Effects of organisational culture and strategy on construction project performance in Ghana

Abstract

Globally, the construction industry is faced with poor project performance attributable to inappropriate corporate culture and poor implementation of construction management strategies (CMSs). Thus, organisational culture-strategy-performance trilogy has become essential for both academics and practitioners. A better understanding of how organisational culture and strategy influence project performance is foundational to developing interventions for improving construction project delivery. This study examines how organisational culture (OC) and strategy influence construction project performance, and investigates the mediating role of strategy in organisational culture and project performance relationship. This was achieved by undertaking a descriptive cross-sectional survey approach to obtain 375 usable quantitative data from site managers of large and medium-scale construction firms in Ghana. The data was analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics such as mean and standard deviation, PCA, CFA, correlation and regression analysis. The results of this study revealed that the surveyed construction firms implement construction management strategies (CMSs) to a moderate extent. The results also showed that the dominant organisational culture type of the surveyed firms is adhocracy culture. CMSs had significant effects on overall project performance; market culture had the highest influence on CMS implementation; market and hierarchy culture types had significant effects on overall project performance; whilst clan and adhocracy culture types had insignificant effects on overall project performance. CMS partially mediates the relationship between OC and overall project performance. In conclusion, organisational culture types (market and hierarchy) and management strategies (effective planning, monitoring and control, stakeholder involvement, and use of technology and digital tools) positively and significantly affect construction project performance in Ghana.