Evaluation of conflict issues between public owners and contractors during construction Phase: a case study in Bhutan

Abstract

The conflict in the construction projects seems inevitable due to its uncertainty, complexity nature, and involvement with different categories of project participants. Conflict deteriorates relationships and results in project delays, claims and disputes which are the main drawbacks in completion of project within time, cost, quality, safety etc. The previous studies have explored on factors of conflict and attempted to manage conflicts, however the conflicts still occurs in construction projects. Therefore, the objectives of this study are to identify the important conflict issues from perception and to evaluate the level of conflict issues. The research methodology was designed into three parts. First, the perception of important conflict issues was evaluated by 78 respondents. The research found 26 important conflict issues as main conflict issues. Next, the level of conflict issues was rated by 49 respondents. The findings found several conflict issues related to time, cost, quality, safety, scope and personnel. The level of conflict was found moderate for conflict issues related to project quality and time such as (1) Use of low quality and cheap materials, (2) Inadequate quality testing facility and (3) Poorly develop project planning and scheduling. Furthermore, the research found several causes of conflict issues such as lack of skilled manpower, resource limitation, poor planning and management capacity etc. The research also recommended the solution to prevent and reduce the conflict issues in public projects during construction phase.