Impact of project communications effectiveness on construction disputes

The construction industry is crucial for all economies, driving the overall economy in many ways. At the same time the construction industry is complicated since it involves a variety of stakeholders, challenging environmental issues, complexities in terms of economic and political factors, and other similar features which may cause an conflicts and claims between projects participants. While successful completion of construction projects is a major goal for the stakeholders. Within the construction industry, construction conflicts and claims are so commonplace they generally are considered a crucial part of construction projects. Claims can be mostly witnessed in the process of handling construction events that are not specified in the contract, such as delays, accelerations, changed conditions, design changes, deficiency in specifications, disruptions, and quantity variations. While resolving the claim, if the claim is not accepted, then it will develop into a dispute. Poor communications are considered to play an important role in the causation of disputes in construction projects. This study was undertaken to investigate how communication effectiveness can help to prevent construction disputes in Saudi Arabia as a case study. Thus, a survey was conducted to understand the relationships between communication effectiveness and construction disputes. Then, we analyzed the survey by using some tools and techniques such as univariate analysis, bivariate analysis, Pearson Chi-square and risk matrix to investigate whether there is a significant relationship between variables. The results indicated that communication effectiveness was reduced when information received between the project participants was unclear, insufficient, and lacking timely responses and that will lead to increase the frequency of construction disputes. Experience level of participants, language challenges, poor documentation, conflicting interests, and distance between communicating parties were frequently occurring communication barriers produced high risks for project failures due to construction disputes.