Survival practices of indigenous construction firms in Nigeria

Abstract

All over the world, small and medium-sized (SME) construction firms are prone to high mortality rates. Indigenous construction firms (ICFs) (mostly SMEs) must adopt practices that support their survival. However, firm-level practices that are supportive of ICFs’ survival have hardly been holistically identified and reduced into a more meaningful set of fewer practices for ease of implementation in the Nigerian context. This paper studied the survival practices of ICFs in Nigeria. Its objective was to summarize identified survival practices (n = 83) of ICFs in the area using a data reduction technique. A structured questionnaire administered on 420 ICFs (146 consultancy and 274 contracting firms) in the area provided data for factor analysis. The reliability test of the questionnaire instrument yielded Cronbach's alpha value of 0.983. The study revealed that seven survival practice factors – human resource management, marketing, bid strategy, financial management, organizational culture, smart work methods and firm strategy factors – account for most of the survival practices adopted by the ICFs. Cumulatively, the seven factors explain 69.07% of the variance in the variable set. This study has helped to reduce the survival practices of ICFs into a fewer number of practices for ease of implementation.

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