Abstract:
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Construction management is the art of managing a co
nstruction project as efficiently as
possible. However, it is well known, that the posit
ion of the construction manager might
have some differences in the role they play dependi
ng on the country in which one is
located.
In 2007, a study was conducted at Illinois Institut
e of Technology in Chicago, whose
objective was to collect information from the many
parties involved in the construction
process in order to record and compare their expect
ations relative to the duties of
construction managers in the US. In order to do tha
t, they designed a questionnaire, and
this questionnaire was sent to the different partie
s. With the data collected, they were
able to see the differences in the expectations and
define the duties of construction
managers according to the majority.
In the wake of the 2007 investigation, another inve
stigation was conducted in 2014.
Two Universities in two different countries, United
States and Spain, have run the
research. The universities are the Illinois Institu
te of Technology (IIT) in Chicago and
the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) in Ba
rcelona. The objective of the study
was to undertake the same investigation conducted i
n the United States in 2007 but this
time in Spain. The questionnaire was adapted to Spa
nish conditions and translated into
Spanish. It was then sent to the construction manag
ers in Spain. With the data collected,
the expectations regarding the duties of constructi
on managers in Spain were defined
and a comparison between the two countries was made. When comparing two countries from two different con
tinents, culture is an important
factor to consider. Therefore, a cultural compariso
n between the two countries was also
made using Hofstede’s dimensions.
In order to analyze the collected data in the Spani
sh questionnaire in 2014 and the
retrieved data from 2007, The Mann-Whitney U test (
non-parametric statistical
analysis) was performed. Moreover, the cultural dif
ferences between the countries were
also taken into account.
All in all, the findings suggested that there are d
ifferences regarding the responsibilities
between Spanish and American CMs. Most of the disag
reements are related to CM
duties performed in the design and pre-design phase
of projects. On the other hand,
fewer disagreements were observed in the duties per
formed in the construction phase. In
both countries the average respondent considered to
be of priority those duties that CMs
perform in the construction phase and of least relevance those that are performed in the
design and pre-design phases. |