Causes of Delay in Procurement Acts in Qatar’s Construction Industries and Its Effects on State Development: Research Proposal
Background of the Problem
Construction industry is one of the fastest growing professional areas in Qatar. This professional field is also of high importance for the economy of the country. At the same time, construction industry is infamous for its constant delays and overrunning costs. A great amount of research has been dedicated to the issue of delay in completing construction projects. It has to be noted that the causes for the delays vary from country to country, which requires to conduct a study in the context of one state in order to determine specific factors affecting the time-management in the construction industry. This topic is particularly relevant for the country, as the Qatar construction activities will experience substantial increase in the next several years, due to the organization of World Cup 2022. Construction and infrastructure projects will have to be completed by 2022, which requires the companies to intensify their efforts in achieving these goals as well as to comply with the Qatar National Vision 2030 that presupposes the economic and social growth of the country.
Taking into account the importance of construction industry to Qatar and the necessity to create a sustainable and well-operated strategy for the improvement the procurement processes. It was admitted that the reasons for delays in construction projects vary significantly within the industry, where some of them include the type of buildings, project parameters, time-management techniques, mistakes made by the organizations as well as the procurement agencies, and unpredictable weather conditions (Al- Tabtabi, 2002; Koushki et al., 2005). Overall, the evaluation of the main reasons for the delays in the industry reveals that around 80% of construction projects experiences delays and the main contributing factors are “long response times from utility agencies; major changes in design during construction; ineffective planning and scheduling; ineffective control of progress, and; changes in the scope of projects” (Emam, Farrell & Abdelaal, 2015, p. 773). At the same time, after the preliminary analysis of literature, it was indicated that there is a gap in research what concerns the delays in procurement acts, which has to be explored in detail.
Aims and Objectives
The aim of the current study is to determine the factors contributing to delays in procurement acts of infrastructure projects in Qatar. The inquiry has a purpose to assess the modern major construction projects in the country and to find out if there are any delays connected with their development. It is aimed to make sure that the problem addressed with the help of the practical methods based on the real-life examples of the current projects developed in Qatar. The study has a goal to generate the recommendations for the construction industry and provide the basis for the further research in this area to gain necessary objectives in hosting World Cup 2022 and ensuring the agenda of the Qatar National Vision 2030.
Research Questions
The following questions will be answered in the course of the future study:
What are the main specificities of the procurement area in Qatar?
What are the core reasons contributing to the delay in the procurement acts in Qatar?
What are the methods for mitigating and predicting the delays in construction industry?
Methodology
The research implements the qualitative research design as its main framework for collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data. It is considered that the qualitative design suits the current inquiry the most, as it is essential to reveal the core of the problem, rather than to determine the relationship between variables. To collect the needed data, an interview and comprehensive qualitative literature review will be conducted reviewing the main cases of delay in the construction industry in Qatar. Interview will be conducted among 15 participants involving the contractors as the main respondents of the study. To implement a literature review, the researcher will have to involve several types of resources. In addition to the assessment of the previous studies dedicated to the same topic, the inquiry will collect the regulatory and legislative documents relating to the field of construction and procurement. The major cases of delays in the current constructions projects will be analyzed. The construction projects of the major importance for Qatar will be included into the review as well.
The data will be analyzed using the deductive and descriptive methods that presuppose the comparison and contrast of the cases, regulatory documents, and previous literature review in order to synthesize the information and produce concise results. The data collected during the literature review will be coded according to the level of its significance to the study, which will help to distinguish the most frequent factors causing the delays in procurement acts. The legislation and regulations in Qatar will be analyzed separately by detecting the laws that may contribute to the delays or can accelerate the implementation of the construction projects.
The interviews will be held face-to-face or with the help of the virtual communication tools depending on the convenience of the respondents. The participation in the research will be anonymous and the participants will sign the consent form agreeing on the conditions of the research. No personal information will be collected or included into the last version of the study. The interviews will be tape-recorded and deleted after the transcription, where the access to the initial data will be provided only to the researcher. The participants will be briefly instructed about the study and its aims. The researcher will make sure that neither of the participants will meet with each other.
References
Al-Tabtabi, H. 2002. Causes for Delays in Construction Projects in Kuwait. Engineering Journal of the University of Qatar, 15, pp. 19-37.
Emam, H., Farrell, P. & Abdelaal, M. 2015. Causes of Delay on Infrastructure Projects in Qatar. Annual ARCOM Conference, pp. 773-782.
Koushki, P., Al-Rashid, K. & Kartam, N. 2005. Delays and Cost Increases in the Construction of Private Residential Projects in Kuwait. Construction Management and Economics, 23(3), pp. 285-294.
