Project Failure and Its Influence On the Performance of Construction Firms in Nigeria

Abstract

The construction industry, which plays an important role with great potentials of economic and national development, is now faced with consistent failure and abandonment of construction projects in Nigeria. This study investigates the underlying factors that lead to projects failure and the influence they have in the construction industry while utilizing a quantitative research approach with a Likert scale of 1-5, where an online questionnaire survey was administered with 81 responses retrieved (66 complete & 16 partially answered). The analysis of the report was carried using Relative importance index (RII) method. The findings rank 12 underlying factors that lead to project failure and abandonment such as Bureaucracy and corruption, lack of proper project planning, poor communication and unrealistic estimation of cost and time of the projects. Furthermore, the findings reveal that these 12 factors are likely to have an influence on the projects in terms of cost and time overrun, wastage and underutilization of manpower and resources, disputes among the parties involved in the project and are likely to lead to the total abandonment of the entire project.