Change management capability assessment model for construction organizations

Abstract

The complexity of construction led to the fragmentation of design and construction process with different professionals independently handling each process. This characteristic triggers project changes. The inconsistent management of project changes, especially its implementation causes major risks of cost and time overruns, quality defects, conflicts, and safety issues. However, these challenges raise concerns about how diligently capable the construction organizations are in their work. Lack of management capability affects the performance of construction organizations in terms of project delivery within the constraint of cost and time. However, not much has been reported in the literature on management capability maturity of construction organizations, its assessment and impacts on cost and time performance of building projects in Nigeria. Supporting this claim is the agitations in construction cycle for a unique methodological approach that enables capability maturity assessment to improve performance in building projects. Against this background, this research therefore investigates the impact of change management capability maturity of construction organizations on cost and time performance of building projects in Nigeria. To accomplish this aim, specific objectives that addressed the identified problems includes; assessment of change management capability maturity level of construction organizations (CMCML), assessment of impact of CMCML on cost and time performance and development of a CMCML assessment model for construction organizations. Quantitative research approach that uses questionnaire survey mechanism was adopted for data collection. A total of 42 questionnaires were hand distributed to project managers, project quantity surveyors and contract managers, across construction organizations in southwest zone of Nigeria. The administered questionnaires retrieved revealed 95% response rate. Collected data were analysed using the following quantitative tools; frequency, Spearman?s rank correlation, factor analysis, multiple regression and fuzzy synthetic evaluation techniques. The empirical research findings reveal that the overall CMCML of construction organizations is „moderate? at 3.35 maturity rating and not far from maturity with a value of 1 indicating very low and 5 indicating very high. Findings further indicate poor management capability of contractors as the most prevalent contractor-related factors impacting project changes. The research findings also show that change management capability of construction organization has significant impact on cost and time performance of building projects. Finally, the research provide a CMCML assessment model capable of determining the capability maturity level of construction organizations as well as showing the cost and time performance of construction organizations in building projects.