Basic assumptions of contractor’s sub culture in public sector building construction projects in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Contractor is considered as a dominant construction project participant, contributing to the construction project culture. Identifying the basic assumptions of contractor’s professional sub-culture at project level could be worthwhile for better management of construction projects since, cultural differences among project participants could create risks of conflicts and dissatisfactions owing to underperformance of construction projects. Thus, this research aims to derive basic assumptions of contractor’s sub culture in public sector building construction projects in Sri Lanka. The aim was approached through an exploratory case study research design. Three public sector building construction projects were selected as the cases using construction project culture as the unit of analysis. Cases were restricted to traditional method contracts and team setting to public sector clients and consultants and private sector contractors. Nine semi-structured interviews, observation of two progress review meetings and documentation review per case were used as the data collection techniques. Solutions for internal integration and external adaptation problems of each project team was questioned during data collection. Code based content analysis was used in data analysis. Findings revealed the existence of dominant professional sub-cultural groups of client, contractor and consultant within construction projects. Group boundaries were indicated by each party trying to defend themselves as a group and having matters which they thought not suitable disclosing to other parties. The basic assumptions of the contractor’s sub culture were identified with regard to the eleven cultural dimensions of; nature of human relationships, nature of human nature, nature of reality and truth, nature of human activity, nature of time, acceptance on homogeneity or diversity, unknowable and uncontrollable, gender, motive for behaving, state-individual relationship and, organization's relationship to its environment. These findings are important for project managers for better understanding of the unique cultural behaviours of contractors to avoid any interpersonal conflicts among contractor’s personnel and other team members.