A Post Construction Evaluation To Study The Impact of Contractors' Attributes On Construction Project Success

The success of construction projects is a fundamental issue for most governments, users and communities. In the literature that deals with construction project success and causes of time and cost overruns in the construction industry, there is some literature that highlights the role of contractors in project success. While most studies rank contractors’ success attributes from tendering, prequalification, and a long term historical perception perspective, this research aims to study the impact of contractors’ attributes on project success from a post construction evaluation perspective to identify what went right and what went wrong. In an attempt to understand and investigate this impact, a questionnaire survey is used to establish construction professionals’ perception of critical success factors (CSFs) of contractors that greatly impact on the success of construction projects. Factor analysis reveals nine underlying clusters namely- (i) safety and quality; (ii) past performance; (iii) environment; (iv) management and technical aspects; (v) resources; (vi) presence; (vii) experience; (viii) past projects; and (ix) finance. Logistic regression techniques were used to develop models that predict the probability of project success. Factors such as turnover history, quality policy, adequacy of labour resources, adequacy of plant resources, waste disposal, size of past projects completed, and company image are the most significant factors affecting projects success. Assuming that project success is repeatable; these findings provide a clear understanding of contractors’ performance and could potentially enhance existing knowledge of construction project success.