Critical factors for managing project communication among participants at the construction stage

Abstract

Technically complex construction projects often involve interests-competing and task interrelated organisations to execute and manage projects during the construction process. The construction process has therefore become a collaborative activity which requires inputs from different organisations. Project team communication, which is the transmission and interchange of project related information among building participants, is a vital process to effectively accomplish and coordinate construction work. This research examines the critical factors for managing project team communication at the construction stage. These factors could impact project team communication performance and are called communication factors in this study.. The research started by identifying these critical factors through comprehensive literature reviews. A pilot questionnaire survey to investigate construction professional opinions was then conducted to examine the significance and comprehensions of the identified factors. A framework of critical factors for managing project team communication has been built up from both theoretical and practical points of view in this study. The understanding of the identified communication factors provides a framework for project participants to develop strategies for improving communication effectiveness at the construction stage. An empirical questionnaire survey was further carried out to investigate the impacts of the communication factors on communication performance. Understanding the impacts of these factors can help to improve the communication performance indicators by applying needed actions to the related predicting factors. Therefore, effectively managing these factors in practice can improve the communication performance and further benefit both individual project team members and the objectives of the whole project.