Exploring crisis management in UAE construction industry

Abstract

Construction companies can mitigate the negative of a crisis impact if there is effective management in the construction companies. There are many types of crises that the constructioncompanies go through and many effective ways to get over the crisis. In this study the researcher's goals will be first to identify the potential crisis, secondly to introduce strategies for crisis prevention or mitigation thirdly introduce the importance of the organization for successful crisis management application. The objective of this study is to understand the various environmental and organizational factors that may lead to crises for construction companies in the UAE, to assess the perception of construction managers towards the crises they have been experienced, and to assess the relationship between the organizational structureand the extent of crisis management applications. A questionnaire survey has been conducted in this research to collect data from (50) construction company managers in the UAE. After collecting the quantity data, the data were analyzed by using variousstatistical analyses. The potential factors that could lead to the crisis are analyzed by using descriptive data. A Chi-Square Test (Association Test) was used to test the association between the variables (antecedents and consequences) of crisis management. A reliability test was used for all the variables taken from the study to identify the reliability of the data collected. Percentage analysis was used to assess the perception of crisis by the companies and the null hypothesis was formulated to be tested in this research. The researcher concludes there are five important environmental and organizational factors that could lead to the crisis which are government policies, managerial factors like managers leaving the organization, cultural problems, inadequate support for socio-physiological needs, and changes in project teams.The most important perception of the construction managers towards the crisis was risk and financial crisis.