SLIIT Journal Publications

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Open Access
Conflict Handling Styles used by Design Team Leaders During Post Contract Stage of Building Construction Projects in Sri Lanka
(SLIIT, Faculty of Engineering, 2024-03) Nuwandhara, R.M.K.K.; De Silva, G.H.S.P.
In comparison to other industries, construction sector encompasses a distinct, complex, and a competitive environment. It enriches the community with improvements when individuals with diverse perspectives, abilities, and degrees of construction expertise collaborate with each other. In this highly competitive multiparty context, conflicts have been labeled as one of the key constraints that prevent the `success of construction projects. Conflict is a fact that everyone must deal with on a regular basis. Construction projects are therefore not an exception. It entails different types of conflicts. To handle these different types of conflicts, construction professionals use different conflict handling styles. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate design team leaders’ preference of conflict handling styles and its impact on team spirit of the members of the design team during the post contract stage of building construction projects in Sri Lanka. To collect data, an e-based, closed-ended questionnaire was used incorporating the conflict handling styles introduced in Rahim's Dual Concern theory. The questionnaire was answered by 56 professionals who have the experience of working in the design team during the post contract stage. The study was limited to the building construction projects in Sri Lanka. To analyze the gathered data, descriptive statistics such as mean, percentage, count correlation co-efficient etc. were used. The study has revealed that during the post contract stage, the design team leaders use all five conflict handling styles of Rahim’s Dual concern theory: integrating style, obliging style, dominating style, avoiding style, and compromising style in different frequencies to handle conflicts among design team professionals. The design team professionals often use compromising style and rarely use integrating style, obliging style, dominating style, and avoiding style to handle conflicts among the design team professionals during the post contract stage respectively. Furthermore, the study indicates that these styles bring different levels of impact to the team spirit of design team professionals during the post contract stage of building construction projects in Sri Lanka. The team spirit of design team members is shown to be strongly affected by the compromising style. In contrast, the other four conflict handling styles, integrating style, obligating style, dominating style, and avoiding style, were identified to moderately impact team spirit. Moreover, findings revealed that all these five conflicts handling styles show a strong relationship with the team spirit of design team members during the post-contract stage of building construction projects in Sri Lanka. The research findings may assist construction industry design team leaders and other stakeholders to manage conflicts in a more efficient way and provide an insight to the way to handle conflicts to improve the team spirit of the design team during the post-contract stage of building construction projects in Sri Lanka.
Open Access
Whole Life Costing Awareness and Implementation Challenges in the Sri Lankan Construction Industry
(SLIIT, Faculty of Engineering, 2024-03) Jayasinghe, D.I.C; Abeynayake, D.N
Construction industry is highly demanding, especially with regard to the project cost as a significant aspect. However, more informed cost advice can be produced considering the project’s life cycle that begins with the conception and ends with its disposal instead of using a conventional initial capital cost basis. Thus, Whole Life Costing (WLC) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) concepts are essential. Though many LCC research studies exist, WLC studies are minimal in the Sri Lankan construction industry context. Therefore, this study aims to explore WLC awareness and implementation challenges in the Sri Lankan construction industry. A literature review was conducted to search for the concepts. Empirical data were gathered using questionnaires by implementing a quantitative survey strategy. Findings depict that the awareness of WLC in the Sri Lankan construction industry is poor, preventing its benefits. Moreover, this research identified difficulty in identifying includes and excludes for calculating WLC, lack of details at early stages, lack of awareness of WLC benefits, lack of understanding of WLC tools, lack of reliable data and lack of expertise/knowledge on WLC as the primary challenges in implementing WLC in the Sri Lankan construction industry. Therefore, these challenges must be mitigated for the beneficial WLC implementation in the Sri Lankan construction industry while enhancing awareness and knowledge of the WLC concept among professionals, especially quantity surveyors, to facilitate responsible initiation of WLC practices in the Sri Lankan construction industry.
Open Access
Attributes of ADR in the Sri Lankan Construction Industry
(SLIIT, Faculty of Engineering, 2022-09-22) Edirisinghe, V; Marsh, D; Borthwick, F; Siriwardena, M; Cotgrave, A
Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) methods were introduced to the construction industry to avoid the negative effects of litigation in relation to the cost, time, and business relationships of a construction project. This study focused on identifying the current ADR practices in the Sri Lankan construction industry and examined the specific attributes of each method to create a more effective process. A qualitative research strategy was carried out with interviews with industry professionals working in the Sri Lankan Construction Industry. Content analysis using NVivo software was used to analyse the data. The key findings revealed that the neutral third party has good knowledge of construction. Despite the differences in each ADR method, disputing parties do not have the confidence in the neutral third party or trust in the process. This study also revealed that the unavailability of these key attributes will finally affect the cost and reputation of the ADR methods. Therefore, the research suggests that to improve the ADR process and its success there should be awareness studies on ADR methods and training for ADR practitioners within the Sri Lankan Construction Industry.

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