Construction managers’ entrepreneurial orientation and skills in construction firms in Lagos
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CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction
This chapter presents the frameworks of the study on construction managers’ entrepreneurial orientation and skills in construction firms in Lagos. The following sub-topics were taking into consideration during the course of the study:
2.2 Construction Management Entrepreneurial Skills
2.3 Construction Management Entrepreneurial Skills and Product Delivery
2.4 Knowledge and Technical Entrepreneurial Skills of Construction Managers
2.5 Basic Skills for Construction Managers
2.6 Roles of Construction Managers in Organization
2.7 Necessary Entrepreneurial Skills Required in Management of a Construction
2.8 Construction Management Entrepreneurial Skills Development
2.2 Construction Management Entrepreneurial Skills
The construction industry is regarded as being inherently uncertain and complex in its structure. The complex nature of the construction industry, coupled with the challenges of global competitiveness and changing regulatory requirements has created the need for highly educated and competent construction management (CM) graduates. Essential attributes include: intelligent, flexible, adaptive, and the ability to deal with uncertainty and rapid change. Construction management graduates are employed in various organisations in the construction industry such as, building and civil engineering contracting, project management consulting, construction and project management consulting, client organisations (public and private) and developer organisations.
Considering the diversity of employment opportunities, CM graduates need to be equipped with the necessary skills to be able to work effectively and efficiently with other professions in the industry. The objective of the research presented in this paper was to determine if CM graduates were meeting the expectations of their employers. Bearing in mind the dynamic forces impacting the industry, can CMs identify key skills needed by CM graduates for future success? Are CM graduates meeting the expectations of contractors? This information is critical for the successful formulation of curricula. To answer these questions, a questionnaire survey was distributed to CMs in contracting organisations regarding their expectations and observations of recent CM graduates. The survey is analysed and the results discussed. The results of the survey indicate that managers are generally satisfied with the skill level of graduate CM students. Several important skills that were considered to be lacking in CM graduates were also identified. Acknowledging that there is always a need to improve the skill level of graduates, recommendations for improving the content CM curricula are proposed.
2.2.1 Education and Professionalism
Definitions of CM abound the construction literature, with some focusing on project management and others on site management Sears & Clough, 1991; Fryer, 1997; Farrell & Gale, 2000). For the purposes of this paper, however, CM has two dimensions, project management and business management, which are, in practice, interdependent in construction. Construction management education is not new, as it has been a part of many early civil engineering programs (Abudayyah, Russell, Johnston & Rowings 2000). Since 1980s CM has emerged as a separate distinct profession with institutions such as the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB), Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE), and Australian Institute of Building (AIB) supporting and recognising its important role in the construction industry. From the time when CM was recognised as a professional discipline, undergraduate and postgraduate degree courses in CM have proliferated into many university curricula in countries such as Australia, Hong Kong, UK, USA and Singapore. In addition, the discipline has steadily gained status and recognition in the eyes of industry clients and other built environment professionals (Fryer, 1997).
In defining a CM professional, Murdoch and Hughes (1996) suggest they should:
- possess a distinct body of knowledge or identifiable corpus of expertise;
- hold the appropriate qualifications required by the appropriate professional body such as the AIB or CIOB;
- provide a service to the public by considering their needs before the needs of their own; and
- hold mutual recognition of other professions.
While recognising the professionalism of CMs, Fryer (1997) notes that CM may fall short of being a profession in the traditional sense. Fryer (1997) states that there is no shortage of a corpus of knowledge but, barriers to entry, that is, the qualifications needed to be a CM professional, are somewhat ill-defined inasmuch as there is no single body professional regulating entry or single qualifying route. In fact, architects, engineers and quantity surveyors (QS) may perform the role of a CM if they have the necessary skills and experience. For example, a QS may progress from a contract administration role to a project or contract management role and thus gain professional recognition from the CIOB and AIB, if they have a degree or equivalent qualification. The reason for this is that there are various categories of membership that professionals can hold with the CIOB and AIB, which has, to some extent, resulted in the abatement of mutual recognition from other professions. Furthermore this is exacerbated by the fact that there is currently no system of registration for CM, as there are with other professions such as the architectural and engineering disciplines.
2.2.2 Education and Training
Construction managers’ jobs are demanding, complex and varied and, are heavily dependent on their managerial skills (specifically social skills) so that they can deliver their projects effectively and efficiently to the customer (Akintoye, 1998). Research about what CMs do has been ubiquitous over the last three decades so we can identify what skills they require and the types of training and education needed to improve their performance (Farrell & Gale, 2000). There appear to be contrasting views in the literature for more graduate education of CM while others advocate for more training (Farrell & Gale, 2000).
Hammer & Champy (1993) suggest that ‘training’ increases skills and competence and teaches employees the ‘how’ of a job, where employees are taught how to perform a particular job or handle a specific situation, whereas ‘education’ increases their insight and understanding and teaches them why. Similarly, Farrell & Gale (2000) suggest that education implies that people develop skills such as creativity, critical analysis of accepted practice and understanding of theoretical concepts. Training, on the other hand, suggests that emphasis be placed on a person’s ability to perform productively in the early months on employed. Thus, Haltenhoff (1986) asserts that educated people are less productive when first employed but are able to take on a broad area of responsibility over the full span of their careers, whereas training produces individuals who confine their productivity to a narrow area of responsibility. In fact, Shirazi and Hampson (1998) suggest that CMs generally lack the managerial knowledge and skills to enable them to perform at their optimum.
Research undertaken by Finnigan, De La Mere & Wearne (1986) found that many members of the CIOB in the UK, who were practicing Chartered Building Professionals were in need of managerial knowledge and skills. Finnigan et al. (1986) also found that the building professionals sampled were inadequately prepared for problemsolving related issues in human relations, organisation, contractual matters, and motivation of others.
Atkintoye (1998) describes the informal and formal acquisition of construction management skills. In doing so, informally acquired skills are obtained through on the job training and in-service training. The formal procedure to acquire CM education is through an educational institution such as Tertiary and Further Education Institutions (TAFE) and Universities. The academic content of a CM course typically covers topics such as management principles and theories, the construction business environment, project management, construction economics, construction law and management practice. A CM program should equip graduates with both skills and techniques necessary for the decision-making involved with construction at a business and project level. Furthermore, a CM program should aim to strike a balance between the strategic, technical and operational aspects of managing construction operations in a wide range of construction settings.
2.3 Construction Management Entrepreneurial Skills and Product Delivery
Sears & Clough (1991) suggest that CM graduates must possess three essential attributes. First they should have practical experience so that they are thoroughly familiar with the workings and intricacies of the industry. Without such a basic grounding of construction fundamentals, the CM graduate would be unprepared to carry out their tasks and responsibilities. Second, the graduate must be familiar with various tools and techniques for planning, scheduling and controlling construction operations. Thirdly, the graduate must have the personality and insight that will enable them to work harmoniously with other people, often under very strained and trying circumstances. After all, graduates must be able to acknowledge that they cannot achieve everything through their own efforts alone. They need to be able work with and through people to perform their duties. Back and Saunders (1998) states that engineering graduates are required to possess an array of skills (personal, business and technical), as they are required to deal people at strategic, technical and operational levels.
Similarly, job advertisements clearly show that employers are looking for people who can communicate well, write reports, work well in teams and negotiate with and influence.
Graduates must be good active listeners, as the information they require to, perform their daily task jobs, solve problems and work effectively with others, will come from verbal interaction in team environments (Backs and Saunders, 1998). Similarly, Sommerville & Langford (1995) states “employers are looking for people who can communicate clearly and concisely, and who work well with others and build up networks and relationships both in the workplace and with customers”. In addition, graduates who are able to stay abreast with managerial and technological developments within the industry have also been found to be important skills that graduates should possess (Sutherland & Davidson. 1989). Together with a strong academic record, employers want CM graduates who are team players and leaders, good personal attributes, information technology skills, language ability, problem solving skills and a good awareness of the business environment. While CM skill levels are important for immediate employment and future career developments for graduates most managers’ tend to target graduates whose qualifications and skills match their own (Sutherland & Davidson, 1989).
Sutherland & Davidson (1993) found that graduates were often seen as having, communication skills (verbal and written), an inability to relate to others, a lack of understanding for other employees (especially those at a trade level), and a lack of ability to manage facilitate others working in the same organisation. Consequently, managers in construction organisations believe that graduates need greater skill levels in law and building contracts and more practical experience. According to Zhang, Shen, Love & Treloar (2000) CM graduates are often unfairly criticised by their employers because they are new to the workforce and thus have limited, if any, practical experience. Good management skills as the central tenet to improving the industry’s productivity performance, which to date has been considered to be poor when compared to other industries such as manufacturing.
In Australia, it is generally recognised that there is a shortage of qualified managers in the construction industry. This major shortage is expected to continue with the increasing complexity of design and construction, and the demand from client for higher quality and faster completion time of construction. Thus, it is important that CM programs produce graduates who have the necessary skills to meet these demands and are also able to work and interact in a collaborative and cooperative manner with people.
2.4 Knowledge and Technical Entrepreneurial Skills of Construction Managers
Knowledge is a recurrent combination of experience, values, contextual information and specialist insight that offers a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information. “The knowledge often becomes embedded not only in document or repositories but also in routines, processes, practices and norms”. Project management routines and processes could be re-communication, organizational, team building, divided into five phases and nine knowledge areas. Mohamad (2013), Heldmanand and Mangano (2012), as well as Kerzner (2001) believed that a significant interaction occurs between the different knowledge areas. For instance, project cost management primarily includes consideration on design, value engineering and optimization, estimation, cash flow management, contract administration, as well as financing and cost control. However, in the real world, other knowledge areas would likewise produce significant impacts with varying extents .
Mohamad (2013) argued that project time management is the least understood concept in the construction industry. Khan et al. Heldmanand and Mangano (2012) categorized technical skills into the following elements based on IPMA: project management success, interested parties, project requirements and objectives, risk and opportunity, quality, project organization, teamwork, problem resolution, project structures, scope and deliverables, time and project phase resources, cost and finance, procurement and contract, changes, control and reports, information and documentation, communication, start-up, as well as close-out.
A number of general management skills are applicable either only on certain projects or application areas. General management skills comprise much of the foundation for building project management skills and are often essential for the project manager. Hence, general management skills are frequently required on any given project (PMBOK). A few of the necessary skills for a project manager include: leadership, good communication and negotiation, ability to solve problems and organization management. Meredith and Mantel (2009) categorized the necessary skills for a project manager into: re-communication, organizational, team building, leadership, coping and technological skills.
Katz (2003) suggested that effective administration is based on three fundamental improvable skills, namely, behavioral (human), contextual and technical. Despite their interrelation, these skills can be developed independently. The successful project manager possesses technical competence gained through a career in advanced technology environment.
In a technical project, the manager needs to thoroughly understand the major technical issues apart from the complex and subtle second-tier problems This is the reason why project managers should have an engineering background. In general, technical personnel and executives should be assured that the project manager makes the right technical decisions.
Goodwin (2005) stated that technical skills are important and useful in project management. He mentioned that the extent of technical skills as an essential requirement for the project manager is worthy of examination. Moreover, Ives likewise found technical skills as one of the success attributes of a project manager.
2.5 Basic Skills for Construction Managers
Project managers are a very special breed of people. They are in much demand and will be increasingly so as the need for effective technologists continues to soar. Good technology project managers are trained, not born. They develop skills through experience and education. They become better project managers each time they successfully deliver a project.
2.6 Roles of Construction Managers in Organization
Briefly, technology project managers fulfill the following broad requirements:
- Define and review the business case and requirements by regular reviews and controls to ensure that the client receives the system that he or she wants and needs.
- Initiate and plan the project by establishing its format, direction, and base lines that allow for any variance measurements and change control.
- Partner with the end users, work with project sponsors and other management to establish progress and direction of the project by achieving goals, reaching targets, solving problems, mitigating risks.
- Manage the technology, people, and change in order to achieve goals, reach targets, and deliver the project on time and within budget.
- Manage the project staff by creating an environment conducive to the delivery of the new application in the most cost-effective manner.
- Be able to manage uncertainty, rapid change, ambiguity, surprises, and a less defined environment.
- Manage the client relationship by using an adequate direct yet complete and formal reporting format that compliments a respected and productive relationship.
- Drive the project by leading by example, and motivating all concerned until the project accomplishes its goal. Now let us examine the skills and qualities needed to meet these requirements.
2.7 Necessary Entrepreneurial Skills Required in Management of a Construction
The skills that a good project manager possesses are many and varied, covering the entire spectrum of the human personality. We can divide these skills into a number of specific categories, namely:
2.7.1 Personal Skills
Project Managers must be able to motivate and sustain people. Project team members will look to the project manager to solve problems and help with removing obstacles. Project managers must be able to address and solve problems within the team, as well as those that occur outside the team. There are numerous ways, both subtle and direct, in which project managers can help team members. Some examples include the following:
- Manage by Example (MBE): Team members will be closely watching all actions of the project manager. Therefore, project managers must be honest, direct, straightforward, and knowledgeable in all dealings with people and with the project. A good manager knows how to work hard and have fun, and this approach becomes contagious.
- A positive attitude: Project managers must always have a positive attitude, even when there are substantial difficulties, problems, or project obstacles. Negative attitudes erode confidence, and a downward spiral will follow.
iii. Define expectations: Managers who manage must clearly define what is expected of team members. It is important to do this in writing—get agreement from the individual team members. This leaves no room for problems later, when someone states “It’s not my job.” Performance expectations must be defined at the start of the project.
- Be considerate: Project management is a demanding job with a need for multiple skills at many levels. Above all, be considerate and respectful, and give people and team members the time and consideration they deserve. Make people aware that their efforts are appreciated and the work that they do is important, because it is. A letter, personal word, or e-mail of appreciation goes a long way.
- Be direct: Project managers are respected if they are direct, open, and deal with all types of problems. Never conceal problems or avoid addressing them. If a problem is bigger than the project manager or the team can deal with, escalate it to senior management. Never make commitments that cannot be delivered.
Finally, a favorite and personal rule of the author: “Underpromise, then over-deliver.”
2.7.2 Technical Skills
There are two schools of thought about the level needed for technical skills. Some project managers prefer to have little technical knowledge about the projects they manage, preferring to leave the technical management to other junior managers, such as programming managers or network managers. Others have detailed technical skills of computer languages, software, and networks. There is no hard and fast rule. It really depends on the type and size of projects, their structure, resources available, and the project environment.
As with all employees, project managers should have the technical knowledge and skills needed to do their jobs. If managers lack these skills, training is one option; being mentored or coached by a more experienced individual is another. Senior management should ask the question, Do your project managers need more technical skills than they already possess? On larger complex projects, such as systems integration projects or multiple-year projects, there are frequently too many complex technologies for the project manager to master. Technical training that provides breadth may be useful. On smaller projects, the project manager may also be a key technical contributor. In this case, technical training may enhance the abilities of project managers to contribute technically, but it is unlikely to improve their management skills. One thing is abundantly clear—the project manager is ultimately responsible for the entire management of the project, technical or otherwise, and will require solutions to the technical issues that will occur.
2.7.3 Management Skills
Project managers need other key skills besides those that are purely technical to lead and deliver on their projects successfully. A good project manager needs to understand many facets of the business aspect of running a project, so critical skills touch on expertise in the areas of organization, communication, finance, and human resources.
The following are examples of the management topics used in training effective project managers: ● Project planning, initiation, and organization
- Recruiting people and keeping them
- Effective project negotiation
- Software tools for project management
- Accurate estimating and cost control
- Project execution and control
- Developing powerful project presentations and reports
- Personal and project leadership
- Managing risk and making decisions
- Effective problem management
- Performance management
- Managing the projects within the organization
- Project management professional (PMP) exam review
- Growing and sustaining a high-performance team
- Managing change within an organization
This last skill cannot be over-emphasized. Although we worry about whether the technology selected is the correct one for the organization and will lead to success, projects do not generally fail because of lack of adequate technology. Statistically, most projects fail because the “soft science” portions of the project have not received enough attention—the human factor has not been adequately addressed. Change, whether for good or for bad, is stressful on an organization and its personnel. The ability to manage this change is one area in which any good project manager would do well to hone skills.
2.7.4 Coping Skills
A good project manager has to acquire a number of skills to cope with different situations, conflicts, uncertainty, and doubt. This means:
- Being flexible
- Being persistent and firm when necessary
- Being creative, even when the project does not call for it
- Absorbing large volumes of data from multiple sources
- Being patient but able to differentiate between patience and action
- Being able to handle large amounts of continuous, often unrelenting stress Additionally, good project managers have high tolerance for surprises, uncertainty, and ambiguity. Projects rarely progress the way that they are defined, and managers need to manage the uncertainty that comes with that.
2.8 Construction Management Entrepreneurial Skills Development
One of the surest ways to align strategies and work force competencies with enterprise vision is to create a road map from vision to execution. A skills management process starts in the future and works its way back to the present. An IT skills management process, for example, links the enterprise vision to a technology forecast. The technology forecasts to required skills, the required skills to the IT skills inventory, the skills inventory to the IT staff’s competence levels, and the competence levels to gaps and to the time frame during which those gaps need to be filled. Leadership, team building, marketing, business savvy, project management, manufacturing know-how, functional expertise, and institutional knowledge all are part of the skills picture. Skills management serves as an order for managing the work force (see Figure 2–1). It lays out a road map for skills development, work role definition, career tracks, resource management, staffing allocation, workload balancing, and learning. With a road map, all members of the work force can fit their strengths, weaknesses, and alternatives into the enterprise’s plans. Skills management is becoming a lifeline in a turbulent IT labor market. Midsize and large enterprises, businesses in the private and public sectors, aggressive and conservative companies—all are looking at skills management with renewed interest. Many enterprises now recognize that the combined lack of enterprise planning, imagination, and foresight are as much to blame for today’s labor crunch as is the shortage of relevant IT skills. In that climate, skills management can be a powerful tool for bringing discipline, rationale, and cross-pollination to an underused process. Even more enticing, many IT professionals, under the mantle of career “entrepreneurism,” will throw in their lot with enterprises that have clearly committed to and funded skills management programs. Having a road map with which to guide career development is more meaningful than wandering until serendipity strikes. Three years ago, when large organizations first began covering the area of skills management, it was a process reserved for the most progressive enterprises. By methodically and meticulously forecasting, classifying, analyzing, and taking inventory of skills, progressive enterprises could identify the urgency and volume of skills gaps, create focused training programs, and add some rational thinking to their sourcing strategies. Skills management continues to satisfy those needs, even fostering a niche market of consultants and software developers that are eager to bring order to IT Human Resource management.
Before moving on, it is beneficial to make sure that everybody is speaking the same language. In the Gartner Group’s definition of perspective, skills management is a robust and systematic approach to forecasting, identifying, cataloguing, evaluating, and analyzing the work force skills, competencies and gaps that enterprises face. Although many programs and initiatives adopt the label skills management, most of them focus on skills inventory and fall short in analysis and forecasting. A well-designed skills management process injects a stronger dose of discipline, coordination, and planning into work force planning, strategic planning, professional training and development programs, resource allocation maneuvering, and risk analysis and assessment.
Enterprises can reap several lessons from skills management. Skills management works if it:
- Defines skills for roles
- Forces forward thinking
- Forces some documentation of what makes an IT professional especially proficient ● Strengthens the organization
- Leads to focused training, risk assessment, sourcing strategy, and resource allocation via gap identification
- Attracts high-level endorsement Skills management does not work if it:
- Does not define work roles
- Lacks plans or incentive for refreshment
- Communicates its purpose poorly
- Provides differing language and terminology
- Force-fits skills and work roles to policies, rather than driving new frameworks
A North American manufacturing company set a goal to boost revenue by $300 million within three years. Key to the growth was a new way of dealing with information and IT. First, hoarding of information by divisions had to give way to enterprise ownership of information. Second, ubiquitous access to information required a managed and enterprise-wide migration to standards, interoperability, common platforms, and client/server technology.
Finally, the vision of ubiquitous access depended on substantially upgrading the IT organization’s skill base, supplementing and supplanting mainframe skills with skills associated with distributed processing and client/server application development. The company embarked on an ambitious initiative designed to cultivate the technical skills and business understanding of the IT professionals. The initiative—notably, company-wide skill identification and continuous training—will help the company to raise its skills level and will give IT employees control of their professional development.
Elements of the IT professional development initiative included:
- Identifying eight areas of IT professional skills, technical skills being only one area (a detailed discussion on the eight areas identified follows this list)
- Assigning company values to skills for the near term, short term, and long term
- Evaluating employee competence levels within the eight areas of IT professional skills
- Providing continuous training in critical skills, both technical and non-technical
- Establishing an IT mentor program
- Supervisors providing performance planning and coaching
- Establishing team and peer feedback
- Flattening the IT organization from 18 to 5 titles
Mapping skills and performance values to “salary zones” within the flatter organization
With the help of outside experts, IT executives identified more than 125 skills in eight areas of IT professional development. The eight areas of focus for IT professional development and a sampling of associated skills include:
Customer focus—employee possesses knowledge of customers’ business needs and expectations; delivers constructive qualitative feedback to customers, meets deadlines, and works with customers to set requirements and schedules.
Technical skills—employee possesses skills related to programming, computer-aided software engineering, desktop client services, enterprise infrastructure applications, technical software, and hardware support.
Product or technology evaluation and expertise—employee analyzes and compares products, makes sound recommendations within the company architecture, understands and recognizes limitations of technologies, can communicate the fundamentals of technology to others, and uses technical team resources to resolve or avoid technology-based problems.
Business and application expertise—employee possesses knowledge of business-specific applications, knows company’s business and local operations, knows the broad application environments (e.g., order entry and accounting), and understands general concepts of business management.
Project management—employee handles projects of certain size and complexity, estimates project costs and schedules with a degree of accuracy, executes project to plan, manages multiple projects at once, builds teams and organizes team resources, and knows project management tools.
Interpersonal skills—employee performs as team member or team leader, contributes knowledge to the team and to the organization, and communicates effectively.
Administrative skills —employee has understanding of budgeting, interviewing, economics of the business, and salary and review process.
Soft skills—employee displays leadership, forward thinking, initiative, drive for education, and commitment to organizational structure and development.
Each skill receives a weighting factor based on its strategic significance to the company during the next 12 months, the next 12 to 24 months, and the next 24 to 60 months. A skill considered critical to the company earns a weight of 6; a skill with no value to the company earns a weight of 0. After the company skills are identified and their weights assigned, employee skills are crosschecked against the company skills and assigned a score based on the employee’s competence level. Employee competence levels range from 6 to 1, that is, from mastery to basic understanding. (A competence score of zero is reserved for skills that are either not applicable or not possessed by the employee.) Employees then compare their competence scores with those they receive from their peers, team leaders, and supervisors.
Continuous training is considered essential to the program’s success. Here, the IT executives are seeking to develop an implicit promise between the company and the employees. The company promises to provide the resources and opportunities for training—time, funding, and identification and valuation of strategic skills— if the employees promise to use the training to bridge gaps in the company skills base and in their own skill levels. Armed with the company skills inventory and personal competence scores, employees who take the appropriate training will see their value to the company rise. Employees who choose to forgo appropriate training will see their value diminish.
Conclusions
Rarely has a professional field evolved as rapidly as construction managers’ skills in effective project delivery. The struggle to stay abreast of new and rapidly evolving technologies, to deal with accumulated development and maintenance backlogs, and to cope with people issues has become a treadmill race as software groups work hard just to stay in place. A key goal of disciplined project managers is to avoid the surprises that can occur when these surprises almost always lead to bad news: canceled projects, late delivery, cost overruns, dissatisfied customers, outsourcing, termination, and unemployment. Indeed, we need to develop management by surprise (MBS) as a project management technique.
Project managers are a special breed of people. The skills that they develop are a cross between a diplomat, ballet dancer, and a Marine Corps drill sergeant—all while having the patience of Job. The culture of an organization is a critical success factor in its efforts to survive, improve, and flourish. A culture based on a commitment to project management and delivering quality projects and effective management differentiates a team that practices excellent project management from a flock of individual programmers doing their best to ship code.
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