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Construction SMEs contribute significantly to the growth and development of national economies and provinces. The study aimed to explore the prevalent challenges and growth prospects of construction small and medium enterprises operating in Gauteng Province, South Africa. It followed a multi-method qualitative approach, a systematic literature review followed by semi-structured interviews. A systematic literature review was initially conducted to examine the available scholarly literature from Google Scholar and Web of Science databases on the study area. From the databases, 24 studies were screened for a detailed review from the initially selected 185 publications. A thematic content analysis was conducted to explore different themes from the screened studies analysed using ATLAS.ti24 software. Then a semi-structured Interview was conducted with Fifteen Owners/Managers of construction SMEs operating in Gauteng province. Subsequently, six major categories of challenges were identified: corruption and ethical issues, financial and economic barriers, regulatory and governance shortcomings, organizational gaps,  project performance gaps, and market constraints. The study, with a similar research approach, uncovered different prospects, which were grouped into three key areas: financial and policy support, technological and digital advancements, and market and strategic collaborations. Based on these findings, a framework was developed to capture the interplay between these challenges and opportunities. The study offers practical recommendations for policymakers, industry stakeholders, and SMEs to address critical impediments while capitalizing on available opportunities.  

The South African construction sector is confronted by significant obstacles, particularly concerning cost overruns and project delays within the road construction sphere. This research sought to investigate the factors impacting cost and duration in road construction projects under the purview of a KwaZulu-Natal municipality. A qualitative research approach was adopted to explore this phenomenon. A sample size of 27 participants was selected from a population of 171 for in-depth semi-structured interviews. Critical determinants of cost overruns and delays were identified as ineffective communication, suboptimal procurement processes, deficient stakeholder management, and shortcomings in project execution and personnel capabilities. This study offers valuable insights into the relationship between cost, time, and the successful delivery of road projects within the local government context. By illuminating these factors, the research contributes to a deeper theoretical understanding, informs evidence-based policy development, and provides actionable recommendations for enhancing project management practices.

Kenya has seen a boom in road building during the last couple of years as a result of the government's significant investments in the construction industry to upgrade infrastructure, such as road networks. Road network construction is one of the key pillar of the country long term vision 2030. However, the performance of the road projects has experienced various challenges leaving some roads uncompleted, others poorly done after huge investment of public resources. This study sought to evaluate the influence of financial resources scheduling on the performance of road construction projects in Nairobi Metropolitan, Kenya. The research was based on resource dependence theory. A descriptive design as well as the cross-sectional survey was used. The population of interest for this study consisted of 39 road construction projects being implemented by Kenya Urban Roads Authority and Kenya National Highway Authority within the Nairobi metropolitan area. A semi structured questionnaire was utilized to collect primary data. The quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The study results revealed projects resource scheduling had a positive and significant effect on project performance of road construction projects in Nairobi Metropolitan, Kenya. The study concludes that effective financial resource scheduling enables that organization to manage risk that may occur from changes in the project’s outcome. Financial resource scheduling starts from developing the project budget which is a process for allocating administered and departmental funds necessary to build a financial foundation for producing stated project deliverables.

This paper aims to examine the effect of selected factors that link to completion of NSSF construction projects and how they are influenced by the various critical factors. The main objective was to establish the critical success factors and their effects on performance of construction projects. Four theories namely Game theory, Principal-Agent theory, Construction Management, and Soft Value Management (SVM) theory served as the foundation for this research.  Descriptive research design was employed for data collection, analysis, presentation and interpretation.The target population was 512 stakeholders from six complete commercial and residential projects. Purposive sampling was used to select 84 participants for the study. Semi-structured questionnaires were used in the study to collect data. The data was analyzed using SPSS whereby descriptive and inferential statistics were used. The results show that the R-square value was 0.282 and R was 0.531. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was significant at p=0.001 with an F statistic of 9.961 indicating that the model used was fit for the data. The data also revealed that client variations (p= 0.05), financial availability (p = 0.047), and construction disputes (p = 0.001) are statistically significant determinants affecting the performance of NSSF construction projects. The main findings of the study demonstrate that the key critical success factors used in this study affected the performance of NSSF-completed construction projects either positively or negatively. The study recommends that companies should adhere to the principles that safeguard project management to adequately manage the critical factors and ultimately minimize project delays.

This research in the construction industry aims to understand the characteristics of Leader's Innovativeness. The construction industry, which is a project-based organization, has several unique criteria, including: geographical challenges at the project site, intense competition, the importance of innovation created in a short time. Leader innovation is generated in a leader-member exchange (LMX) between leaders and followers in the form of an exchange of ideas and knowledge (Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998). This research is very important because innovation is an antecedent of performance, where according to Hobday (2000), leaders are known to have comprehensive general knowledge, while followers have deep specific knowledge. The higher the level of Leader's Innovativeness, the higher the quality of Innovation that will be applied to construction projects. This study takes the object of State-Owned Enterprises (BUMN) which are well-known in the construction sector in Indonesia which have branches in all corners of the region, so they are considered to represent the construction industry. This research uses descriptive statistical analysis method and involves a total of 121 projects spread throughout Indonesia at the time of data collection, with a participation rate of 97.52 percent. The results showed that the Leader's Innovativeness variable had a high level with a mean of 4.98, especially for Consideration on Risk & QCDof 5.15 and Considerations on Health, Safety and Environmental Security (HSE) of 5.03.

Project cost control aims at controlling changes to the project budgeted cost in the contract document. Available data shows that the area of project management is riddled with project failure and cost overruns. This study sought to establish the influence of cost control on the realization of NG-CDF projects in Kikuyu Constituency, Kiambu County, Kenya. A descriptive cross-sectional survey design was adopted for this study. National Government Constituencies Development Fund projects in Kikuyu Constituency were the unit of observation, while members of the project management committees were the unit of analysis. A sample of 259 respondents was used. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data. Descriptive and chi-square analyses were used to analyze data with the help of SPSS. The majority (62.9%) of the respondents indicated that the project they were involved in was incomplete. Slightly half (58.5%) of the respondents indicated that the project was not on a budget. Results showed that 37.5% of the respondents cited inadequate money, 35.5% cited disbursement challenges, and 31.5% indicated price fluctuations as challenges experienced in the cost control of the projects. There was a significant relationship (p=0.021) between cost control on the realization of NG-CDF projects in Kikuyu Constituency, Kiambu County, Kenya. The study concluded that cost control influences the realization of NG-CDF projects in Kikuyu Constituency, Kiambu County, Kenya.  There is a need for CDF committees to conduct research for products and services needed in the planning stages of NGCDF projects. This will enable better cost control which ultimately leads to higher project realization.

Project leadership is still an active research topic. In the oil and gas industry, mega projects cost millions of dollars to execute, and project delays can lead to avoidable losses when exemplary leadership behaviour is adopted. The challenges impacting project performance can be resolved through efficient and effective leadership. The cost of project financing increases with delays in project completion, reducing project cost-benefit value, and escalating exposure of the environment to more damages from project activities. Eighty-two case studies in the literature were reviewed, and the salient attributes of project success were outlined. From the findings, we advocate for a leadership structure that recognizes the unique roles of project leadership with more emphasis on enhancing the team's effectiveness, hence Path-Goal Leadership. This study is premised on the oil and gas industry because it is currently the major driver of the Nigerian economy; hence effective project leadership can save the nation huge costs from project delays in this sector.

This paper aims to evaluate the sustainable project risk and stakeholder management for pension funds projects’ performance in Kenya. This paper highlights that current project management practices of Kenyan Pension Funds do not always ensure project success that secures desired market returns on these investments. The main problem with projects management practices being mentioned as planning, project implementation, cost and time overruns and quality achievement. As the pension schemes are also expected to continue to invest in alternative assets given the broadening of the allowable investment categories and to take advantage of the public infrastructural projects under the big four agenda (RBA, 2021), it becomes paramount to identify and implement sustainable project management practices for performance of the pension funds projects. The outcome of this paper showed that integration of risk management and stakeholder management practice was one of the key project management practices that would contribute towards pension funds projects' performance.

This paper aims (i) to establish the extent to which alternative risk transfer influence the performance of hydroelectric energy projects in Kenya, (ii) to examine how Contingent capital influence the performance of hydroelectric energy projects in Kenya, (iii) to To assess the extent to which Credit enhancement influence performance of hydroelectric energy projects in Kenya, (iv) to determine the extent to which Hedging derivatives influence performance of hydroelectric energy projects in Kenya, (v) to examine how Insurance influence performance of hydroelectric energy projects in Kenya. The study adopted the pragmatism paradigm, mixed-method approach, and descriptive correlational survey design while questionnaires and interview guide were used to collect quantitative and qualitative data from a census of 94 participants. This study recommends that project management and policymakers should integrate appropriate financial risk management instruments to improve the performance of hydroelectric energy projects besides developing targeted policies for strengthening the implementation of the financial risk management instruments to boost investors and lenders confidence

The purpose of the study was to identify and rank the prevalence and severity of risk factors construction cost overrun in Public-Private Partnership projects using a case study of Sondu-Miriu Hydroelectric Power Project in Kisumu County, Kenya. This study adopted a descriptive design and collected quantitative data analysed quantitatively using descriptive statistics. In total, 85 persons were identified to have taken part in the management and implementation of the study from whom a sample size of 71 participants was obtained. Questionnaires were emailed to the participants providing details of the study and requesting their participation. The study ranked the risk factors based on prevalence and severity from most prevalently severe to least prevalently severe as design changes, emerging tasks affecting delivery, construction task breakdown structure, design variations and failure of contractors to complete different tasks. Thus, stakeholders should participate fully in the project from design to avoid design changes leading to cost overrun. During implementation, the contractor and construction manager should device mechanisms to anticipate changes in the political environment as such changes determines government policies and decisions affecting the project funding, design and scope.

Practitioners and academics have been perplexed over the years by low efficiency and bad performance in construction projects. Several critical factors have been uncovered by previous studies which are governance mechanism, task conflict and opportunism. But an obvious question arises how the mechanism of governance in the presence of conflict can mitigate opportunism. The overarching objective of this study is therefore to create a model to study the effectiveness of these mechanisms of governance in the presence of task conflict. This paper is based on a positivist study philosophy in which a quantitative deductive method was used to collect data from 139 participants. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling (SEM) through SmartPLS3.The research findings show that relational governance affects project efficiency considerably and is helpful in decreasing opportunism and conflict. In addition, there is proof that opportunistic behavior will increase the task conflict among parties but both task conflict and opportunism doesn’t have direct impact on the performance of project