A Study on Impact of Change in Contractor’s Project Organization Structure on Project Performance

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Date
2016-10
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The British University in Dubai (BUiD)
Abstract
Project organization structure is considered the most important tool that used by senior management of construction organizations for communication, staff evaluation, decision making and achieving the project objective. Moreover, introducing change in project organization structure during the project life cycle for any reasons whether in response to internal or external influences is perceived as one of the critical processes that influence on the project performance. Meantime, involvement of senior management in establishment, management and change management of the project organization structure are generally recognized as one of the important factors in determining its success, since the organizations use its various projects in order to achieve their goals and objectives. On the other side, U.A.E economy is considered from the most rapidly growing economies in the Middle East and the construction industry in U.A.E represents great portion of U.A.E economy which requires more focus to investigate the most problems related to this vital sector in order to gain the potential benefits behind growing this sector among other U.A.E markets. The purpose of this study is to investigate a particular problem occurred in completed construction projects in U.A.E market. The problem appeared as a result of unnecessary changes and due to slow or inadequate response to change by senior managers in contractor’s project organization structure. These unnecessary or inadequate changes had negative impact on the project management roles and responsibilities, additional cost and time impact. Furthermore, there were negative consequences on the performance of the project’s team and their effort to create new ideas as well as their innovation inside the construction project that they are involved. The qualitative methodology is used in this study through investigating five case studies for construction projects that completed in U.A.E market along with extensive literature review that focused on the different sides of the problem as well as an interview with ten members of contractor’s project management and senior managers to examine the impact of the problem on project performance and team effectiveness. The results of this study will be used to illustrate the recommendations and suggestions that may help in providing better solutions, in order to avoid such unnecessary changes in the future. The major findings from this research indicate that establishment of contractor’s project organization structure with clear and defined roles and responsibilities has positive impact on project performance and team effectiveness. Moreover, contractor’s senior managers play an essential and a vital role in establishing and management the project organization structure, ID # 2013122149 Dissertation MSc.CM P a g e | 4 consequently any unnecessary changes and slow or inadequate response to the project organization structure change will lead to negative impact on the project performance like increase the project activity reworks; weak communication between project team; increase of material wastages; time delay and cost overrun. Furthermore, the study shows that unsuitable change management by senior managers has considerable impact on the team effectiveness and coherence between the project team and also on their innovation. On the other side, the research revealed the most common reasons behind the change in the project organization structure such as economical and financial market conditions; termination and resignation of staff; internal relocation due to internal priorities; clients and consultants request and improper establishment of project structure in the early stage of the project.
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Keywords
project organization structure, senior managers, United Arab Emirates (UAE), project performance, change management, Middle East, construction industry, U.A.E markets, project management
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