Statistical investigation on the BRI performance in construction communication effectiveness during COVID period in Malaysia

Abstract The rise of the COVID-19 pandemic in the 2019 has greatly impacted global construction heavily, which including BRI construction projects in Malaysia. One of the major changes that happened to the construction projects in Malaysia, including the BRI projects, is the communication effectiveness in the construction projects. This research endeavour seeks to explore the correlation between the effectiveness of communication and the performance of BRI construction projects in Malaysia amidst the during the pandemic period. The effective communication methods employed by BRI construction companies during the COVID-19 pandemic period is face-to-face communication (FTF) and video conferencing (VC). These two communication methods are the factors that influence communication effectiveness, and their relationship with BRI project performance in Malaysia was investigated. This research study was designed as a quantitative study. Questionnaires were distributed to BRI related individuals. A total of 68 validated responses were analysed using SPSS. The findings show that independent variable of FTF and VC are statistically insignificant with BRI construction project performance during the COVID-19 period. Thus, communication effectiveness has an insignificant relationship with BRI project performance in Malaysia during the COVID-19 period. This study contributes a comprehensive investigation on the relationship between communication effectiveness and BRI project performance during COVID-19 period, and this will act as a foundation to future study on the communication effectiveness in BRI construction industry.