Failure factors of building construction projects in Ethiopia

Construction projects encounter considerable failure, and the case is worse in developing countries. Improving this situation needs an understanding of the failure factors; hence, this study is aimed at identifying critical failure factors of building construction projects in the Ethiopian construction industry. Sixty-four project failure attributes were identified through a literature review and categorized under eight groups of sources. Using a questionnaire survey, one hundred seven valid responses were collected from professionals affiliated with contractors, consultants, clients and regulatory bodies. For the analysis, factor analysis was conducted to identify the underlying dimensions of each group, and multiple regression analysis was conducted to identify critical failure factors. The findings indicate that: (i) unfavourable socio-economic and climatic conditions; (ii) owners’ incompetence, change orders and bureaucracy in public clients; (iii) political interferences and inflation; (iv) contractors’ incompetence; (v) progress payment, defective works, and staff quality challenges; and (vi) poor productivity, shortage of labour and escalation of material costs are the critical project failure factors in the context of the Ethiopian construction industry. These critical failure factors emanate from four group of sources: client, contractor, project input, and project external environment. The stakeholders need to devise appropriate strategies to mitigate these critical failure factors to ensure project success.