Influence of Personal Ethics of Construction Project Participants on Project Performance in Kenya

Abstract

Personal ethics of participants in a construction project is likely to influence delivery of the construction project. However, this ethics has hitherto not been well captured in explanations of variability of project performance. Project management success is an area of big concern, not only in Kenya, but in the whole world since there seems to be recurring issues of cost overruns and time delays and a different way of looking at things is needed to try and improve delivery. A lot research has been done on factors that affect project success, yet the industry seems to experience the same kind of problems in delivery and in spite of extensive research, it does not seem to improve as witnessed by continued unethical incidents in construction. There is a school of thought, however, that proposes looking more in to the soft side of these factors, in order to improve delivery. One of these soft, non-technical issues is the personal ethics of project participants. This study investigates the place of personal ethics of project participants in project management success using a virtue ethics approach. The specific objectives of the study are (i) to establish the performance of construction projects in Kenya ii) to determine the personal ethics of construction project participants in Kenya iii) to establish the relationship between personal ethics of project participants and project performance iv) to develop an ethics scale for construction participants in the industry. A survey research design was adopted in the data collection and analysis. A structured questionnaire was used to collect the data. Statistical analysis, specifically correlations and regression analysis were used to establish the relationship between project performance and personal ethics. The data analysis results showed that there was no significant relationship between the virtues of participants and project management success (performance), however, there was a significant positive relationship between the behaviour of participants and project success, and by implication between personal ethics of project participants and project performance. In theory virtue manifests in people’s behaviour. However, the respondents’ association of project performance and behaviour was easier than their associating project performance and virtue hence the difference in correlations. The results also show that generally a construction participant is someone who should personal ethics be included amongst the factors that affect project performance, in professional practice of construction project management and research work. Additionally, the researcher recommends a virtue scale that could guide in the choice of participants in future projects. Keywords: behaviour, construction participants, personal ethics, project management success, project performance, virtues, virtues ethics scale.