Moderating Effect of Integration of Technology and Multi-Level Communication on the Relationship between Claims and Pakistan Construction Industry Performance

Abstract

The elementary purpose of this research was to examine the reasons and factors which makes claim in consideration of the construction industry of Pakistan. In addition, results of this research have provided an effective solution associated with the claims of the construction projects that eventually offer the superior value of the construction projects. In this study, factors influencing the claims have been studied and these factors include client’s factors, consultant’s factors and contractor’s factors. For this study, a survey has been conducted from 309 professionals working in the construction industry of Pakistan and for the empirical analysis purposes, structural equation modelling has been used in which partial least square (PLS) technique was applied through SmartPLS. Furthermore, in PLS blindfolding procedure was used to determine the predictive prevalence of each path coefficient and the second-order construct was used due to the nature of the SEM Model. The researcher tested the effect of client factors, consultant factors, and contractor factors on the claim management and then the effect of claim management was tested on the cost, quality and time of the claims associated with the construction industry of Pakistan. It was found from the analysis that the effect of client factors, consultant factors, and contractor factors on the claim management was statistically insignificant. In addition, the effect of claim management on the cost, quality and time was computed to be significant. Apart from that, the findings of this study have also confirmed the significant moderating effect of the integration of technology on the association between client’s related factors and claims. Moreover, as per the findings the integration of technology also significantly moderates the association between contractor factors and claims, and also between the consultant factors and claims. The results of this study also confirms that with respect to the association between claims and cost, claims and quality, and claims and time, the variable of integration of technology makes the significant moderate effect. However, communication also makes the significant moderating effect on the association between claims and cost in the construction project. In this concern, the construction industry of Pakistan is needed to focus on negotiation aspects to improve the claim management in the construction industry. Furthermore, the paper also provides recommendations for practical application and implications for future research.