Impact of Human Capital Development on Road Contractors Performance
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Date
2017-11
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Publisher
AAU
Abstract
The Construction industry provides infrastructure that supports the other sectors of the
economy. Unfortunately, the industry is saddled with numerous challenges varying
from internal weaknesses to external threats that affect and influence its performance.
The success of any organization and any industry depends on the human capital
available. Human capital is getting wider attention with increasing globalization and
also the saturation of the job market due to the recent downturn in the various
economies of the world.
The study is aimed at assessing the impact of human capital development on
performance of road contractors. The research focused on Category 1 / GC 1
contractors and their performance on asphalt road projects specifically in the ERA and
AACRA Projects. A questionnaire survey approach involving 36 professionals in
various construction companies were used. The questionnaire sought to elicit response
from the sample by adopting open and close ended questions. Subsequently, the
response data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, relative importance index and
using SPSS software.
The findings revealed that the managements in almost all surveyed companies were
willing to invest resources to ensure personnel development. But, lacks of detail
evaluation after giving the human capital development were identified as the critical
challenges for the performance of the contractors. Project performance was also
examined against time and cost and the research showed that the lack of human
capital development is one of the main reason for projects to complete with overruns.
Thus the study re-echoed the need for well-designed and accepted training policy and
systematical evaluation and impact identification mechanism for the improvement of
skills, knowledge and professional development in the construction industry.
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Keywords
Construction Industry, Development, Ethiopia, Human capital, Performance, Road contractors