Critical issues in construction joint ventures in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Joint venture (JV) has become a common business form for construction contractors in undertaking large construction projects worldwide. However, most of studies found that construction joint ventures (CJVs) can be failed due to several issues such as, unclear partner roles, unequal risk sharing, misunderstanding of practices etc. Hence, a necessity was emerged to conduct this research with the purpose of determining the issues which are critical for construction joint ventures in Sri Lanka in order to propose probable attributes to overcome. Accordingly, thirty six issues in CJVs were determined though literature review and preliminary survey. The identified factors were evaluated by conducting a questionnaire survey with respect to the quantitative approach. Thus, the survey was conducted among the forty professionals who are engaged in CJVs in Sri Lanka and having a detailed knowledge and more than five (05) years of experience in the relevant field. The data collected through survey was analysed by using Mean Weighted Rating, Relative Importance Index and Box plot techniques to identify the issues which are critical in CJVs in Sri Lanka. As the results denoted, twenty five critical issues were determined. Among them, not having formal guideline for partner selection and entering to JVs based only on qualification/resources issues were obtained highest rankings. Facing unavoidable events, leakage of information to outside parties and failures with respect to their political, social, legal and government procedures and no proper way to deal with additional installments were identified as least critical issues. Further verifications obtained through the visualization of box plots showed that not having formal guideline for partner selection has obtained the top ranking issue in CJVs in Sri Lanka with a high level of agreement among the survey respondents. Finally, the probable strategies were proposed to overcome the critical issues in CJVs in Sri Lanka. As the main implication of this research, the evaluation of issues of CJVs and the proposed strategies can be used by industry practitioners as a basis to evaluate the current status of CJV projects in order to initiate the successful CJVs in Sri Lanka.