Personal constructs and critical success factors of decision makers in relation to success criteria for commercial highrise building project development in Singapore

Abstract

The purpose of this two-phase, sequential mixed methods study is to elicit Personal Constructs (PCs) and Critical Success Factors (CSFs) commonly adopted by decision makers and to investigate their influence on project success as reflected by Success Criteria (SC),their correlations and their relative importance to commercial highrise building project development in Singapore. Personal Construct Psychology (PCP) underpins the theoretical framework of this study. A preliminary field survey was conducted with 25 construction industry practitioners. Content validity, construct validity and internal consistency reliability were performed to formulate structured questionnaires for each of the three variables – PCs, SC and CSFs. These three questionnaires were administered to 136 phase 1 respondents. Test and re-test reliability was undertaken with 45 phase 1 respondents at six-week intervals. Results were consistent over time. T-tests were undertaken in phase 2 between 32 decision makers and 136 phase 1 respondents, and results confirmed their similarity. This research makes a significant contribution by identifying the variables which decision makers perceived as most important to project success. It also makes a theoretical contribution by establishing correlations between variables, academia to better understand their influence on project success. The PCs and CSFs provided in the results will be of practical use to main contractors undertaking future commercial highrise building projects in Singapore, in that they can serve as useful guidelines that can be applied to potentially enhance the chance of achieving successful project outcomes. This contributes to industry practice. It is recommended that main contractors adopt these established sets of variables at the outset of a project. The variables can be modified to suit the needs of each individual project, as they are project-specific and context-specific.

Date of Award	2017
Original language	English
Supervisor	Lee Tiong (Supervisor) & Doug Davies (Supervisor)