The aim of the research was to evaluate the operational effectiveness and impact of joint leadership in construction projects in Abu Dhabi (AD). The research started with a thorough and critical review of literature on leadership and culture. The research took a quantitative approach and used a questionnaire to collect data. 145 questionnaires were sent to project managers in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and 90 responses (62%) were obtained. The data was analysed by descriptive and inferential statistics and used Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software. The results of the research indicated that the majority of participants were leaders, and had different styles. Irrespective of leadership style, most expressed satisfaction with joint leadership of projects and stated that it does improve project success. The study also showed that culture has a significant impact on the types of leaders in UAE construction as well as the operations, durations, costs, and quality of construction projects. Moreover, participants stated that culture has an influence on the design of construction buildings and other facilities. It was however opined that the use of joint leadership in construction projects requires clear clauses in project contracts in respect of roles and responsibilities, as well as providing training for cultural awareness which can improve project efficiency. Most participants agreed that project success in UAE construction is a direct function of the leadership style used. The outcome of the research was used to improve the construction project process framework of Abu Dhabi Police taking into the consideration the findings from the questionnaire. The next step was to test the framework through a focus group. 12 professionals were involved from the original questionnaire survey. The focus group discussion generated additional qualitative descriptions concerning the reasons behind the study participants‘ perceptions on (a) the likelihood of joint leadership of projects in UAE, (b) the impact of the concept of the project managers in UAE construction, and (c) the influences of UAE culture on construction projects. The improved framework developed was validated by a survey which had 12 questions. This was distributed to 10 project managers and leaders. The results showed that the improved framework will: reduce communication time; improve the choice of joint leaders (two project managers) for the same project; help UAE culture to be communicated better in project designs; help project managers with no engineering background through training; increase internal stakeholders‘ understanding of joint leadership in AD police projects; increase the understanding of the International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC) contract in AD police projects; assist AD police project managers‘ training to address effective and efficient leadership.

Satisfaction has consistently been a source of concern to clients, stakeholders and customers in the construction industry globally. In Nigeria, despite the huge financial investments in construction and its associated economic benefits, construction projects are characterized by poor quality in aesthetics, high costs in maintenance and failure to meet or exceed the customers’ quality expectations. An even greater challenge is faced when considering government construction projects as re- occurring issues like on time delivery, operational and aesthetic excellence and even project abandonment continue to resurface. Although previous studies have developed models and frameworks to improve customer satisfaction in product and service organisations, researchers have not treated in detail issues involving customer satisfaction within projects which do not have profits and financial gains as the driving force such as government construction projects. The aim of this research was to develop a framework that would identify particular areas associated with project quality where adequate resources could be channelled in order to enhance customer satisfaction in government road construction projects in Rivers State, Nigeria. Sequel to an extensive literature review, a conceptual framework was developed to establish the relationship between three attributes of project quality namely performance, reliability and aesthetics and two attributes of customer satisfaction measured through contractor re-patronage and referral. 503 road construction practitioners within the Port Harcourt metropolis of Rivers State, Nigeria participated in a quantitative survey and data obtained was subjected to stepwise multiple regression analysis. The results showed that a strong, positive and significant relationship existed between the attributes of project quality and customer satisfaction with project quality explaining 54.8% of the variance in contractor re-patronage and 61.8% of the variance in contractor referral. Performance was however found to have the greatest effect on contractor re-patronage (R2=.550, adjusted R2=.548) while aesthetics had the highest effect on contractor referral (R2=.572, adjusted R2= .571). Reliability was found to have the weakest effect on customer satisfaction and could be attributed to its civil and structural Engineering links which are either unknown or invisible to the customer. 10 structured interviews with construction professionals were used to validate the developed framework and justify the research design. The findings support the framework and suggest that the knowledge and analysis of the construction costs, the use of competent professional experts, the provision of a revised legal framework for road construction, delegation of responsibility for road maintenance, avoidance of project abandonment, identifying and mitigating construction risks, adopting a strategy for project monitoring, enforcing health and safety considerations, provision of innovative excitement factors as well as post project evaluations were essential for enhancing project quality and customer satisfaction from government road construction projects. The study advocates for an adoption of the framework and concludes by making recommendations including the incorporation of government and private construction practitioners and further identifies areas for future study.

This thesis describes a research investigation into the implementation of the Last Planner System (LPS) in Nigeria, to improve construction processes within the Nigerian construction industry. LPS is known to be the most developed practical use of Lean Construction. It focuses on minimising the negative impacts of variability, uncertainties, buffers, making projects more predictable, creating reliable work plans and convalescing collaborative planning. However, the Nigerian construction industry is associated with a number of challenges which impair its performance. These challenges were grouped and classified into six major barriers: these include: supervision and quality control, fluctuation and variations, subcontractor involvement, resistance to change, cultural issues, and lengthy approvals. Consequently, a Design Science Research (DSR) approach is adopted to evaluate the effectiveness of implementing LPS in construction projects in Nigeria. In order to achieve this aim, an Action Research strategy is adopted and three case studies are reported; two of these cases describe how LPS was successfully implemented in construction projects within Nigeria. While the third case involved an investigation into the state of production plan reliability, of a successful project in Nigeria. These projects were selected based on non-probabilistic sampling from different geographical locations in Nigeria to represent different kinds of construction projects within the country. The first and second cases involved the implementation of LPS within the construction of a prototype student’s hostel and the construction a 4 Kilometre single carriageway road respectively. The third on the other hand involved the construction of a multipurpose hydro-power dam project; where comparisons were made between typical LPS projects and the project management techniques applied within the project. Data was collected through observation site activities, interviews, documentary analysis and questionnaire survey. The data generated was subsequently analysed by means of content analysis and evaluated in terms of its reliability, validity, representativeness, flexibility, rigour and reflexivity. In view of the LPS implementation within the two case studies, six barriers were identified and classified together with the six barriers associated with the Nigerian Construction industry. These barriers were linked, measured and ranked in averages of their degrees of occurrences. It was revealed that the major barriers were cultural issues and resistance to change, while the others include; lengthy approval, subcontractor’s involvement, poor supervision and quality, fluctuations and variations. Hence, a framework was developed to mitigate these barriers, when implementing LPS in construction projects in Nigeria. The main steps of the framework include: the need to identify purpose; the need to identify stakeholders impact; the need to obtain Sponsorship; the need to build a cross functional team; the need to create measurement indices; the need for training on Lean techniques and LPS; and finally the need to create a right working climate. Furthermore a focus group between construction practitioners was organised to test and evaluate the framework developed. It was revealed from the focus group that the framework has the potential to facilitate the implementation process as proposed.

This study undertook a critical examination of developing countries’ experiences of infrastructure-related construction dispute resolution using Ghana as a case study. It investigated the dispute resolution processes and procedures which parties to infrastructure construction disputes employed to address such disputes. To gain a better understanding of the dispute resolution processes, the study also assessed the legal framework for procurement and contract formation and other contextual issues which influenced parties’ dispute resolution choices. Consequently, strategies for efficient and effective dispute resolution were developed. The main rationale for the study was the need for effective and efficient dispute resolution processes in the context of infrastructure projects in developing countries. The literature indicated that disputes often occurred on such projects in developing countries that were resolved at great cost mainly by arbitral tribunals in the developed world. However, there was limited information on the extent to which other dispute resolution mechanisms were utilised prior to resort to international arbitration. The study adopted a qualitative research approach informed by the interpretivist philosophical paradigm. Data was collected from fifty-six interviewees from the State as the Employer and foreign contractors through semi-structured interviews and documents and analysed using qualitative data analysis procedures associated with grounded theory research such as coding, constant comparison, memoing and diagramming, and doctrinal legal analysis. It was found that engineer’s determination, negotiation and international arbitration were the most used dispute resolution mechanisms. Others such as mediation were rarely used. The dispute resolution processes were characterised by high cost, low satisfaction with outcomes and negative effect on relationships. It was also found that the extant dispute resolution processes were the product of the nature of the parties, the context in which they operated and their responses to the context. Factors such as lack of coordination among the Employer’s sub-units, human resource constraints and political interference had varying negative impacts on dispute occurrence, dispute resolution system design and the dispute resolution processes. To deal with these challenges and achieve efficient and effective dispute resolution processes, four sets of remedial strategies (condensed into a model called the Dispute Resolution Efficiency Cycle (DREC)) were proposed. The study has provided empirical evidence which has addressed some of the gaps identified in the literature on issues such as absence of information on pre-international arbitration dispute processes. The study has also highlighted the impact of context and dispute system design on dispute resolution. Contributions to practice included diagnosing challenges with the extant dispute resolution processes and proposing possible remedial strategies.

With increasing competitive pressures in today‟s market, it has become critical for businesses to recognise the significance of satisfying their customers so as to ensure their economic stability. Various studies have emphasised on the need for customer focus and project satisfaction in the construction industry sector. The industry, however, has not fully embraced the practice of project satisfaction, which is grounded on meeting the needs of the customer. Though most research on project satisfaction has focussed on the client, it is essential that the satisfaction of the project delivery team and in the wider context, the stakeholders be considered. In this case, the client is the centre of gravity of the project team. In order to satisfy the project team, there are challenges in assessing their requirements. This necessitates the need to develop a unique and robust method for capturing and analysing the level of integrated project team satisfaction. In this research, the project delivery team and the stakeholders have been lumped together as an integrated project team. Therefore, integrated project team satisfaction entails recognising the client and project participants‟ requirements that guarantees project successful completion and acceptance by the team. In view of this, this research presents a framework, which has been developed to plug these needs and challenges. The framework, known as the Satisfaction Assessment Integrated Framework (SAIF) involves an integrated approach that considers the participants of a construction project as a tree structure, and each member of that tree as an intermediate or top element. Relationships and interactions of the elements, and how these affect the overall satisfaction levels of a single project, are analysed based on understanding their requirements and invoking modern satisfaction attainment theory. The framework includes a method for understanding and identifying the satisfaction attributes; multi-attribute analysis for prioritising the satisfaction attributes of the clients and project participants; fault tree analysis strategy for defining the satisfaction relationship in a particular project team; and an assessment scoring system (a combination of multi-attribute analysis, and failure mode and effects analysis methodical approach) that evaluates how much each member of the project team meets the requirements or satisfaction attributes of other participants. Hence, SAIF, a novel assessment methodology, investigates and identifies possible links and the influence of integrating the construction project team and their satisfaction attributes with the aim of improving their satisfaction levels as a team. Through the findings of this research, recommendations are made to further explore the implications of satisfying a given participant against dissatisfying the participant; and subsequently improve the satisfaction assessment process.