The Impact of Pandemic Crisis on Construction Projects Performance: A case study of Pakistan during COVID-19

Abstract

The advent of COVID-19 has brought unprecedented effects on construction markets globally due to governmental policies, supply chain disruptions, and workforce restriction etc. However, construction industry of developing countries is more vulnerable to the obstacles associated with the pandemic. As such, the goal of this paper is to capture the impact of COVID-19 on construction projects’ performance in developing countries by taking Pakistani construction sector in consideration. A multistep project-based research methodology was adopted by the researchers, including literature analysis and questionnaire survey with 25 construction professionals to list out factors affected by the COVID-19; formulation of open-ended question against each factor; collecting of data using semi-structured interviews and presenting challenges and adopted mitigation strategies to examine the perceived impact. Results show that the pandemic has caused a total of 13 challenges that impacted project performance which are grouped under five groups including material and equipment, human resource, occupational health and safety, finance and contracts. The factors that impacted the most due to the pandemic are cash flow management, supply chain disruptions, increased overheads, construction safety measures, material shortage, contractual issues, and construction workforce. The findings of the study show difference in the captured impact of the pandemic among various regions across the country. This research contributes to the body of knowledge by providing a foundation for researchers to enhance investigating the impact of the COVID-19 with its predictabilities rooted in developing countries.