PhD Final Thesis April 2013.pdf - Anglia Ruskin Research Online

Thesis Keith Gale 2013Within construction management research, methods that relate to sociologicalinteraction and process investigation are appropriate rather than use of laboratorybased scientific experiments (Dainty, 2007). Methods adopted for this research aresummarised in Table 4.2 together with a comment about the analytical techniques.This research is set within a paradigm of a single case study in order to explore dataand information relevant for a public sector organisation. The organisation is ofsufficient economic mass (> £1Bn annual turnover) and also has a continuousrequirement for construction industry products in delivery of its statutory duties. Theorganisation also directly employs more than 100 qualified staff, such as engineersand quantity surveyors, with the management of projects allowing access to viewsfrom practitioners allied to the construction professions.Within the case study, the following methods are used:• A quantitative study will be conducted based on documents research bysubjecting performance outcome results to t-tests in order to detectdifferences between all 164 framework and traditional discrete civilengineering projects executed by the organisation between 2006 and 2010.The results will be used to test Hypotheses 1 to 5.• A qualitative questionnaire survey will be conducted with 100 practitioners(out of an estimated population of 180) from participants to the research -Hampshire County Council and framework contractors to reaffirm projectoutcomes between the two procurement methods engaging with practitioners’views. This triangulates the quantitative study to test Hypotheses 1 and 2.• Qualitative data is also collected through a questionnaire survey with the 100practitioners and interview with 10 of these practitioners to establish theperformance drivers. A questionnaire survey was used to identify thesociological behaviour factors and operational performance measures, whichwere then validated by the professional views and opinions from theprominent and experienced practitioners through the interviews. Factoranalysis was used to reduce the sociological behaviour factors to facilitate theinterview process. The results were used to test Hypothesis 6.91