Quality Culture Implementation and Militating Factors in Construction Organisations in Nigeria

Wasiu Adeniran Bello; Kudirat Ibilola 2zakariyyah; Aliu Soyingbe

Wasiu Adeniran Bello Department of Quantity Surveying, University of Lagos
Kudirat Ibilola 2zakariyyah Department of Building, University of Lagos
Aliu Soyingbe Department of Building, University of Lagos

Keywords: Construction, organisation, quality culture, barriers, implementation, quality perception

Abstract

Total Quality Management (TQM) has been proffered as a means to solving performance problem. Despite the benefits of TQM, construction stakeholders are yet to fully implement TQM and use the technique in resolving quality issues in Nigeria. Quality culture has been highlighted as key to TQM yet there is a dearth of research into quality culture in the Nigerian construction industry and thus the need to examine quality culture among construction organisations. The aim of the study is to assess the understanding of quality culture for proper implementation by identifying factors used in defining quality, assessing construction of stakeholders’ perception of quality as culture and the evaluation of prevalent barriers to quality culture implementation for the purpose of improved quality performance. Forty-one construction organisations comprising client, consulting and contracting organisations participated in a purposively selected sample. Mean score and analysis of variance test were used to understand the underlying quality culture being examined. The findings revealed that conformity to specification, customer satisfaction and elimination of defects are perceived to be quality culture criteria, while factors such as lack of standardisation , tendency to cure symptom rather than get to the root cause of a problem, are considered as the constraints. It is advocated that quality should be defined and embraced as a cultural phenomenon while project managers or business owners should embrace quality culture from perspectives of dealing with the problem rather than curing the symptoms syndrome.

References

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