or at the project execution stage. But, project management integrates all the stages of the projects. Research till date has been primarily conducted in Europe, USA and Australia. Recent research in South East Asian countries has also been reported. So, the survey data discussed in the research papers present status of IT/ICT adoption in these regions. As identified from Table 2.1, only one such survey has been reported for the Indian construction industry. But, the sample size of the survey was very small. As identified from Table 2.1, research in ICT adoption by the Indian construction industry is at a nascent stage and at individual levels.

7

Recent research has also studied issues in relation to SMEs, but project management structure followed by SMEs has not been studied.

8

Research papers indicate some research efforts towards establishing frameworks for benchmarking IT/ICT adoption by the construction industry, but extensive research in this area is not

Requirement is to study factors for effective adoption of ICT at all the stages of the building construction projects for successful project management.

Identified research area validates research objectives ‘iii, iv, v, vi and vii’.

India is a large country and to study these issues specifically for Indian sub-continent, requirement is to conduct a survey covering large regional areas within India and to have a large sample size.

Identified research area validates research objective ‘i’.

Requirement is to study factors affecting ICT adoption in the Indian construction industry and provide a framework to initiate a national level strategy for increasing its adoption. Requirement is to study project management structure and extent of formal project management processes conducted by SMEs for building project management. This will help in understanding requirements for ICT adoption by SMEs for building project management. This study has to be region specific, even though the results can be generalized after due considerat ion. This research would be conducted with reference to Indian construction industry and generalized as suggested. Research is required to further study and provide a framework for benchmarking the extent of ICT adoption for building project management by the organizations. A framework is required to collectively

Identified research area validates research objectives ‘iii, iv, v, vi and viii’.

Identified research area validates research objective ‘ii’.

Identified research area validates research objective ‘viii’.

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reported.

assess ICT adoption at organization and industry level. Through this framework, organizations should be able to measure their ICT adoption and align it with their business objectives. The framework should be general, but the levels (low to high) defined in the framework should be region specific. This research would develop a framework indicating levels with reference to Indian construction industry.

Thus, identified research areas validate identified research objectives.

2.11

Summary

In this chapter, literature review started with the background of research issues related to ICT adoption for building project management, ICT tools and technologies and the study of SMEs and the Indian construction Industry. This was followed by the study of research background in these issues including international research and research in India and the identification of research variables in terms of factors affecting ICT adoption. The study of contemporary research helped in identification of the strength of the research and gaps in research leading to the identification of research areas. Identified research areas aligned with the research objectives, leading to the validation of the objectives are discussed in Chapter 1. Thus, identified gaps explain the context, significance and purpose of the research and provide direction and motivation for the present research. The next chapter describes identified research hypotheses and research methodology designed for conducting the research.

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Chapter 3: Research Methodology

CHAPTER 3

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1

Introduction

The guideline for designing the research methodology for the study was the definition of ‘Research’ as given by Kothari (2005, p.6): “Research replaces intuitive business decisions by more logical and scientific decisions.”

Research methodology includes research methods as well as the logic behind the methods used in the context of the research study. Before designing the research methodology, however, each major concept, which researcher wants to measure must be explicitly understood and the framework for results formulation should be defined. This helps in understanding what information is to be obtained for solving the problem or for arriving at the research objectives. In this research, the major concepts are the research variables or the factors affecting the adoption of ICT for the building project management and the research hypotheses. The design of the study for a complex subject is a very challenging task and requires quite a bit of innovation. This task was approached systematically by identifying the research variables, evolving the conceptual framework, formulating the hypotheses and designing the research methodology to meet the objectives. A number of creative ideas had to be explored to get feedback from senior executives of a large number of organizations managing building projects in the Indian construction industry. Details of the key steps in the design of the study are discussed in the following sections.

3.2

Research Variables

Factors affecting ICT adoption for building project management are the research variables that are required to be studied. Fig. 2.3 presented the factors at the levels of industry, organization and people. All these variables are required to be studied __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 61


independently as well as together, because together these become the factors affecting ICT adoption for building project management by the industry. People work on the projects, but their adoption of ICT is defined by the variables attached with them as well as by the variables attached with their organizations, since they represent their organizations. Similarly ICT adoption by an individual organization is defined by the variables attached with it as well as by the industry level variables, since it represents its national construction industry. Thus, causal relationships between these variables are required to be studied.

Variables with attached indicators can also be termed as macro variables with attached indicators or micro variables. Indicators are the dimensions that help in measuring and quantifying the macro variables. These need to be elaborated and explained. Literature review and understanding of the construction industry has helped in the identification of the micro variables for identified factor s, which would be further divided into the measurable dimensions. Variables for which dimensions are identified and can be measured quantitatively are measured and analyzed through the quantitative assessment approach. For other variables, dimensions are identified, measured and analyzed through further analysis utilizing qualitative analysis approach. Table 3.1 lists the macro variables, identified micro variables and the assessment approach for each macro variable.

3.2.1 Justification of the Chosen Research Variables Many other variables, apart from the identified variables, indirectly affect ICT adoption in the construction industry. However, the mindset in choosing the research variables for this study was to consider the variables that directly affect ICT adoption for building project management, as otherwise the study would have been unmanageable.

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Table 3.1: Identification of Micro Variables for the Macro Variables and Type of Study Required for Each Variable Macro variables Industry Level Factors Strategic Issues (IF1) Training and Education (IF2)

Micro variables

Qualitative assessment Quantitative/Qualitative assessment Quantitative assessment Quantitative/Qualitative assessment Quantitative/Qualitative assessment

Perceived Drivers (IF3) Available Technology (IF4) Cultural Factors (IF5) Organization Level Factors Strategic issues (OF1) Turnover of the Organization (OF2) ICT for general administration (OF3)

IT Tools or advanced software utilized for building PM Processes (OF4)

Geographical Separation of Project Team Orgs (OF5)

Quantitative/Qualitative assessment Quantitative assessment Infrastructure maturity for use of ICT for general administration Extent of use of ICT for general administration IT Tools utiliz ed for Project Time Management processes IT Tools utilized for Project Cost Management processes IT Tools utilized for Project Resource Management and administrative processes Percentage of projects on which organization has interacted with geographically separated agencies within India in last 5 years Percentage of projects on which organization has interacted with overseas agencies in last 5 years

Cultural Factors (OF6)

People Level Factors Training (PF1)

Perceived Barriers (PF3)

Cultural Factors (PF4)

Quantitative assessment

Quantitative assessment Quantitative assessment Quantitative assessment Quantitative assessment



Quantitative/Qualitative assessment Quantitative/Qualitative assessment

Training of Executives (OF7)

Perceived Benefits (PF2)

Type of study required

Benefits related to effective use of technology Benefits related to effective team management Benefits related to measures of project success Benefits related to increased organizational efficiency Technology related barriers Projects related barriers Organizations related barriers Industry related barriers

Quantitative/Qualitative assessment Quantitative assessment Quantitative assessment Quantitative assessment Quantitative assessment Quantitative assessment Quantitative assessment Quant itative assessment Quantitative assessment Quantitative/Qualitative assessment

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3.3

Hypotheses Formulation

Literature survey and deep understanding of Building Project Management has resulted in the formulation of the following Research Hypotheses. Three sets of hypotheses have been formulated. One set is ‘Hypotheses determining dimensions of qualitative factors’ i.e factors that are to be qualitatively assessed. The second set is ‘Hypotheses of Causal relationships’ and tests the effect of identified quantitative factors on ICT adoption for building project management. The third set covers ‘Supplementary Hypotheses’.

3.3.1 Hypotheses determining dimensions of qualitative factors Dimension for Factor IF1: HD1: For building project management, collaborative use of ICT is not as prevalent as the internal use of ICT within organizations. Dimensions for Factors IF2, OF7 and PF1: HD2: It is perceived that education of the users for ICT adoption and its benefits is important for increasing effective ICT adoption in building projects. HD3: It is perceived that more accessible and less costly ICT training for executives is important for increasing effective ICT adoption in building projects. Dimensions for Factor OF1: HD4: Majority of SMEs do not have a communication management strategy within the organization. HD5: Adoption of ICT by an SME is project specific and not organization specific. Dimension for Factor IF5, OF6 and PF4: HD6: Personal meetings are still preferred over teleconferences and other e-meeting solutions for managing building projects.

3.3.2 Hypotheses of Causal Relationships HR1: Organizations with higher turnover have higher adoption of ICT. HR2: Increased use of advanced software for individual functions or processes positively affects ICT adoption for communicating information with respect to those processes. __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 64


HR3: Geographical separation of the project team members positively affects ICT adoption for building project management processes. HR4: Perceived benefits of ICT adoption positively affect ICT adoption for the building project management processes. HR5: Perceived barriers for effective ICT adoption negatively affect ICT adoption for the building project management processes.

3.3.3 Supplementary Hypotheses HS1: It is perceived that adoption of ICT leads to significant benefits with respect to building project management. HS2:

It is perceived that increase in ICT adoption by SMEs for managing building projects is driven by industry requirements.

HS3: Extent of adoption of ICT for building project management differs for the three groups of sample organizations i.e Builders, Project management consultancy organizations, and Architectural organizations.

3.4

Research Design

Research design may be defined as the plan for moving from the research question to the conclusion. A design, which yields maximal information and provides an opportunity for considering many different aspects of a problem, is considered most appropriate and efficient design in respect of a research problem (Kothari 2005, p.3152). Research design must contain: A clear statement of the characteristics of the research problem; Unit of analysis; Data collection; and Analysis approach.

3.4.1 Understanding of the Characteristics of Re search Problem To understand the nature of the research problem, the research aim is again presented: The Research Aim is to develop protocols for effective adoption of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) for Building Project Management by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the Indian construction industry. __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 65


As per Kothari (2005, p.1-21), based on the research aim and objectives, research can be categorized as under: Descriptive, Formulative or Analytical research:

Descriptive research includes

surveys and fact-finding enquiries of different kinds. Formulative or exploratory research aims at formulating a problem or developing a working hypothesis. Analytical research involves using facts or information already available and analyses and makes a critical evaluation of the material. This research can be categorized as descriptive research.

Applied or Fundamental research: Applied or action research is aimed at discovering a solution for some immediate practical problem facing a society or an industrial/business organization, whereas fundamental or basic/pure research is mainly concerned with generalizations and with the formulation of a theory. This research can be categorized as applied research. Conceptual or Empirical research: Conceptual research is related to some abstract idea(s) or theories and is used by philosophers and thinkers to develop new concepts or to reinterpret existing ones. Empirical research relies on experience and is a databased research. In such research, the researcher must first have a working hypothesis or guess as to the probable results, and then works to get enough facts (data) to prove or disprove the hypothesis. Empirical research is also appropriate when proof is sought that certain variables affect other variables in some way. This research can be categorized as empirical research.

Comprehensively considered, this research can be categorized as applied, since it addresses the problem of increasing effective ICT adoption for building project management by SMEs in the Indian construction industry; descriptive, since survey is being conducted for data collection and empirical, because it involves testing the hypotheses including testing the causal relationships between the research variables. Such studies involving the testing of hypotheses of a causal relationship between variables require a design, which will permit inferences about causality, in addition to the minimization of bias and maximization of reliability (Kothari 2005, p.1-21). __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 66


3.4.2 Unit of Analysis Hussey and Hussey (1997) defined the unit of analysis as the kind of case to which the phenomena in the research problem refers. The unit of analysis may be an individual, an event, an object, a group of individuals or a relationship. Kervin (1992) suggested that as a rule it is best to choose a unit of analysis at the lowest level possible where the decisions are made. The best guides for choosing a unit of analysis are the research aim and the objectives, as they explicitly refer to the focus of the study.

The unit of analysis is required to be determined even as the research questions are formulated because the data collection methods, sample size, and even the variables included in the framework may sometimes be determined or guided by the level at which the data will be aggregated at the time of analysis (Sekaran 2000, p.135-138 cited in Tone 2005).

In reference to this research study, organizations managing the building projects are the lowest level where decisions for ICT adoption for building project ma nagement are taken. However, subjective factors affecting ICT adoption at the project level are also required to be studied. Thus, the unit of analysis for the research is both an SME managing building projects and a building project being managed by that SME. Based on the literature review, for the research study, an SME is defined as an organization with its number of staff upto 250.

3.4.3 Data Collection and Analysis Approach Data collection, data analysis and the development and verification of relationships and conclusions are very much an interrelated and interactive set of processes. The analysis occurs during the collection of data, as well as after it, and helps to shape the direction of data collection (Saunders et al. 2000, p.380-406). Data collection and analysis can be conducted through quantitative approach, qualitative approach or mixed methods approach. The former involves generation of data in the quantitative form, which can be subjected to rigorous quantitative analysis in a formal and rigid fashion. Qualitative approach is concerned with the subjective __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 67


assessment of attitudes, opinions and behavior. Research in such a situation is a function of the researcher’s insights and impressions. Such an approach to research generates results either in a non-quantitative form or in the form that is not subjected to rigorous quantitative analysis.

Broyd (1999) claims that the industrial adoption of high technologies in the construction sector can be described as a technology-process-culture (TPC) triangle (Huang et al. 2002). Similarly effective adoption of ICT by construction organizations requires utilization of this triangular paradigm and equal consideration of the associated technology, process and cultural aspects. To consider social, cultural and contextual variables affecting different latent constructs or factors, a hybrid methodology utilizing the symbiotic relationship between quantitative and qualitative studies is required to be utilized. Saunders et al. (2000) have also suggested that it is often beneficial to use a mixed methods approach by combining quantitative and qualitative methods and using primary and secondary data in the same study, as it helps in using different methods for different purposes in the study and enables triangulation to take place at the stage of the formulation of results. Triangulation is used to describe a multi-method approach for ascertaining and confirming results, so that the researcher has confidence that the phenomenon observed is because of the ‘trait’ and not because of the ‘method’ (Srivastava and Teo 2006).

As discussed above, in this research, study of the identified research variables requires use of quantitative as well as qualitative methods. Thus, this research focuses on collecting and analyzing both quantitative and qualitative data in a sequential manner (sequential mixed methods). To develop a balanced check mechanism, the research was divided into four phases: Interpretive analysis of perceived benefits of ICT adoption for building project management, conducted by ISM analysis; Questionnaire survey data collection and empirical analysis of data including SEM analysis (quantitative method); Semi-structured interview survey data collection and analysis including DEA analysis (quantitative and qualitative method); and Case Studies analysis conducted by SAP-LAP analysis (qualitative method) leading to synthesis of the results of the four phases. The purpose of this four-phase, sequential mixed methods study was to start with pragmatic assumptions, obtain __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 68


statistical, quantitative results from a broad sample of organizations to analyze or study research variables at industry and organization level and then follow up with a few organizations and projects to study the research variables at the level of organization and projects to probe, explore and validate the results in more depth. According to Wass and Wells (1994) semi-structured interviews may be used to explore and explain themes that have emerged from the use of questionnaire (Saunders et al. 2000, p.242-270). Data analysis in the mixed methods research relates to the type of research strategy chosen for the procedures (Creswell 2003 cited in Tone 2005). For the sequential mixed method strategy of this research, analysis occurs within both the quantitative and the qualitative stages of research.

The first phase was interpretive analysis of perceived benefits. Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) technique was used to assess the importance of perceived benefits of ICT adoption for building project management and their driving power and dependence on other benefits. This led to the formulation of the additional hypotheses of causal relationships and a framework for the benefits management plan within the organizations.

Questionnaires are an efficient data collection mechanism when the researcher knows exactly what is required and how to measure the variables of interest (Sekaran 2003). The second phase involved administering a questionnaire survey with predominantly quantitative research questions to address the research variables. Therefore, initially an extensive literature review was undertaken to help establish a rationale for the research questions and to ascertain the extent and depth of existing knowledge on the research variables. The literature was used deductively as a basis for advancing research objectives (Creswell 2003, p.32). The data was analyzed through rigorous statistical analysis. The results included a proposed framework for benchmarking ICT adoption for building project management. It required quantitative and qualitative assessment for validation and finalization. Qualitative data analysis was also required to establish dimensions of research variables like cultural issues that required qualitative assessment.

Semi-structured inte rviews are appropriate for triangulating the data collected by questionnaire (Saunders et al. 2000, p.242-270), for exploring and explaining themes __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 69


that emerge from the use of questionnaire survey and also to validate findings from the use of questionnaire (Wass and Wells 1994 cited in Saunders et al. 2000, p.242270). Thus, the third phase consisted of semi-structured interviews conducted at the organization level leading to finalization and validation of the benchmarking framework. It included quantitative as well as qualitative analysis. The purpose of case studies is, “to tell a big story through the lens of a small case.” (Tan 2004). The fourth phase, the qualitative study was the case studies analysis conducted to identify social, cultural and behavioral factors affecting ICT adoption.

Synthesis of the four phases of the study is a qualitative phase, as it required researcher’s experience and judgment for the formulation of results. Research methods generate techniques and appropriate data analysis techniques were adopted for each stage of the research. The research methods and techniques adopted in the three phases are discussed in detail in subsequent sections.

3.5

Research Methods

Research methodology is a way to systematically solve the research problem (Kothari 2005, p.8) and it helps to structure the research process in logical steps through appropriate stages. Only by using appropriate methodologies and methods of research, applied with rigor, can the body of knowledge for construction be established and advanced with confidence (Fellows and Liu 2003).

Research methodology has been planned to achieve the research objectives by way of including effective data collection, analysis and their validation methodologies. The whole process would facilitate continuous knowledge building that is required for the research process.

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3.5.1 Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) Perceived benefits of ICT adoption for building project management were identified from the literature and after discussion with the experts from the industry and academics. These identified perceived benefits are listed in Chapter 4 (Table 4.1). Relation between these benefits and the dependence and the driving power of each benefit with respect to other benefits was analyzed. This analysis provides framework for the building project managers to plan adoption of ICT for the projects. It shows that if they are planning ICT adoption for achieving certain benefits, then what are the other driving benefits that should be achieved prior to that and also, what are the dependent benefits that would be subsequently achieved by default. The analysis required examination of direct and indirect relationships between the benefits, rather than considering these benefits in isolation. Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) technique has been applied to analyze the relation between these benefits and to understand the dependence and the driving power of each benefit with respect to other benefits.

ISM is one of the tools of Interactive Manage ment (IM) (Warfield 1974). It is a wellknown methodology for identifying and summarizing relationships among specific elements, which define an issue or a problem and is a method by which order can be imposed on the complexity of such elements (Mandal and Deshmukh 1994). The developed model is portrayed in words as well as graphically. ISM methodology is interpretive from the fact that the judgment of the expert group decides whether and how the variables are related. It is structural too, as on the basis of the relationships, an overall structure is extracted from the complex set of variables. It is a modeling technique in which the specific relationships of the variables and the overall structure of the system under consideration are portrayed in a digraph model. ISM is primarily intended as a group learning process, but it can also be used individually (Ravi and Shankar 2005).

ISM has been used by researchers for understanding direct and indirect relationships among various variables in different industries. It has been used to study higher __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 71


education program planning (Hawthorne and Sage 1975), energy conservation in Indian cement industry (Saxena et al. 1992), vendor selection criteria (Mandal and Deshmukh 1994), important elements for the implementation of knowledge management in Indian industries (Singh et al. 2003), strategic decision making in managerial groups (Bolaños and Nenclares 2005) and barriers of reverse logistics (Ravi and Shankar 2005).

However, in the literature no evidence was found of use of ISM methodology for construction related research. Watson (1978) has specifically discussed about ISM as an appropriate tool for technology deployment assessment and was thus considered appropriate for studying deployment of ICT in the construction industry.

ISM analysis is discussed in Chapter 4.

3.5.2 Questionnaire Survey (Industry Level) The questionnaire survey was conducted for quantitative data collection and analysis. It provided feedback about the validity, relevance and significance of potent ial indicators for each research variable. The mail questionnaire, as the term indicates, is a survey in which the questionnaires are sent out by the researcher and answered by the respondents without the researcher’s intervention (Dane 1990). Compared with personally administered questionnaires, mail questionnaires can cover a wider geographical area, can be conducted at low cost, both for data collection and processing, and avoid researcher’s bias (Oppenheim 1992). Mail survey methodology was adopted, as India is a large country and to have a sample representing the industry, a large sample size was required. Also, for greater reliability, the sample size should be sufficiently large (Kothari 2005, p.55-68). However, the return rates of the mail questionnaires are typically low (Dane 1990; Bourque and Fielder 1995). A 30% response rate is considered acceptable for statistically reliable information (Fellows and Liu 2003; Sekaran 2003). Nevertheless, some effective techniques can be employed for improving the response rates to the mail questionnaires, like sending follow-up __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 72


letters, providing the respondents with self -addressed, stamped return envelopes, and keeping the questionnaire brief. Important components of the questionnaire survey are discussed below.

3.5.2.1

Questionnaire Design

As defined by Kothari (2005, p.95-121), a questionnaire is “basically a collection of questions that fit the research topic and its objectives and the answers to which will provide the data necessary to test the hypotheses formulated for the study”. Also as per the definition of Nachmias and Nachmias (1981), the foundations of all the questionnaires are the questions or statements for which the researcher intends to seek answer or opinion in terms of level of agreement. In designing a questionnaire, the researcher has to cautiously pass through the various stages of clearly defining the research aim and objectives, research variables, and relationship of variables and formulating hypotheses. The questionnaire has been designed after identifying the measurable dimensions of research variables that can be assessed quantitatively. The dimensions have been identified through the literature review, enriched by the researcher’s experience and validated through preconsultations with experienced executives and academicians. As the response rates of such surveys are not enthusiastic and the respondents are generally reluctant to spare their time in responding to these questionnaires, primarily close-ended questions were included so that lesser time and effort were required in filling up the questionnaire. This also helped in getting the data in a standard format as required for statistical analysis. The questionnaire was divided into four sections.

Section I contained questions that assess the organization size in terms of turnover and staff strength, organization's area of expertise and primary mode of project execution, project team structures in terms of geographical separation of project team organizations, ICT maturity of the staff and the organization, and mode of communication adopted for general administration. Section II was a tool for mapping building project management (PM) processes adopted in the industry, assessment of software applications adopted for these processes, and ICT adoption for each __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 73


identified PM process. The PM processes have been divided under four groups: Time Management; Cost Management; Project Administration and Resource Management; and Communication Management. Section III assessed the perception of project managers regarding perceived benefits, barriers, enablers and industry drivers affecting ICT adoption for building project management. Qualitative perceptions analysis is converted into quantitative values with the help of a five point Likert scale. Section IV provided the data regarding respondent’s profile. It is considered important to get this information since data reliability is related to the data source and the identification of the position held by the person who completed the questionnaire (Oppenheim 1992).

Exhaustive options were given for each question, but to get the accurate data, for some questions respondents were also given an option to provide answers different from the options given. Nominal, ordinal and interval scales were used in the representation of options for different questions. Some questions were represented through interval scale and for some questions yes/no option was given. Interval scale was considered appropriate for those questions in which the requirement was to rate the inequalities between organizations within equal intervals (Kothari 2005, p.6994). Ordinal scales were Likert-type 3-5 point scales. Likert type scales are normally used in respondent-centered and stimulus -centered studies, i.e through these scales we can study how responses differ between people and how responses differ between stimuli (Kothari 2005, p.69-94). The sample population has been divided into three groups as described below. Each group has a different stimuli based on their area of expertise and their responses would differ accordingly.

3.5.2.2

Survey Population

The unit of analysis for the survey was organization and the sample population was small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the Indian construction industry. Survey was conducted across India to minimize the regional bias. Survey sample was selected from the Yellow Pages and the Notified lists of Professional bodies and falls under the group of Purposive Sampling, which is considered desirable when the universe is small and a known characteristic of it is to be studied intensively (Kothari 2005, p.17). In order to generalise the results, it is necessary to select a sample that is __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 74


a true representation of the population. Thus, those organizations were included in the sample, which were either managing building projects after being appointed as the project managers or had the authority to manage their projects if a project manager was not appointed formally. Therefore three groups of organizations were included in the sample: builders including contractors who construct and manage their own projects; project management consultancy organizations which are formally appointed as project managers on building projects, and architectural organizations which manage small to medium size build ing projects since on many such projects, project managers are not formally appointed. Targeted respondents were the senior level executives in the organizations.

3.5.2.3

Validation of Questionnaire

It is important that we are “measuring what we think we are measuring” (Kerlinger 1973). Thus, validation check is important to assure that what the researcher has in mind when writing a questionnaire coincides with the respondents’ perceptions when they go through it and the researcher gets an accurate result of the respondent’s experience. Sekaran (2000, p.209) states that ‘goodness of measures’ is established through the different kinds of validity and reliability and that results of any research can only be as good as the measures that tap the concepts in the theoretical framework (Tone 2005). According to Sekaran (2000), validity tests how well a developed instrument measures the particular concept it intended to measure, while reliability tests how consistently a measuring instrument measures the concept it is supposed to measure. For a mixed methods approach, reliability and validity measures apply just the same for both quantitative and qualitative data (Creswell 2003, p.220).

The questionnaire was tested for two main types of validity, which are conte nt validity and criterion validity. Reliability was tested at the stage of data analysis. Content validity represents the adequacy with which a specified domain of the content is sampled (Nunally 1978) and validates that the instrument item has items that cover all aspects of the variables being measured. Content validity cannot be determined numerically. Its determination is subjective and judgmental. It primarily __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 75


depends on an appeal to the propriety of the content and the way it is presented (Nunally 1978). The instrument developed in this study demonstrates the content validity, as the selection of measurement items was based on both, an exhaustive review of the literature and evaluation by the academicians and practicing managers during its pre-testing. Content validity was further tested during the pilot survey as per the guidelines provided by Forza (2002).

Criterion related validity refers to the degree to which the measurements within the questionnaire are meaningfully related to the objectives of the questionnaire. The questionnaire was exposed to the experts from the industry and academics. Research objectives and research variables being measured by the questionnaire were explained to the experts and they were requested to give their opinion and perceptions about it and their suggestions on how to improve it. Their suggestions and opinions were incorporated into the questionnaire. Doing that, it was assured that the measurements were meaningful to the objectives of the study.

3.5.2.4

Pilot Survey

Once the questionnaire validation was completed, it was subjected to pre-testing through the pilot survey. The pilot survey respondents were selected from the same population in which the main survey was to be conducted. Pilot survey was undertaken to test the potential response rate, suitability and comprehensibility of the questionnaire. Questionnaire for the pilot survey was forwarded to 11 organizations and responses were received from 7 organizations, leading to a response rate of about 64%. Later, each respondent was interviewed on the basis of the questionnaire, with an objective to locate the weak points of the questionnaire. Each respondent was requested to communicate the difficulties faced in filling up the questionnaire and the possibilities for further improvements for easy understanding of the respondents. The suggestions regarding language, formulation of questions, sequencing, formatting etc. were noted. The confusing and the problem questions were reformulated in consultation with the respective respondents and rechecked with all the respondents individually. Respondents were also asked to give their feedback regarding content of the __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 76


questionnaire. This gives the researcher an indication of whether the questionnaire is measuring the right concept and it is consistently measuring the concept being measured, hence its validity and reliability Thus, the questionnaire was improved with respect to the content, form, sequence of questions, spacing, arrangement and physical appearance of the questionnaire, so as to get the desired response from the respondents.

Primarily the questionnaire remained the same. But, in some questions respondents had given multiple answers, which showed that for the processes indicated in those questions, respondents were using multiple options. Such questions were modified to understand the percentage of each option utilized by the respondents.

The modified questionnaire was forwarded for the main survey. Final form of the questionnaire with all the details is pr esented in Appendix A.

3.5.2.5

Survey Administration

The questionnaire was administered with a brief write-up on the research objectives, purpose of the questionnaire survey and the directions regarding filling it up. Organizations were intimated about the survey through telephone or e-mail. After receiving consent from them, the questionnaires were sent to them by post or through e-mail, as suitable. Postal questionnaires were accompanied with self-addressed envelopes for sending back the filled up que stionnaires. Attempts were made to minimize non-response through frequent and easy-to-understand correspondence (Dillman 2000 cited in Prahinski and Benton 2004).

India is a large country and to minimize the regional bias, organizations in major cities spread all over India were contacted. Sample size must fulfill the requirements of efficiency, representativeness, reliability and flexibility (Kothari 2005, p.152-183). Sample size is also governed by the data analysis technique to be adopted. ‘Structural Equation Modeling’ (SEM) technique adopted for data analysis is a large sample size technique. 149 usable responses were received for a response rate of 40.05%. Detailed analysis of the respondents’ profile is discussed in Chapter 5. __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 77


3.5.2.6

Data Analysis

The ‘Hypotheses determining dimensions of qualitative factors’, ‘Supplementary hypotheses’ and hypothesis HR1 were tested through parametric and non-parametric statistical analysis discussed in Chapter 5. HR1 studies the effect of ‘Turnover of the organization’ on ICT adoption. This factor can’t be standardized for all the three groups of organizations and was tested for each group separately. All other ‘Hypotheses of causal relationships’ were tested through ‘Structural Equation Modeling’ (SEM) analysis discussed in Chapter 6.

Parametric and Non-parametric Statistical Analysis Data analysis included testing the hypotheses and defining the status of ICT adoption for building project management by SMEs in the Indian Construction Industry. This was a very important component of the data analysis and provided a foundation for the formulation of results. The analysis was conducted through the statistical analysis software SPSS. Different statistical techniques used for data analysis are mentioned briefly below, while detailed analysis is discussed in Chapter 5.

The reliability of the research instrument was evaluated using Cronbach’s coefficient alpha (α). Cronbach's alpha is an index of reliability associated with the variation accounted for by the true score of the "underlying construct". A ‘Construct’ is the hypothetical variable that is being measured (Hatcher 1994 cited in Santos 1999). Alpha coefficient ranges in value from 0 to 1 and may be used to describe the reliability of the factors extracted from dichotomous (that is, questions with two possible answers) and/or multi-point formatted questionnaires or scales (i.e., rating scale). The higher the score, the more reliable the generated scale is (Santos 1999). When data has a multidimensional structure, Cronbach's alpha is usually low. It generally increases when the correlations between the items increase. For this reason, the coefficient is also called the internal consistency or the internal consistency reliability of the test. Descriptive statistics indicators of mean, standard deviation, and frequency were used to describe the basic features of the data in the study and to help in __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 78


understanding three major characteristics of a variable in the study i.e. distribution, central tendency and dispersion. Sta ndard deviation is less affected by the fluctuations of sampling (Kothari 2005, p.136). These advantages make standard deviation and its coefficient a very popular measure of the dispersion or scatteredness of a series. Descriptive statistics was useful in providing simple summaries about the sample and the measures in graphical, tabular and statistical format.

t-test was used to test the significance of a sample mean. One-way ANOVA test was used to test the significance of the difference between the means of two samples. Pearson correlation was used to test the association between the different variables.

Wilcoxon signed ranks test, a non-parametric alternative to paired sample t-test is used to compare the difference between measurements of related samples. This test was popularised by Siegel (1956) in his influential text book on non-parametric statistics (cited in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilcoxon_signed-rank_test). It can be applied for the case of two related samples or repeated measurements on a single sample. Like the t-test, the Wilcoxon test involves comparisons of differences between measurements, so it requires that the data are measured at an interval level of measurement. However, it does not require assumptions about the normal distribution of the measurements. It uses z-statistics measure to test the significance of difference between measurements. This test was used to test the hypotheses where surveyed organizations are categorized based on their measures for two attributes of a single factor.

Non-parametric Friedman test is used for two-way repeated measures analysis of variance by ranks. It is a non-parametric test (distribution-free) used to compare the observations repeated on the same subjects and is an alternative to the repeated measures ANOVA, when the assumptions of normality or equality of variance are not considered. Like many non-parametric tests, it uses the ranks of the data rather than their raw values to calculate the statistic. This test was used to test the hypothesis where significance of the ranking of the measure of a factor in the surveyed organizations was to be tested. The ranking is also tested for significance through the chi-square test. __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 79


Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) Analysis Structural model of the causal relationships between quantifiable factors affecting ICT adoption for building project management was derived from the ‘Hypotheses of causal relationships’. Correlation between factors can be calculated through Pearson correlation, but, the correlation test does not allow us to make statements about cause-and-effect relationship between factors (Stewart and Mohamed 2004). Also, when there are multiple factors that influence one another and the problem occurs in a chainlike fashion, it is required to identify the multiple, contextual crucial factors that are associated with the problem, rather than establishing a singular cause-effect relationship (Sekaran 2000). Thus, the structural model was tested through SEM technique, since SEM enables us to concurrently test the hypothesized causal relationships for the entire model (Meyer and Collier 2001). A systematic, iterative process was used to determine which paths and factors should be eliminated from the hypothesized model. Item elimination was based on weak loadings, path significance and theoretical determination and thus the final model was derived. The model was tested on AMOS 5.0, software used for formulating, fitting and testing structural equation models to observed data.

SEM is an extension of the ge neral linear model (GLM) and is a family of statistical techniques, which incorporates and integrates path analysis and factor analysis (NCSU 2006). It allows the evaluation of the entire models simultaneously, which brings a more macro level perspective to the analysis rather than a micro-level one. Maximum likelihood estimation is one of the techniques used in SEM analysis and covariance is the basic statistic in SEM, even though other types of data such as means can also be analyzed (Kline 1998, p.9-126). SEM consists of two components, a measurement model and a structural model (Meyer and Collier 2001). In the hypothesized model, the measurement model includes the relationships between the factors and the questionnaire items (indicators) that operationalize the measurement of those factors. It assesses how well the observed variables (indicators) reflect the unobserved or latent variables (factors). A Structural model statistically represents the hypothesized structure and testifies the causal relations between the latent variables (factors). __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 80


SEM has been widely applied to analyze relationships among variables in marketing, customer research and quality issues (Bollen 1989; Bagozzi 1994; Meyer and Collier 2001; Datta 2003). In construction industry related research, Molenaar et al. (2000) have applied SEM to test a causal relationship model describing and quantifying the fundamental factors that affect contract disputes between owners and contractors in the construction industry, Mohamed (2002) has applied SEM to conduct empirical research aimed at examining the relationship between the safety climate and safe work behavior in construction site environments, and Mohamed (2003) has also applied SEM to investigate the relationships between reported risk and success factors, and the performance of international construction joint ventures formed and operated by Australian and British contracting organizations. As per the literature study, howe ver, SEM technique has not been widely applied in the construction related research.

SEM analysis is discussed in Chapter 6.

Questionnaire Survey Data Analysis Synthesis and Framework for Further Research Questionnaire survey data analysis was quantitative data analysis. The significance of the technical, managerial and perception based factors that affect ICT adoption was analyzed. SEM analysis tested causal relationships between the quantifiable factors affecting ICT adoption. There was inter-validation of results between the different analyses conducted.

Data analysis led to the formulation of a framework for industry level benchmarking of ICT adoption for the building project management. The framework was finalized and validated through semi-structured interview survey. The objective of this framework is to: •

define the method of measurement of the extent of ICT adoption for building project management by construction organizations. This tool should enable organizations to measure their ICT adoption and align it with their business objectives.

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•

help in defining levels of ICT adoption or provide the rating as low, medium or high. These levels are with reference to the Indian construction industry as the questionnaire survey has identified status of ICT adoption in the Indian construction industry.

•

help in measuring efficiency of organizations in implementing their strategies for ICT adoption.

•

study social and cultural factors affecting ICT adoption for the building project management.

3.5.3 Semi-Structured Interview Survey (Organization level) Semi structured Interviews were selected over unstructured interviews, as there was a framework to be validated and compared with unstructured ones; semi-structured interviews can focus on what the interviewer expects to acquire. Semi-structured interviews provide an opportunity to collect a rich set of data as they provide an opportunity: •

to the interviewees or respondents to hear themselves ‘thinking aloud’ about the things they may not have previously thought about (Saunders et al. 2000, p.242-270).

•

to the researchers to adapt the questions as necessary, clarify doubts, and ensure that responses are properly understood by repeating or rephrasing the questions (Frey and Oishi 1995).

•

to the researchers to obtain spontaneous responses to various questions and issues.

•

to the researchers to collect supplementary information about the respondents’ personal characteristics and environment. This information is often of great value in interpreting results (Saunders et al. 2000, p.242-270).

Semi structured interviews were conducted in 3 organizations, one organization each from the respondents of each group of the surveyed organizations. The criterion for selection of the organizations was their extent of ICT adoption as assessed from their responses to the questionnaire survey. Organizations with higher ICT adoption were selected and approached. Respondents were senior level executives. They were __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 82


contacted personally and explained about the objective of the interview. After receiving consent from them, the interview was conducted at a convenient time. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the following objectives: •

Discussion of the benchmarking framework.

•

Rating of the organizations as per the suggested framework.

•

Measurement of the efficiency of the organizations for implementing their strategies for ICT adoption. It was conducted through Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) technique.

3.5.3.1

Benchmarking Framework Structure Attributes

Benchmarking study at the industry level requires an analysis of the existing activities and practices in the industry with respect to the mission-critical processes or the processes under study and requires academic and industrial knowledge. Processes within the organizations should be measurable for comparison between different organizations. Benchmarking study should be stakeholder driven, forward looking and focused on quality (Construct IT report 1998). It should also identify the appropriate basis for measurement (Bendell et al. 1998). The key to any successful measurement system is simplicity, both in the nature of the individual measures and in the means by which it is unified into a coherent, focused whole (Bendell et al. 1998). A unified approach to measurement can be obtained by identifying measurable critical success factors with respect to the processes under study. These are the key indicators directly linked to those processes and should be between 6-12 (Bendell et al. 1998). To effectively support improvement initiatives, the measurement system should include a mixture of leading and lagging indicators (Costa et al. 2006). According to Anderson and McAdam (2004), the use of benchmarking should be extended beyond the comparison of lagging performance measures (Costa et al. 2006). Although lagging indicators are important to assess the achievement of an organization’s strategic objectives, leading performance measures are also necessary because they are proactive and preventive in nature. Leading measures help to anticipate the impact on the future desired results (Manoochehri 1999 cited in Costa et al. 2006). __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 83


Developed measurement models should be multidimensional and facilitate alignment of the performance indicators with an organization’s strategic objectives and should link the indicators with key managerial processes of the organization (Costa et al. 2006). Thus, measurement needs to be undertaken through a structured methodology as indicators and measures reflect the goals and objectives of each level of assessment in the organizations. To avoid relying only on subjective assessment, measures that extend beyond typical perceptions of performance must be included. Thus, each indicator should have one or more performance measures that allow quantitative data to be obtained for a particular process (Stewart and Mohamed 2001). Such composite indicators provide a powerful and reliable summary of the measured data. Such indicators can also improve the reliability of the data in terms of random variation associated with each term or measurement as random variation tends to average to zero when summed across all the terms in the indicator. In due course of time, the dynamic industry situation may change the gap between the benchmarked organization and the best practice, may reposition the best practice organization and may even change the best practice parameters. Thus, the framework is required to be reviewed periodically in order to make suitable changes as well as for introducing the new relevant factors and for omitting the factors that are not relevant, or when periodic recalibration of a benchmarking framework is required. Eight critical success factors or the performance/measurement indicators were established after the questionnaire survey data analysis discussed in Chapters 5 and 6 and ongoing literature survey. Each indicator is measured by one or more performance measures derived from the questionnaire as the questionnaire survey data analysis provides the validity, relevance and significance of these performance measures. The mea sures have their own metrics, data sources and minimum and maximum limits relevant to the industry standards and established after the questionnaire data analysis. The measures reflect the ‘Best Practice’ in the Indian Construction industry. The goal was to develop generic measures that would be meaningful to both, the participating organizations and the industry as a whole, and would be repeatable to simplify the process of recalibration.

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The benchmarking framework development and its attributes are discussed in detail in Chapter 7.

3.5.3.2

Benchmarking Framework Administration

Researchers have identified different models of the benchmarking process derived from the essential features of the Deming cycle, namely focus, plan, do, and review. Hamilton and Gibson Jr. (1996) have used the four-phase model of planning, analysis, integration and action. Fong et al. (1998) have suggested a five-phase model largely adapted from the model of Vaziri (1992) and Camp (1989b) (Fig. 3.1). It includes an additional maturity phase. All the phases as explained by Fong et al. (1998) are described below: Planning phase includes identifying the processes to be benchmarked, establishing the variables and measures (metrics) based on the current practices, finalizing the data collection methodology, collecting the internal and external data, summarizing and documenting the findings.

Analysis phase assesses an organization’s current state relative to that of the best practice organizations and results in highlighting major opportunities, threats, strengths, and weaknesses. It helps to discover the activities that require improvement and to project future performance levels to be achieved through such efforts. It requires a complete study of the organization. Since the desirable process or function used by the best practice organization may not be transferable, it is the organization’s effort to make sure that the transfer is feasible. After the appropriate goals and changes are determined, the process of change can begin. Integration phase includes integrating the analysis findings into the working system of the organization. Findings must be accepted by both the operational and the management personnel. The management committed to benchmarking would provide adequate resources and supports for implementing the benchmarking programs. Employee commitment from an operational level will facilitate benchmarking since employees are the ones who carry out the benchmarking practices. Coordinating with them closely not only helps them in knowing the progress of benchmarking __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 85


implementation but also ensures their continuous support. This phase also includes the establishment of functional goals, which target the benchmarking practices, and creating the clear, quantifiable, and attainable obje ctives that support the achievement of those goals. Action phase induces the desired changes in the benchmarked organizations and consists of three steps: developing action plans to reach the functional goals; implementing specific action plans and monitoring their progress; and recalibrating benchmarking measures.

Maturity phase includes assessing whether the newly benchmarked practices have been fully integrated into the organization’s working and whether the organization has been able to achieve the set objectives and goals, thus, establishing a new benchmarking cycle. Love and Smith (2003) have proposed a three-phase system of benchmarking (organizations evaluating themselves against the best practice organizations in the industry), bench learning (or ganizations determining how they can learn from the best practice organizations) and bench action (actual implementation of the planned changes through development of the skills of staff, training and organizational development). There is an overlap between the essential features of the two models discussed above except for the focus on communication and commitment stressed in the model of Fong et al. (1998). They have explained that communication of the benchmarking findings to all the employees will help in gaining support, commitment, and ownership. Bench learning or the Analysis phase would allow migration of the benchmarking initiatives from performance measurement processes to performance management systems as suggested by Costa et al. (2006). It requires understanding how performance can be improved and, as per Bendell et al. (1998), it requires qualitative assessment. Bench action or the Integration, Action and Maturity phases can generate innovation in the industry and as per Garvin (1993) it can happen in a receptive environment. It __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 86


requires national industry level initiatives to generate a receptive environment in the industry (Costa et al. 2006). It could be a transnational as well as an international initiative.


Fig. 3.1: Benchmarking Process Model Sourced from (Fong et al. 1998)

For the transnational initiative, benchmarking clubs can be initiated. These are forums for individuals to learn from the best practices within a local support network (Constructing Excellence 2004 cited in Costa et al. 2006), and for providing learning opportunities to participating organizations by identifying and sharing their own and other organizations’ best practices, gaps in the practices and methodology for improvement. Inclusion of more organizations into the process would lead to enhanced brainstorming and collection of more useful data. It would also lead to the __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 87


development of a vast network of partners that can be developed with a regional or even an international outlook (Fong et al. 1998). It is equally important that the benchmarking teams share what they have learned with the aim of creating an atmosphere in which knowledge transfer is actively encouraged (Hinton et al. 2000 cited in Costa et al. 2006). Learning cycles are set in motion once people absorb the transferred knowledge and apply it to their local conditions. Brewer et al. (2003) have discussed a web-based tool for benchmarking.

For an international initiative following mechanisms have been identified: technical visits to foreign construction organizations and projects; workshops and seminars involving organizations from different regions of the world; and the development of web portals that make information on managerial practices, new technologies, and performance measures widely available (Costa et al., 2006). In this research, the suggested Benchmarking process is derived from the above two discussed frameworks and is divided into four phases of: •

Benchmarking and BenchMeasurement

•

BenchLearning

•

BenchAction

•

BenchMonitoring

These are discussed in detail in Chapter 7.

3.5.3.3

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) Technique

DEA is a data-oriented (Li et al. 2005), non-parametric methodology based upon Input-Output system (Chiang et al. 2006) and utilizes the application of linear programming. It is a tool for multi-criteria-decision-making and was originally developed for performance measurement (Ramanathan 2003, p.109). It is used for measuring the performance efficiency of organizational units, which are termed as Decision-Making Units (DMUs). It aims to measure how efficiently a DMU uses the resources available to generate a set of outputs (Charnes et al. 1978 cited in Ramanathan 2003, p.25). DMUs can include manufacturing units, departments of big organizations, a set of organizations or even practicing individuals. A DMU has __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 88


flexibility with respect to some of the decisions it makes, but not necessarily complete freedom with respect to these decisions (DEA Notes). DMUs can also be systems such as scenarios, options, etc. (Chiang et al. 2006). Most of these DMUs are those where the measurement of performance efficiency is difficult (Ramanathan 2003, p.26). It has been successfully employed for assessing the relative performance of a set of DMUs that use a variety of identical inputs to produce a variety of identical outputs. The principles of DEA date back to Farrel (1957). The recent series of discussions on this topic started with the article by Charnes et al. (1978), and Cooper et al. (2000) provide recent and comprehensive material on DEA (Ramanathan 2003, p.25).

In DEA, the performance of DMUs is assessed using the concept of efficiency or productivity, which is the ratio of the total outputs to the total inputs. For such a comparison to occur, a set of criteria must be established, which have to be classified as inputs and outputs (Cooper et al. 1999 cite d in Chiang et al. 2006). The ratio of outputs to inputs for every DMU forms the basis for comparison. The efficiencies estimated using DEA are relative i.e relative to the best performing DMU(s). The best performing DMU is assigned an efficiency score of unity or 100% and the performance of other DMUs varies between 0-100% relative to this best performance. Functional specifications are avoided in expressing production relationships between inputs and outputs (Li et al. 2005).

Efficiency = Total Outputs/Total Inputs If all the DMUs operate in a similar environment, it is realistic to measure performance of the studied DMUs with that of the best DMU (Ramanathan 2003, p.28). The analysis can be conducted mathematically as well as graphically. Models upto two inputs and one output can be studied graphically. The DEA analysis checks whether the DMU under consideration could improve its performance by decreasing its input and increasing its output. The improvement is pursued until the boundary of the convex hull of the other DMUs is reached (Fig. 3.2). A DMU which cannot improve its performance is efficient or non-dominated, otherwise it is dominated by a __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 89


convex combination of other DMUs. The graph of an input function and an output function is generated. The line joining the best performing DMUs and horizontal and vertical lines connecting them to the two axes become the ‘Efficiency Frontier’. It represents a standard of performance that the organizations not on the frontier should try to achieve as it forms the basis of efficiency measurement (Ramanathan 2003, p.31). Mathematically the efficient frontier is the convex hull of the data (DEA Notes). Such an analysis using the efficiency frontier is often termed as ‘Frontier Analysis’ (Farrel 1957 cited in Ramanathan 2003, p.32). The efficiency frontier envelops the available data. Hence, the term ‘Data Envelopment Analysis’, which was coined by Charnes et al. (1978) (cited in Ramanathan 2003, p.32). As shown in Fig. 3.2, in an example of comparing organizations A,B,C and D with two inputs of number of employees and amount of capital employed and one output of added value, two organizations A and C are found to be the most efficient and lie on the efficiency frontier.


Fig. 3.2: Graph Explaining the Concept of Efficiency Frontier Sourced from (Ramanathan 2003)

The analysis does not reflect that the performance of the best performing DMU(s) cannot be improved. It may or may not be possible. These are the best DMU(s) with regard to the data used for analysis (Ramanathan 2003, p.32). The performance of all the other DMUs is assessed in relation to this best achieved performance. Thus, relative efficiencies are calculated based on the data available and not as absolute efficiencies. __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 90


A general mathematical formulation is needed to handle the case of multiple inputs and multiple outputs. This mathematica l formulation was provided by Charnes et al. (1978) in a seminal paper providing the fundamentals of the mathematical aspects of the frontier analysis (Ramanathan 2003, p.38). When comparing all the DMUs, the mathematical model changes to an optimization problem by setting a mathematical model that maximizes the relative efficiency of all the DMUs subject to the original constraints. The relative efficiencies of all DMUs are computed, which indicate their impact levels. In some studies the DEA is also used to find a virtual DMU as the most efficient DMU (DEA Homepage 1996 )

The DEA has been developed and modified to include the aspects of realistic characteristics of DMUs and their inputs and outputs. •

Realistically each DMU has multiple inputs and outputs, so it is essential to calculate a composite efficiency value. This can be achieved by assigning some degree of relative importance to every input and output (or so-called weight) (Chiang et al. 2006). Thus, weights can be assigned to inputs and outputs . The weights assigned should be flexible and reflect the requirement (performance) of the individual DMUs. If required, a unique set of weights can also be assigned to each DMU (Ramanathan 2003, p.39).

•

The DEA analysis can be conducted as ‘Output Maximization’ program as well as ‘Input Minimization’ program. In the former, the objective function is to maximize the weighted sum of outputs by setting the weighted sum of inputs to unity and in the latter, the objective function is to minimize the weighted sum of inputs by setting the weighted sum of outputs to unity (Ramanathan 2003, p.43).

•

Initially the DEA model was based on the ‘Constant Returns to Scale’ (CRS). It signified that inputs and outputs could be scaled linearly without increasing or decreasing the efficiency. This was considered a limitation of the DEA and limited its applicability in early years. The CRS model is also known as CCR (Charnes, Cooper and Rhodes) model (Ramanathan 2003, p.42-45).

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Later, modifications were done for the DEA to handle ‘Variable Returns to Scale’ (VRS) analysis. It is discussed in Ramanathan (2003, p.67-69) as described below. “VRS was first described in 1984 by Banker et al. (1984). Hence it is also known as BCC (Banker, Charnes and Cooper) model. VRS combines ‘Increasing Returns to Scale’ (IRS) and ‘Decreasing Returns to Scale’ (DRS). IRS can be defined as a property of a production function such that changing all inputs by the same proportion changes the output by a greater extent than the proportional value. DRS is opposite of IRS. IRS changes to DRS at a particular level of production as shown in Fig. 3.3. It is also discussed that in a production process, the operations will follow IRS or DRS (or CRS) for different ranges of output.” Same concept can be extended to areas other than production processes, such as schools, banks, hospitals and other categories of DMUs of the service industry. •

DEA can be applied on continuous, categorical and ordinal variables (Ramanathan 2003, p.103).


Fig. 3.3: Graph Showing Production Function of CRS and IRS Sourced from (Ramanathan 2003) In DEA, following constraints apply (Chiang et al. 2006): •

0≤ Efficiency ≤ 1

•

Values of all the variables (inputs and outputs) and values of the weights of all variables for all the DMUs should be greater than zero.

•

Values of all the variables must be non-negative.

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Since DEA using linear programming techniques determines a best-practice or efficient frontier of DMUs without a priori assumptions on the underlying functional forms, DEA has been applied to various areas of efficiency evaluation (Zhu 2002; Chen 2003; Yun et al. 2004 cited in Li et al. 2005). DEA has been applied in many situations such as: health care (hospitals, doctors), education (schools, universities), banks,

manufacturing,

benchmarking ,

management

evaluation,

fast

food

restaurants, retail stores (DEA Homepage 1996), defense bases (army, navy, air force), tax offices, prisons, non-profit making organizations, etc. (DEA Notes).

A few of the characteristics that make DEA powerful are (DEA Homepage 1996): •

DEA can handle multiple input and multiple output models.

•

It does not require an assumption of a functional form relating inputs to outputs.

•

DMUs are directly compared against a peer or a combination of peers.

•

Inputs and outputs can have very different units. For example, X1 could be in units of lives saved and X2 could be in units of dollars without requiring an a priori tradeoff between the two.

•

The analyzed data sets may vary in size. Some analysts work on problems with as few as 15 or 20 DMUs while others are tackling problems with over 10,000 DMUs.

It has been discussed that exploring the role of the construction sector in terms of the consumptions and inputs may help formulate strategies to maximize construction productivity (Ganesan et al. 1996; Chiang et al. 2001 cited in Chiang et al. 2006). With respect to the construction research: Cheng and Li (2004) have applied DEA to evaluate a set of locations for construction projects (Chiang et al. 2006); Li et al. (2005) have applied DEA in a longitudinal study of measurement of the productivity of Chinese construction industry; Anderson et al. (1998) have applied DEA to measure efficiency of franchising in the residential real estate brokerage market; Chiang et al. (2006) have examined repercussions of consumptions and inputs placed on the construction sector by the use of Input–Output tables and DEA; Lacouture et al. (2007) have discussed a DEA based tool for optimizing purchasing decisions in

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B2B construction marketplaces. But, as per the literature study, DEA has not been applied widely in the construction relate d research. In this research study, DEA has been conducted using ‘Frontier Analyst’ software developed by University of Warwick and Banxia Software Ltd. UK. It helped in measurement of the efficiency of organizations in implementing their strategies for the adoption of ICT.

The semi-structured interview data analysis resulted in benchmarking or measurement of ICT adoption by the studied organizations for building project management, efficiency measurement and benchmarking framework finalization. The analysis results are discussed in Chapter 7 and the final benchmarking framework is presented in Appendix D.

3.5.4 Case Studies (Organization level and Project level) Case study method is a form of qualitative analysis wherein careful and complete observation of an individual or a situation or an institution is done, efforts are made to study each and every aspect of the concerning unit in minute details and then from the case data, generalizations and inferences are drawn (Kothari 2005, p.113-116). It investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between the phenomenon and the context are not clearly evident (Majumdar and Gupta 2001). It is the most common qualitative method used in the information systems and is particularly well suited to Information Systems research, since the object of this discipline is to study the information systems in organizations, and the "interest has shifted to organizational issues rather than technical issues" (Benbasat et al. 1987 cited in Majumdar and Gupta 2001). Case studies look deceptively simple, but require thorough familiarity with the existing theoretical knowledge of the field of inquiry by the researcher and also the skill to differentiate significant variables from insignificant ones (Duggal et al. 2001). An unbiased approach is mandatory.

The purpose of the case studies is, “to tell a big story through the lens of a small case” (Tan 2004). These are conducted to focus more on the typicalness of the __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 94


situation in each organization as focus on the typicalness leads to meaningful generalizations and scientific abstraction whereas uniqueness would preclude these (Majumdar and Gupta, 2001). The case study method is suited to the situations where the researcher is attempting to answer a “how” question (Yin 1989). It is also suited to the situations where the phenomena and the context in which they exist are difficult to separate.

Case study approach was selected to identify the social, cultural and behavioral issues affecting ICT adoption through the study of gaps in practice and trends identified in Benchmarking framework analysis. It also led to the validation of the cultural issues identified in the questionnaire survey data analysis. Case studies were conducted through discussions with the senior executives and project managers and the powerful SAP -LAP (Situation Actor Process – Learning Action Performance) framework was used for analysis.

3.5.4.1

SAP-LAP Analysis Technique

SAP-LAP analysis methodology consists of two phases and provides a framework that can be effectively applied to develop either generic or specific models of inquiry (Sushil 2000). In SAP analysis, the system or the management context is studied through three basic components i.e. situation, actor, and process as discussed below.

Context: Context defines the background and the environmental norms that impinge upon the reality. The components operate it (Duggal et al. 2001).

Situation: The present status, potential for growth or decay, accelerating and decelerating forces, present and future state of the art, etc. taken together define the situation (Duggal et al. 2001). It primarily comprises the micro and macro environments of the organization with respect to the problem of study. For the discussed case studies, head offices and project site offices individually constitute the microenvironments for the adoption of ICT and collectively these constitute the macro environment that significantly affects the processes of ICT adoption for building project management. The situation is affected by the external factors but has no control on those external factors. __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 95


Actors: The participants who influence the situation and alter it by their actions or inaction are termed as actors (Duggal et al. 2001). An actor can be an individual, a group, a department, or the whole organization. Actors can be internal or external. Internal actors are the decision makers as well as day-to-day operations staff within the organization. They control the internal processes and actions with their knowledge, understanding and assumptions about the future (Majumdar and Gupta 2001). External Actors are the driving external agencies. Thus SAP-LAP analysis incorporates multiple perspectives of various participating actors in the managerial process offering learning and interpretive framework of inquiry. For the discussed case studies, external actors are the clients, principal contractors and other such external agencies, which are perceived to affect the adoption of ICT on building projects managed by these organizations. Actors have the freedom of choice to some extent. Processes: These are the procedural steps taken by the actors with respect to the problem of study. Any dynamic behavior that alters the situation has the potential of being a process. Some processes are explicitly identifiable while some others will be implicit (Majumdar and Gupta 2001). Processes are affected by cultural and human factors. Thus, within a system or a management context, a situation is to be dealt with by an actor or a set of actors via a process or a set of processes (Sushil 2000). Any of the three basic components can be the driving component. Depending upon the context, the researcher has to study the situation, identify the relevant actors, study the processes executed by them and identify the driving component. The three components interact flexibly on multiple planes in the ambiguous reality and help us in understanding the reality (Majumdar and Gupta 2001). Interplay could be due to various reasons, for example, processes executed by a group of actors can be a situation for the other group of actors. The freedom of choice provided by the situation to the actors is termed as ‘external flexibility’, which varies between different organizations. Based on the external flexibility, actors can resonate their internal flexibility and create a rigid or a flexible process. A flexible process and flexible actors can quickly respond and adapt to the changing situation (Ramaraj 1996). __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 96


Study of the interplay of situation, actor, and process (SAP) leads to learning, action, and performance (LAP) (Fig. 3.4) (Sushil 2000). Learning gained about the situation, the actor and the processes would identify the possible actions to be taken by the actors with respect to the impending situation, actors and processes and the expected performance results of the system. The learning issues emphasize the typicality of the situation as well as some features of its uniqueness (Duggal et al. 2001). The actions would be influenced by t he driving component.

The SAP-LAP paradigm synthesizes analytic as well as synthetic modes of the system inquiry (Sushil 2000). As shown in Fig. 3.5, study of the context leads to the analytical mode where the system is divided into three components and each component, i.e. situation, actor and process is studied separately. It is synthesized in Learning as the study of interplay between SAP and identification of the driving component. Learning further synthesizes actions and the associated performances with SAP.

Actions are expected to improve the performance by changing the system. Thus, learning has to identify the areas having potential for change. Actions are to be devised both for preparing for a cultural change and for initiating the structural cha nge, so that ultimately the system remains ahead of the change rather than becoming a follower of the change (Sushil 2000). With respect to the performance, learning has to identify the performance indicators that will be changed and the expected improveme nt or the setback faced as an effect of the new actions. SAP-LAP analysis could be an ongoing enquiry within an organization, where actors consistently evaluate situation, follow processes, take actions, learn from their performances and depending on the results of performances either modify the processes or follow the same processes (Majumdar and Gupta 2001). Such a dynamic interplay of SAP and LAP will act as the basis of ongoing managerial inquiry. In context of this research, this forms a component of the ‘BenchMonitoring’ stage of improvement.

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Fig. 3.4: SAP-LAP Paradigm Sourced from (Sushil 2000)

Context

Situation

Actor

Processes

Analytic Mode

Learning Synthetic Mode Action

Performance

Fig. 3.5: SAP-LAP Paradigm Synthesizes Analytic as well as Synthetic Mode of Inquiry SAP-LAP analysis methodology has been used extensively by researchers for the case studies of different sectors. Majumdar and Gupta (2001) have used SAP-LAP analysis to study initiatives of Indian car manufactures in deploying Internet and __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 98


eBusiness technology, Duggal et al. (2001) have studied impact of the management of IT on the issuance of driving license by a government agency. But, literature review does not indicate the use of the methodology for the construction industry research.

SAP-LAP analysis provides one of the most useful methodologies of analysis and synthesis for the organizations, which are in the process of adaptation of a new and complex technology (Majumdar and Gupta 2001). Also, SAP-LAP analysis is systematic, innovative and has a holistic approach. Thus, in this research this methodology is adopted for conducting the case studies for studying factors affecting use of ICT for the building project management.

Case studies were conducted in three organizations in which semi-structured interview survey was conducted. This helped in having continuity in the research process. Discussions with the senior executives identified issues at the organization level and discussions with project managers identified issues at the project level. The analysis led to the formulation of social and cultural framework affecting ICT adoption for the building project management.

Case study analysis is discussed in Chapter 7.

3.6

Data Analysis Results Synthesis Methodology and Framework for Results Formulation

Summarization of the results includes statistical induction or statistical inference i.e. drawing inferences for the population or the universe from the sample and gauging the precision of the estimate (Kothari 2005). It was achieved by making quantitative research qualitative, by converting it to cognitive research i.e. by adding knowledge to it. The framework for results formulation was defined by understanding Everett Rogers’s ‘Diffusions of innovations theory’ and applying it to the research issue of adoption of ‘ICT for building project management’. __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 99


Rogers (1962) defines the diffusion process as a group process as it occurs within the society; whereas, the adoption process pertains to an individual. He defines the adoption process as the mental process through which an individual passes from first hearing about an innovation to final adoption. In the context of this research, adoption of ICT is at the level of organization and people, which further defines diffusion of ICT at the industry level. It follows Rogers’s five stage model for diffusion of an innovation (Fig. 3.6): ‘Knowledge’ i.e learning about the existence and function of the innovation leading to ‘Persuasion’ or becoming convinced of the value of the innovation. This helps in the ‘Decision’ of committing to the adoption of the innovation and its ‘Implementation’. This leads to ‘Confirmation’ of its ultimate acceptance or rejection.

This figure is not available online. Please consult the hardcopy thesis available from the QUT Library Fig. 3.6: Rogers’s Five -Stage Model for Diffusion of Innovation Sourced from http://eetd.lbl.gov/EA/Reports/40512/40512-3 This model leads to the formulation of components of ‘IT enhanced communication protocols’ or the research parameters as initiatives for: •

Increasing ‘knowledge’ or awareness of SMEs and project managers regarding IT tools and technologies for communication. Increasing knowledge at the industry level for factors increasing ICT adoption at the industry level.

•

‘Persuading’ or convincing people and organizations about benefits of ICT over traditional methods of communication in the present scenario and perceived increase in the value of the organizations after its adoption.

•

Helping organizations take the ‘decision’ of adopting ICT and planning required changes in the organization and ways of working.

•

Helping organizations in the strategic ‘implementation’ of ICT adoption.

•

Periodic evaluations of the systems for ‘confirmation’ of acceptance of ICT adoption, upgradation of systems if required and dealing with the problems or issues which are required to be considered.

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Rogers (1995) also defined six perceived features (STORCS) that determine acceptance of a technology. These features would be a part of the above components. The features are: S - Simplicity vs. complexity of the innovation. T - Trialability i.e. is there a chance to test the technology with the ability to reverse the adoption? O - Observability i.e. is there a chance to see how the innovation works for others and observe the consequences? R - Relative advantage i.e. is this innovation truly better than what it is replacing? C - Compatibility i.e. does this innovation fit with values, beliefs and current needs? S - Support. Research analysis would lead to the defining of these features with respect to the research problem.

3.6.1 Categorization of Organizations and People Based on ICT Adoption As per Rogers’s ‘Diffusions of Innovations theory’, adopters of any new innovation, technology or idea could be categorized as innovators (2.5%), early adopters (13.5%), early majority (34%), late majority (34%) and laggards (16%). This distribution has been shown in the form of a bell curve (Fig. 3.7). Each adopter's willingness and ability to adopt an innovation would depend on his awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, and adoption. This was derived from Rogers’s theory that innovations would spread through a society in an S curve, as the early adopters select the technology first, followed by the majority, until a technology or innovation is common.

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Fig. 3.7: Rogers’s Technology Adoption Curve Sourced from www.valuebasedmanagement.net

Geofrey Moore (1991) has further modified this technology adoption curve (Fig. 3.8) and discussed it in his book “Crossing the Chasm”. Grouping early majority and late majority as pragmatists (P), Moore discusses that the most important time gap in technology adoption is the time gap between technology adoption by early adopters (EA) and by early majority pragmatists as many a time adoption of a technology slows down after the early adopters stage. He has termed this time gap as ‘Chasm’ (C). As per his theory, Early adopters and Early majority are different not just quantitatively but also qualitatively.


Fig. 3.8: Geofrey Moore’s Modified Technology Adoption Curve Sourced from http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu Application of the ‘Diffusions of Innovations theory’ to the research problem helped in categorization of the organizations in the above discussed five groups and __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 102


understanding the type of change required in these organizations for ICT adoption (Table 3.2), which is derived from the categorization of changes in organizations as discussed by Weippert and Kajewski (2004): “Anticipatory change i.e. when change leaders look ahead and predict change in advance – typically most difficult to implement yet most cost effective; Reactive change i.e. when change leaders react to the obvious signs and signals that change is needed; and Crisis change i.e. when signs and signals to change have multiplied and intensified to the point where the change leaders no longer can deny them – generally the easiest to implement but at a higher cost (Fig. 3.9)”.

Fig. 3.9: Relation between Difficulties of Changing Versus Cost of Change Adapted from (Black J.S and Gregersen, H.B. 2002) in (Weippert and Kajewski 2004) The Construction industry is characterized by collaborative working and in such a scenario, benefits are achieved through widespread adoption of the technologies. As more organizations adopt them, the greater the potential benefits (Root and Thorpe 2001). Research analysis has to develop a framework for industry-wide initiative for: •

Categorizing building project management organizations into early adopters, early majority, late majority and technically averse categories with respect to ICT adoption and providing guidelines for Industry-wide shift from ‘late majority to early majority’ and ‘technically averse to late majority’ categories.

•

Educating organizations to go for anticipatory or reactive change and not the ‘crisis’ change.

•

Understanding the factors affecting the ‘Chasm’ period and the issues for minimizing it as much as possible.

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Table 3.2: Categorization of Organizations With Respect to Adoption of ICT and the Type of Change Required in the Process Category Innovators The enthusiasts which like technology for its own sake and pull the change Early Adopters Individual visionary organizations which adopt an emerging technology with caution to gain a strategic advantage over their competitors Early Majority Organizations that do not take risks of pioneering but are ready to see the advantages of tested technologies. They are the beginning of a mass market. Late Majority Organizations are skeptical, traditional and belong to lower socio-economic status. They dislike discontinuous innovations and believe in tradition rather than progress. They use hightechnology reluctantly and will use it only when majority are using it. Laggards/ Traditional/ Technically averse Organizations residing in the traditional areas of the industry and operating in markets where new practices are likely to be unwelcome, or where the sizes of the projects do not make high technology investment viable. They use a technology only when it has become mainstream or a tradition.

Adoption attributes

Attain the status of being industry leaders, but do not have the advantage of following established technologies. Follow the guidelines laid down by early adopters.

Have the advantage of following established or de facto standards that have emerged by use of technology in early projects.

Follow the standards or guidelines most prevalent in the industry

Change Required

Anticipatory Assess the new technology and adopt it. Organizations are partly ready before adoption of technology and partly get changed in the process of using the technology. Reactive Assess use of technology on early projects. Prepare their organizations for its use and then adopt it.

Reactive Assess use of technology on large number of projects. Prepare their organizations for its use and then adopt it.

Crisis Wait till majority of the projects would be using the technology and it becomes urgent to adopt it.

Line (1997) has applied similar theory for categorizing organizational staff with respect to the use of new technology: The early adapters and creative users: They are "self propelled", understand the concepts and learn the tools on their own. They are an important resource both in the initial phase of technology implementation and in the continuing development of the technology. They need to be encouraged and credited for giving support. On the other hand it is equally important that they understand that the other type of users do __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 104


not need or want advanced options and that they do not use advanced techniques that cause trouble. The normal users: They understand when being told and after having some exercise. They use the services straightforwardly but without curiosity, and they do not "research" the new possibilities. The late adapters: They need attention. Resistance may be caused by fear of not being able to adapt (and thereby expose them by doing silly things), fear of their own work position or maybe they do not agree that the company should use resources on this new technology.

Research analysis has to develop an organizational level framework for increasing effective adoption of ICT by: •

categorizing their staff or the people under the above discussed three groups

•

understanding their specific requirements, and

•

bringing maximum staff to the ‘early adapters and normal users’ category.

As per Rogers’s diffusion theory, the speed of technology adoption is determined by two characteristics: p, which is the speed at which adoption takes off, and q, the speed at which later growth occurs. A cost intensive technology like ICT could have lesser p value, but once a threshhold level of organizations adopts it, the q value would be more since this technology has a network effect, i.e. in a multi-enterprise work like building pr ojects, adoption of ICT would lead to its adoption by other organizations.

Research analysis would define factors that affect p and q value as these would be the factors that would also help in minimising the ‘Chasm’ period.

3.7

Justification of the Methodology

Attempts were made to leverage opportunities available to make research practical by blending quantitative and qualitative research. Quantitative data helped in understanding the relationship among key research variables after empirical testing. __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 105


Qualitative research was chosen to provide rich firsthand knowledge of the implementation issues by substantiating the experience of the executives and is expected to allow us to project present action with future results. Qualitative study has also been used as a supplementary study to support the quantitative study by filling up gaps of this study. Thus the methodology is rich in experiences and it is complementary, considering that it has a Questionnaire Survey, a Semi-structured interview survey, and Case studies. The methodology is supposed to provide valuable practical insights and action ideas that can be used at all levels of industry, organization and people in evolving and implementing strategies for enhancing effective ICT adoption by SMEs for the building project management. The research framework in detail is shown in Fig. 3.10. The synthesis of quantitative and qualitative research studies was done by taking into consideration the differences and the similarities of the conclusions of both the studies. This has helped in proposing the validated conceptual framework for implementation.

3.8

Summary

This chapter discussed the plans and processes by which the research objectives are achieved. It examines in detail the issues pertaining to the research design and methodology, data collection and analysis approach, key research activities and validation methods. Research hypotheses are formulated. Following the research methodology, a framework for synthesis of data analysis components and results formulation is discussed. Research methodology approach is based on the study of issues at the levels of industry, organization and project or people. Data analysis utilizes the ‘Principle of Triangulation’, where multiple techniques have been used for data analysis to have a comprehensive view of the results. The implementation of the research methodology and subsequent findings are discussed in later chapters. Chapter 4 discusses interpretive analysis of perceived benefits conducted through Interpretive Structural Modeling analysis.

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Structural model of causal relationships between quantifiable factors affecting ICT adoption for building project management (Chapter 4)

INTERPRETIVE STRUCTURAL MODELING Additional research hypotheses of causal relationships

•

• •

•

•

•

Fig. 3.10: Research Framework

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS (Chapter 9)

CASE STUDIES (SAP-LAP ANALYSIS) • Assessment of reasons for gaps in practice and trends identified for benchmarked organizations • Identification of qualitative factors affecting ICT adoption and validation of identified factors (Chapter 7)

Parametric and Non -parametric statistical analysis Hypotheses determining dimensions of qualitative factors and supplementary hypotheses Mapping of PM processes adopted by SMEs in India for building project management and the extent of ICT adopted for these processes Assessment of status of adoption of ICT tools and technologies in the construction industry Study of perceived benefits of ICT adoption Study of perceived barriers and enablers for effective ICT adoption Summarization of analysis in the form of issues and factors (Chapter 5)

SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEW SURVEY • Finalizat ion of framework for benchmarking ICT adoption for building project management • Rating of interview survey organizations with respect to finalized framework and identification of gaps in practice and trends for the benchmarked organizations • Measurement of efficiency of surveyed organizations in implementing their strategies for ICT adoption for building PM processes (Data Envelopment Analysis) (Chapter 7)

Framework for benchmarking ICT adoption for building project management

Structural Equation Modeling Analysis Finalization of model of causal relationships (Chapter 6)

QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY

RESULTS FORMULATION Strategic Model for Enhancing ICT Diffusion in Building Projects (Chapter 8)

LITERATURE REVIEW • Review of existing research in use of ICT for construction project management • Review of literature with respect to SMEs and Indian construction industry • Research areas • Research variables • Research Hypotheses • Research Methodology (Chapter 2 and 3)

A

Chapter 4: Interpretive Structural Modeling Analysis

CHAPTER 4

INTERPRETIVE STRUCTURAL MODELING ANALYSIS

4.1

Introduction

Perceived benefits of ICT adoption for Building Project Management were identified from Literature and after discussion with the experts from the industry and academics. Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) technique was used to assess the importance of perceived benefits based on the driving power and the dependence of each benefit with respect to other benefits. This chapter discusses ISM analysis and its results.

4.2

Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM)

Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) is one of the tools of Interactive Management (IM). IM tools assist research groups in dealing with complex issues (Warfield 1974). ISM transforms unclear, poorly articulated mental models of a system into visible well-defined, hierarchical models. It is a well-known methodology for identifying and summarizing relationships among specific elements, which define an issue or a problem, and provides a means by which order can be imposed on the complexity of such elements (Mandal and Deshmukh 1994). Thus, a set of different and directly related elements are structured into a comprehensive systematic model. The developed model is portrayed in words as well as graphically.

ISM methodology is interpretive from the fact that the judgment of the group decides whether and how the variables are related. It is structural too, as on the basis of relationships, an overall structure is extracted from the complex set of variables. It is a modeling technique in which specific relationships of the variables and the overall structure of the system under consideration are portrayed in a digraph model. ISM is primarily intended as a group learning process, but individuals may also apply it (Ravi and Shankar 2005). __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 109


ISM promotes the integration of contributions from individuals with diverse views, backgrounds, and perspectives through a process that is structured, inclusive, and collaborative. A group of participants who are knowledgeable about the situation are engaged in (a) collectively developing a deep understanding of the current state of affairs, (b) establishing a clear basis for thinking about the future, and (c) producing a framework for effective action (Warfield 1974).

There are two concepts which underlie ISM and which are essential to understanding the ISM process and product. One is the concept of reachability and the other is the concept of transitive inference (Watson 1978). Both the concepts are discussed in the later sections of the chapter. Through the use of these concepts in conjunction with the book-keeping capabilities of the computer, the ISM system offers a formal approach to structuring complex systems, which is claimed to be more efficient and effective than the less formal unassisted approaches (Watson 1978).

The various steps involved in the ISM technique are as follows: Step 1:

Variables affecting the system under consideration are listed, which can be Objectives, Actions and Individuals etc.

Step 2:

A contextual relationship is established among variables with respect to which pairs of variables would be examined.

Step 3:

A Structural Self-Interaction Matrix (SSIM) is developed for variables, which indicates pair wise relationships among variables of the system under consideration.

Step 4:

Reachability matrix is developed from the SSIM and the matrix is checked for transitivity, leading to the development of ‘Final reachability matrix’. The transitivity of the contextual relations is a basic assumption made in ISM. It states that if a variable A is related to B and B is related to C, then A is necessarily related to C.

Step 5:

The ‘Final reachability matrix’ obtained in Step 4 is partitioned into different levels. Final reachability matrix is developed in its Conical form i.e. most zero (0) variables in the upper diagonal half of the matrix and most unitary (1) variables in the lower half.

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Step 6:

Based on the relationships given in the reachability matrix and the determined levels for each variable, a directed graph is drawn and the transitive links are removed.

Step 7:

The resultant digraph is converted into an ISM by replacing variable nodes with statements.

Step 8:

The developed ISM model is reviewed to check for conceptual inconsistency and necessary modifications are made.

4.3

Analysis

4.3.1 Research Variables

In this research study, variables are the identified perceived benefits categorized under four groups. Benefits related to: measures of Project Success, effective Team Management, effective use of Technology, and increased Organizational Efficiency. The identified perceived benefits are shown in Table 4.1.

4.3.2 Structural Self-Interaction Matrix (SSIM)

ISM methodology suggests the use of the expert opinions based on various management techniques such as brainstorming, nominal technique, etc., in developing the contextual relationship among the variables (Ravi and Shankar 2005). It can be used to develop several types of structure, including influence structures (e.g., "supports," or "aggravates"), priority structures (e.g., "is more important than," or "should be learned before"), and categorizations of ideas (e.g., "belongs in the same category with") (Warfield 1974).

After consultation and discussions with the experts from the industry and academics, contextual relationships among the benefits were identified. For analysis, a contextual relationship of ‘leads to’ type was chosen. This means that one variable leads to another variable. Following four symbols were used to denote the direction of relationship between the benefits (i and j): V: Benefit i will help achieve Benefit j __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 111


A: Benefit i will be achieved by Benefit j X: Benefits i and j will help achieve each other O: Benefits i and j are unrelated.

Table 4.1: Perceived Benefits of ICT Adoption for Building Project Management Benefits related to measures of Project Success 1 Project completion as per the estimated time 2 Project completion as per the estimated budget 3 Project completion as per the specifications 4 Life cycle concept becomes a competitive factor 5 Project information obtained in real time 6 Richer information made available to managers 7 Less time spent in query and approval process 8 Effective change management 9 Reduced risk of errors and rework on projects 10 Effective concurrent construction management 11 A complete log of all communications maintained for tracking purposes 12 Effective material procurement and management 13 Effective contract management 14 “One-source” documentation archive maintained for clients 15 Client satisfaction 16 Reduced administrative costs of document handling and distribution to multiple parties 17 Project managers spend more time on managerial work Benefits related to effective Team management 18 Effective collaboration and coordination between project team members 19 Effective communication management between project team members 20 Greater management control 21 Effective joint decision making 22 Motivation of the workforce Benefits related to effective use of Technology 23 Increased information portability in the ICT environment 24 Reduced hard copy storage of documents/drawings 25 Flow of accurate information 26 Ease of retrieval of information 27 Improved capability of the system to cross reference to other correspondence 28 Multilocational availability of information Benefits related to increased Organizational Efficiency 29 Increase in overall organizational efficiency 30 Better information assessment and management within the organization 31 Useful information compiled and disseminated to other projects

The following description explains the use of relationships V, A, X and O in the SSIM (Table 4.2): i.

Benefit 11 helps achieve Benefit 27. This means that when ‘a complete log of all communications is maintained for tracking purposes’ it ‘improves the capability of the system to cross reference to other correspondence’. Thus the relationship between Benefits 11 and 27 is denoted as ‘V’ in the SSIM.

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ii.

Benefit 21 can be achieved by Benefit 23. This means ‘Increased information portability in the ICT environment’ helps in ‘effective joint decision making’. Thus the relationship between Benefits 21 and 23 is denoted as ‘A’ in the SSIM.

iii.

Benefits 20 and 21 help achieve each other. This means ‘greater management control’ helps in achieving ‘joint decision making’ and vice-e-versa. Thus the relationship between Benefits 20 and 21 is denoted as ‘X’ in the SSIM.

iv.

Benefits 1 and 24 are not related. This means that there is no direct relation between ‘Project completion as per the estimated time’ and ‘reduced hard copy storage of documents/drawings’. Thus the relationship between Benefits 1 and 24 is denoted as ‘O’ in the SSIM.

Similarly relationships between all the benefits have been identified and denoted in the SSIM.

4.3.3 Reachability Matrix SSIM is transformed into a binary matrix, called the initial reachability matrix by substituting V, A, X, O relationships by 1 and 0 as per the case. The rules for the substitution of 1 and 0 are as follows: 1.

If (i, j) entry in the SSIM is V, then (i, j) entry in the reachability matrix becomes 1 and the (j, i) entry becomes 0.

2.

If (i, j) entry in the SSIM is A, then (i, j) entry in the reachability matrix becomes 0 and (j, i) entry becomes 1.

3.

If (i, j) entry in the SSIM is X, then both (i, j) and (j, i) entries in the reachability matrix become 1.

4.

If (i, j) entry in the SSIM is O, then both (i, j) and (j, i) entries in the reachability matrix become 0.

The final reachability matrix is obtained by checking for transitivities as explained in the Step 4 above (Sec. 4.2). Table 4.3 shows the ‘Initial Reachability Matrix’ and Table 4.4 shows the ‘Final Reachability Matrix’. In this table, the driving power and dependence of each benefit are also shown. The driving power of a benefit is the __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 113


total number of benefits, which it may help achieve including itself. The dependence of a benefit is the total number of benefits that may help in achieving it.

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4.3.4 Level Partitions From the final reachability matrix, reachability and antecedent set (Warfield 1974) for each benefit are found. The reachability set for a particular variable consists of the variable itself and the variables it drives. The antecedent set consists of the variable itself and the variables on which it depends. Subsequently, the intersection of these sets is derived for all the benefits. The variable(s) for which the reachability and the intersection sets are the same are given the top-level in the ISM hierarchy, as they would not help achieve any other variable above their own level. After the identification of the top-level variables, these are discarded from the other remaining variables (Ravi and Shankar 2005). From Table 4.5, it is seen that ‘Project completion as per the estimated time’ (Benefit 1), ‘Project completion as per the estimated budget’ (Benefit 2), ‘Project completion as per the specifications’ (Benefit 3), ‘Effective contract management’ (Benefit 13), ‘Client satisfaction’ (Benefit 15) and ‘Motivation of the workforce’ (Benefit 22) were found at Level I. Thus, these benefits are positioned at the top of the ISM model. Table 4.6 shows the levels for each benefit obtained after 11 iterations. Tables of iterations II to XI are shown in Appendix B.

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Table 4.6: Levels of Benefits Levels I

II

III IV

V

VI VII

VIII IX

X XI

Benefits 1 Project completion as per the estimated time 2 Project completion as per the estimated budget 3 Project completion as per the specifications 13 Effective contract management 15 Client satisfaction 22 Motivation of the workforce 4 Life cycle concept becomes a competitive factor 10 Effective concurrent construction management 16 Reduced administrative costs of document handling and distribution to multiple parties 12 Effective material procurement and management 24 Reduced hard copy storage of documents/drawings 8 Effective change management 9 Reduced risk of errors and rework on projects 18 Effective collaboration and coordination between project team members 20 Greater management control 21 Effective joint decision making 17 Project managers spend more time on managerial work 6 Richer information made available to managers 30 Better information assessment and management within the organization 31 Useful information compiled and disseminated to other projects 5 Project information obtained in real time 7 Less time spent in query and approval process 25 Flow of accurate information 27 Improved capability of the system to cross reference to other correspondence 14 “One-source” documentation archive maintained for clients 11 A complete log of all communications maintained for tracking purposes 19 Effective communication management between project team members 28 Multilocational availability of information 29 Increase in overall organizational efficiency 23 Increased information portability in the ICT environment 26 Ease of retrieval of information

Types Projects Related Projects Related Projects Related Projects Related Projects Related Team Management Related Projects Related Projects Related Projects Related Projects Related Technology Related Projects Related Projects Related Team Management Related Team Management Related Team Management Related Projects Related Projects Related Organization Related Organization Related Projects Related Projects Related Technology Related Technology Related Projects Related Projects Related Team Management Related Technology Related Organization Related Technology Related Technology Related

4.3.5 Developing Conical Matrix

A conical matrix is developed by clustering benefits at the levels achieved, across rows and columns in the final reachability matrix. Table 4.7 shows the final reachability matrix in the conical form.

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4.3.6 ISM Based Model

The identified levels help in building the digraph and the final model of ISM (Ravi and Shankar 2005). Based on the conical form of reachability matrix, the initial diagraph including transitive links is obtained. After removing the indirect links, the final diagraph or ISM based model is obtained. Fig. 4.1 shows the final ISM based model. It is observed that ‘Increased information portability in the ICT environment’ (Benefit 23) and ‘ease of retrieval of information’ (Benefit 26) form the base of the ISM hierarchy and ‘client satisfaction’ (Benefit 15) and ‘motivation of workforce’ (Benefit 22) are at the top and reflect the effectiveness of all the benefits.

If Benefit 23 is achieved, it leads to ‘increase in overall organizational efficiency‘(Benefit 29) and in ‘maintaining a complete log of all communications for tracking purposes’ (Benefit 11), which further helps in ‘flow of accurate information’ (Benefit 25), ‘improved capability of the system to cross reference to other correspondence’ (Benefit 27) and ‘less time spent in query and approval process’ (Benefit 7). __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 119


Benefit 23 and 26 help in achieving ‘effective communication management’ between project team members (Benefit 19). ‘Effective communication management’ leads to ‘maintaining a complete log of all communications’, ‘improved capability of the system to cross reference to other correspondence’ (Benefit 27) and ‘flow of accurate information’ (Benefit 25). Multilocational availability of information (Benefit 28) and Benefit 19 are interdependent and Benefit 28 also helps in ‘maintaining a __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 120


complete log of all communications’ and ‘improved capability of the system to cross reference to other correspondence’.

Benefit 11 helps in ‘providing clients with a complete one source documentation archive’ (Benefit 14), which further helps in ‘compilation of useful information for other projects’ (Benefit 31).

Benefit 25 and 27 are not dependent on each other, but collectively help in ‘providing richer information to managers for decision making’ (Benefit 6), which helps in ‘improved information assessment and management within the organization’ (Benefit 30), which also helps in achieving Benefit 31 and this further leads to Benefit 6 since information from previous similar projects always helps the managers to plan the projects better.

‘Effective communication management’ helps the project team to ‘obtain the project information quicker and in real time’ (Benefit 5) which further improves the ‘query and approval process’ that is also affected by Benefit 25 and 27. Benefit 5 also affects Benefit 27, but has gone up one level in the ISM model because ‘improved query and approval process’ (Benefit 7) is affected by ‘improved capability of the system to cross reference to other correspondence’ (Benefit 27) but does not affect it even indirectly.

Benefit 5, 6, 7 and 19 are interdependent to ‘effective collaboration and coordination between project team members’ (Benefit 18) and are at lower levels in the ISM model because they also collectively help in achieving ‘better information assessment and management within the organization’ (Benefit 30), which further affects Benefit 18.

Benefit 6, 30 and other related benefits help the ‘managers to spend more time on managerial work’ (Benefit 17), which further helps in ‘effective change management’ (Benefit 8) leading to ‘reduced risk of errors and rework on the projects’ (Benefit 9), which is a measure of ‘effective collaboration and coordination between the project team members’ (Benefit 18), but is also helped by it. Benefit 18 and ‘effective joint decision making’ (Benefit 21) are interdependent and help in __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 121


achieving ‘greater management control’ (Benefit 20). ‘Effective joint decision making’ helps in improving the ‘query and approval process’ (Benefit 7), but is two levels above it in the ISM model, because Benefit 7 affects Benefits 6 and 30 which further help in achieving ‘effective joint decision making’.

‘Effective change management’, ‘greater management control’ and other benefits help in ‘effective material procurement and management’ (Benefit 12), which further helps to complete the project within the estimated time (Benefit 1) and cost (Benefit 2) and ‘effective contract management’ (Benefit 13), which further help in achieving increased ‘client satisfaction’ (Benefit 15). ‘Effective communication management’ (Benefit 19) reduces the ‘hard copy filing/storage of documents/drawings’ (Benefit 24), which further helps in reducing the ‘administrative cost of document handling and distribution to multiple parties’ (Benefit 16) and reducing the project cost (Benefit 2). These two benefits help in achieving increased ‘client satisfaction’.

‘Effective collaboration and coordination’ and other benefits help in multiple design alternatives to be assessed leading to ‘Life cycle concept becoming a competitive factor’ (Benefit 4), which helps in completing the project in estimated cost (Benefit 2) and leads to ‘Client satisfaction’. ‘Effective change management’, ‘reduced risk of errors’ and other benefits lead to application of ‘concurrent construction management’, which further helps in completing the ‘project on time’, ‘effective contract management’, ‘increased client satisfaction’ and also leads to ‘motivation of the workforce’ (Benefit 22).

‘Effective change management’, ‘reduced risk of errors’ and other benefits also lead to completing the project ‘as per the specifications’ (Benefit 3), which ‘satisfies the client’ and ‘motivates the workforce’. Project completion on time also increases the chances of ‘Project completion within the estimated cost’ and successful project completion is an indication of ‘effective contract management’ and satisfies the client and motivates the workforce for future projects.

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4.4

MICMAC Analysis

The objective of the MICMAC analysis is to analyze the driving power and the dependence of the variables (Mandal and Deshmukh 1994). Driving power and dependence of each benefit is shown in the final reachability matrix (Table 4.4).

The benefits are classified into four clusters (Fig. 4.2). The first cluster consists of the ‘autonomous benefits’ that have weak driving power and weak dependence. These benefits are relatively disconnected from the system, with which they have only few links, which may be strong. Benefits 14 (“one source” documentation archive maintained for clients) and 24 (reduced hard copy storage of documents/drawings) come under this category. Second cluster consists of the dependent benefits that have weak driving power but strong dependence on other benefits. These benefits primarily come at the top of the ISM model. Top level benefits in the ISM model like ‘Client satisfaction’ (15), ‘motivation of the workforce’ (22), ‘effective contract management’ (13), ‘project completion as per the estimated time, budget and specifications’ (1, 2 and 3) etc. come under this category. Third cluster has the linkage benefits that have strong driving power and also strong dependence. These benefits are unstable because of the fact that any action on these benefits will have an effect on other benefits and also a feedback on themselves. Primarily middle level benefits like ‘effective collaboration and coordination’ (18) and ‘effective communication management between project team members’ (19) come under this category because these benefits are dependent on other benefits but also drive top-level benefits. Fourth cluster includes the independent benefits having strong driving power but weak dependence. These benefits primarily lie at the bottom of the ISM model like ‘ease of retrieval of information’ (26) and ‘multilocational availability of information’ (28).

The benefits, which lie in the third cluster, need special attention and proactive attention from the management, since these have high driving power but they are also dependent on other benefits.

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4.5

Discussion and Hypotheses Formulation

The developed ISM model provides a structure to the complex issue of the importance of perceived benefits of ICT adoption for building project management. The ISM model shows that the project related benefits are primarily at the top of hierarchy, team management related benefits are primarily in the middle and technology and organization related benefits are primarily at the bottom of hierarchy. But, organization and technology related benefits have high driving power and these are ‘strategic benefits’ for the project team organizations. Thus organizations are required to give more attention on strategically increasing these benefits from application of ICT and if application of ICT for general administration in the organization is matured, appropriate IT tools are included in the working framework and team management issues are planned at the earlier stages of the project, then project related benefits would be achieved by default. The four groups of benefits are inter-related and cannot be achieved in isolation. This analysis provides a road map to managers or project management organizations to decide that if they are planning

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ICT adoption for achieving certain benefits then what are the other driving benefits that should be achieved prior to that and also what are the dependent benefits that would be achieved by default.

The results are significant for SMEs because SMEs focus on short term benefits and typically the senior management is caught up in a conflict of building up the organization for future needs versus the current fulfillment of the contractual obligations (Sreepuram and Rao 2006). Specifically in multiple enterprise functioning of building project management, it is difficult to quantitatively evaluate the benefits of ICT adoption. It requires qualitative analysis based on the perceptions of the construction professionals. The road map provided by this analysis could form an important component of the benefits management plan for the SMEs. The benefits management plan comprises a range of management activities designed to ensure that an organization realizes the benefits it plans to achieve from an investment (Farbey et al. 1999 cited in Love et al. 2004).

Results of the ISM analysis led to the formulation of additional hypotheses of causal relationships. Effect of ‘ICT adoption for general administration works’ on ‘ICT adoption for building project management’ is tested through increased use of IT tools or software for individual project management processes, thus, leading to formulation of the following hypothesis: HR6: Increased ICT adoption for general administration positively affects use of advanced software for individual building project management processes.

The relations between the three factors- ‘geographical separation between project team members’, ‘perceived benefits of ICT adoption’ and ‘perceived barriers for effective ICT adoption’ - are also tested with ‘ICT adoption for general administration works’. Thus, following three additional hypotheses are formulated. HR7: Geographical separation between the project team members positively affects ICT adoption by organizations for general administration works. HR8: Perceived benefits of ICT adoption positively affect ICT adoption by organizations for general administration works. __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 125


HR9: Perceived barriers for effective ICT adoption negatively affect ICT adoption by organizations for general administration works.

These results lead to the formulation of an additional supplementary hypothesis. HS4: All the four groups of benefits are interrelated and cannot be achieved in isolation.

4.6

Further Analysis

The above-developed ISM model as indicated in Fig.4.1 was based on the experts’ opinion and literature survey, as suggested in the ISM technique. It led to the formulation of additional hypotheses of causal relationships. The structural model generated through eight hypotheses of this group (HR2 – HR9) was tested and finalized through ‘Structural Equation Modeling Technique’. Data for analysis was the data collected through the questionnaire survey. The analysis is discussed in Chapter 6. Hypothesis HS4 was tested and the results are discussed in Chapter 5.

4.7

Summary

This chapter discusses the driving power and dependence relationships between the perceived benefits of ICT adoption for building project management. Though the ISM model is developed on the basis of the perception of experts, it is generic and provides a direction for strategically planning the adoption of ICT in project management organizations. The analysis results led to the formulation of additional hypotheses, which are tested in subsequent chapters.

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Chapter 5: Questionnaire Survey Data Analysis

CHAPTER 5

QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY DATA ANALYSIS

5.1

Introduction

In this chapter, data analysis of a questionnaire-based survey of SMEs in the Indian construction industry is presented. The main objectives of this survey were to examine the current practices of ICT adoption for building project management in the Indian construction industry, test the hypotheses formulated in this research and identify the issues that require further study. Key observations from this survey have been reported and discussed. Details of the questionnaire design, survey population, validation of the questionnaire, pilot survey and survey administration are discussed in Chapter 3 (Sec. 3.5.2). The data has been analyzed with different perspectives and the relation between the different analyses is also studied. In this chapter, office refers to the head office of the surveyed organizations. Levin and Rubin (1994, p.382) have indicated that there is no single standard or universal level of significance for testing the hypotheses (Tone 2005). Level of significance used for data analysis in this research is 0.05, which is the most common level used, or the confidence level is 95% i.e. p< 0.05. The confidence level refers to the expected percentage of times that the actual value will fall within the stated precision limits (Kothari 2005, p.155).

5.2

Respondents’ Profile

Questionnaires were mailed to 372 organizations. 153 responses were received. 4 responses were partially incomplete and were considered as missing cases. Thus, 149 usable responses were received for a response rate of 40.05%. For postal surveys in the construction industry, response rate above 30% is considered statistically viable and satisfactory (Love and Smith 2003; Liberatore et al. 2001). __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 127


Out of the 149 responses received, 75 were from Builders, 49 from Project Management Consultancy organizations (PMCOs) and 25 from Architectural organizations. Fig. 5.1 shows the distribution of respondent organizations with respect to the type of organization. Study of the Indian construction industry indicates that this distribution is a true representation of the population.

Fig. 5.1: Distribution of the Respondent Organizations with respect to the Type of Organization Architectural Organizations (25) 17%

Project Management Consultancy Organizations (49) 33%

Builders (75) 50%

The targeted organizations were SMEs and based on the literature review, for the research study, an SME is defined as an organization with staff upto 250. Size of the organization was assessed through Section I of the questionnaire. Data for the number of office staff and the number of staff at project sites was collected separately. The data for each group was collected under five categories: (0-15), (1630), (31-45), (46-60) and (more than 60). Wherever respondents answered for the category (more than 60), they were contacted and it was clarified that the number of staff in that group was not more than 120. For calculations, maximum limit was considered for first four categories and 120 for the last category. Collective data for the office staff and the project sites staff gave the information regarding total number of staff in the organization. Fig. 5.2 shows the distribution of the respondent organizations with respect to the size of organizations. 51 organizations (primarily builders) have staff upto 240 and rest of the respondent organizations have less number of staff. Thus, all the respondent organizations can be categorized as SMEs. __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 128


No. of Organisations

Fig. 5.2: Distribution of the Respondent Organizations with Respect to the Size of Organizations 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 upto 30 upto 45 upto 60 upto 75 upto 90

upto 105

upto 135

upto 150

upto 165

upto 180

upto 240

No. of Staff

Section I of the questionnaire assessed the primary mode of project execution by the respondent organizations. Data was collected regarding the number of projects executed by the respondent organizations as the main agency and as a subcontracting agency in the last 5 years. Fig. 5.3 shows this data for the respondent organizations. Data analysis shows that the respondent organizations have primarily executed projects as main agencies and not as sub-contracting agencies. This proves the assumption discussed in Chapter 2 (Sec. 2.5.3) that in the construction industry, SMEs also manage the building projects independently. Thus, it is important to study the ICT maturity of SMEs in the construction industry, as it would determine their extent of ICT adoption for building project management.

No. of organisations

Fig. 5.3: Mode of Project Execution by the Respondent Organizations (in last 5 years) 120 100

Building Projects Executed as main agency

80 60 40

Building projects executed as sub-contracting agency

20 0 0-5

6-10

11-15

16-20

more than 20

No. of building projects

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5.3

Data Reliability

It is important to consider the respondent’s profile since data reliability is related to the data source and the identification of the position held by the person who completed the questionnaire (Oppenheim 1992 cited in Love and Smith 2003). Thus, it was considered important that the respondents had detailed knowledge about building project management and the processes and associated tools utilized by their organization for the same. It could be assessed through respondents’ years of experience in the construction industry and could be achieved by contacting senior executives directly for the response. Section IV of the questionnaire provided data regarding respondents’ years of experience in the construction industry. Ranking was done in five groups. Fig. 5.4 shows the distribution of respondents with respect to their number of years of experience. Fig. 5.4: Distribution of the Respondents with Respect to Number of Years of Experience more than 40yrs 3% 31-40yrs 9%

21-30yrs 30%

0-10yrs 13%

11-20yrs 45%

Minimum experience was of 5 years. 13% respondents had experience upto 10 years, 12% had more than 30 years of experience and majority of the respondents (75%) had 11-30 years experience. Thus, it is assumed that the majority of the respondents were middle to senior level executives and the data is considered reliable. For statistical data reliability and internal Table 5.1: Cronbach’s Alpha Values consistency, responses of each group of data Cronbach's alpha (α) from the questionnaire were tested through Section I (Q1-Q4)

Section I (Q5) Cronbach’s alpha (George and Mallery Section II Section III (Barriers) 1999). The values were greater than or Section III (Benefits) equal to 0.70 and α values of 0.7 or above Section III (Enablers) Section III (Drivers)

0.72 0.90 0.92 0.81 0.83 0.77 0.70

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indicate a reliable measurement instrument or reliability coefficient (Carmines and Zeller 1979 cited in Prahinski and Benton 2004; Nunnaly 1978 cited in Santos 1999) even though lower thresholds are also sometimes used in the literature (Nunnaly 1978 cited in Santos 1999). α values for each group of data are presented in Table 5.1.

5.4

Hypothesis Testing

For a quick reference of the proposed hypotheses, each of the hypotheses is presented before it is tested.

5.4.1

5.4.1.1

Hypotheses Determining Dimensions of Qualitative Factors

Hypothesis HD1

‘For building project management, collaborative use of ICT is not as prevalent as the internal use of ICT within the organizations.’ Effective ICT adoption for project management requires collaborative use of ICT between different organizations. Through Section II of the questionnaire, data was collected for the communication methods utilized for each identified project management process. Communication was categorized into four groups: within office (ict_off), between office and site (ict_site), between office and clients or consultants (ict_clnt), and between office and contractors or material suppliers (ict_cont). Communication methods were categorized in three groups: (hard copy), (hard copy and e-mail), and (only e-mail) with scores 1, 2 and 4 respectively. Further, to represent the usage of the multiple communication methods for a process, respondents could identify different communication methods utilized for different percentages of projects, through a five point interval scale. Use of ICT was found to be different for each category and the ranking was found significant (p