DOES PROFESSIONAL ETHIC AFFECTS CONSTRUCTION QUALITY? 1
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Hamzah Abdul Rahman , Saipol Bari Abd Karim , Mohd Suhaimi Mohd Danuri , 4 5 Mohammed Ali Berawi & Yap Xiang Wen Centre for Project and Facilities Management (CPFM), Faculty of the Built Environment, University of Malaya, Malaysia. Corresponding author:
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected].
Abstract The issue of quality or the lack of it has been a major concern for the Malaysian construction industry. There is a strong perception that the majority of quality-related issues and problems are mainly caused by human factor. This perception remains uncertain as no research has been conducted to investigate its authenticity. This paper highlights the level of professional ethical standards in the local construction industry and presents the influence of ethics to construction quality based on the results obtained from a questionnaire survey and personnel interviews. The objectives of this research are to identify the correlation between quality-related issues and professional ethics and to examine the influence of professional ethics in quality management practice. The paper also suggests ways to enhance professionalism among construction professionals to improve the quality. The findings amongst others indicate that various form of unethical conducts found in the construction industry has a significant effect on the quality of construction. Keywords: Malaysian construction industry, professional ethics, quality-related problem, unethical conducts.
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1.0
INTRODUCTION
Construction industry plays a substantial role in a country’s national economy, irrespective of the country’s levels of economic development (Zantanidis & Tsiotras, 1998). Indeed, this sector is an important employer of a nation’s workforce as it employs between 2% to 10% of total workforce of most countries (Abdul Rashid & Hassan, 2005). Malaysia has gained an impressive economic growth during the last three decades (Abdul Rahman et al, 2005) and this sector has employed an estimated 798,200 workforce nationwide in 2004 (CIDB, 2006). The Malaysian Government has given a much needed boost to the country’s construction industry under the 9th Malaysian Plan where a total of 880 projects worth RM15billion is to be tendered (The Star, 2006a). Nevertheless, it should be highlighted that the issue of poor quality in the construction sector has been identified as a major concern even as far back as the mid 1980s (The Star, 2006d). Generally, it is a rule that construction projects must be completed within the planned cost, scheduled time and required quality. Quality may sometimes be ignored in this industry to cut the costs or to shorten the project time (Turk, 2006). To deal with the low quality problem faced by the industry, quality management is seen as an approach to achieve the required level of quality of the end product and has been given great attention world-wide over the past three decades (Hiyassat, 2000; Berawi and Woodhead, 2005). However, there is a perception that majority of quality-related issues are caused by human factor. In response to that perception, a study was performed to look into the relationship between professional ethics among participants of construction sector and the quality-related issues in Malaysian construction sector. It should be noted that for this purpose of survey, contractors and clients are regarded as professions and they are required to demonstrate a high degree of professionalism in performing their task, in response to the Government’s effort who has introduced the National Integrity Plan to enhance integrity and ethics in the nation.
2.0
QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
The issues of quality have existed since tribal chiefs, kings, and pharaohs ruled (Gitlow, 2005). In a project scenario, quality can be defined as meeting the legal, aesthetic (Arditi & Gunaydin, 1997) and functional requirements of a project (Berawi, 2006). Customers nowadays place more emphasis on the quality of products rather than the price which was the major concern in the past. Hence, a rapid expansion of international competition in quality has occurred (Tsiotras & Gotzamani, 1996; Abdul-Rahman & Berawi, 2002). In terms of quality in construction industry, Turk (2006), citing Arditi & Gunaydin (1999), mentioned that ‘high quality building project’ includes factors like the design being easily understandable and applicable, conformity of design with specifications, economics of construction, ease of operation, ease of maintenance and energy efficiency. Zantanidis & Tsiotras (1998) and Abdul-Rahman & Berawi (2002) mentioned the expectations for quality construction projects will continue to grow rapidly as the number of affluent, educated and quality-conscious customers are increasing. With the globalization of economy, construction firms world-wide are actively engaged to achieve internationally accepted quality levels to ensure their position in the emerging international market especially in those developing economies. Thus, the need to have a proper system that ensures quality is critical, coupled with high level of attention paid to quality management in construction industry (Hiyassat, 2000; (Abdul Rahman, Berawi, et al, 2006). Scholars indicate that quality management has been adopted by many countries in their construction industry including Hong Kong (Leung et al, 1999; Au & Yu, 1999 and Tang & Kam, 1999), Singapore (Low & Omar, 1999 and Low & Yeo, 1997), Greece (Tsiotras & Gotzamani, 1996 and Zantanidis & Tsiotras, 1998), Turkey (Turk, 2006), Jordan (Hiyassat, 2000), Saudi Arabia (Bubshait & Al-Atiq, 1999), Sweeden (Landin, 2000), United States (Chini & Valdez, 2003), South Africa (Rwelamilla, 1995) and Malaysia (Chew & Chai, 1996).
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Quality management is a complex effort that may not be fruitful if only technical aspects are focused and this has lead to the modern concept of Total Quality Management (TQM) (Tan & Abdul Rahman, 2005). Besterfield et al (2003) defines TQM as both philosophy and a set of guiding principles that represent the foundation of continuously improving organization. Many tools, methods, and techniques have been developed world wide in order to give substance to the concept of TQM (Geraedts et al, 2001; Berawi, 2004). A large number of companies obtained the ISO 9000 Standards certificate as a first step towards TQM (Hiyassat, 2000). However, if people are not serious in implementing quality management, no matter how good the system is, it will fail eventually. There is a strong perception that majority of the quality-related problems are cause by human factor, especially professionalism and ethics.
3.0
PROFESSIONAL ETHICS IN THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
Profession is an occupation that requires both advanced study and mastery of a specialized body of knowledge and undertaken to promote, ensure or safeguard some matter that significantly affects others’ well being (Vee & Skitmore, 2003). Almost every profession has its codes of ethics to provide a framework for arriving at good ethical choices. Therefore, professional ethics is a system of norms to deal with both the morality and behaviour of professionals in their day-today practice, and ascribes moral responsibility not to an individual, but to all professionals practicing in a particular profession. For the building and designing professions, the incalculable value of human life demands nothing less than the highest moral considerations from those who might risk it otherwise (Mason, 1998, cited in Vee & Skitmore, 2003). The construction industry is a ‘perfect’ environment for ethical dilemmas, with its low-price mentality, fierce competition, and paper-thin margin (FMI, 2006). Jordan (2005) stated that unethical behaviour is taking a growing toll on the reputation of the industry. From a survey conducted by FMI, 63% of the respondents whom are the construction players feel that construction sector is tainted by unethical conducts (FMI, 2006). Surveys conducted by researchers in Australia (Vee & Skitmore, 2003) and South Africa (Pearl et al, 2005) identified several unethical conducts and ethical dilemmas in the construction industry such as corruption, negligence, bribery, conflict of interest, bid cutting, under bidding, collusive tendering, cover pricing, frontloading, bid shopping, withdrawal of tender, and payment game. It is evident that there exist significant areas of concern pertaining to the ethical conducts practised by the construction professionals. There are many other efforts taken to increase the ethical standards and integrity among the professionals in construction sectors worldwide. According to Pearl et al (2005), the regulatory professional Acts relating to the built environment professional sector in South Africa were totally overhauled in the late 1990’s and a new suite of professional Acts were promulgated in 2000 to enhance the professionalism. Meanwhile, in America, the Construction Management Association of America (CMAA) has updated its code of ethics to include a wider range of professional services as well as professional services among construction players (CMAA, 2006). A Standard of Professional Conduct to govern the ethical practices in the American civil engineering profession was published by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE, 2007). On the other hand, Australia has their own codes of tendering to enhance fairness and transparency (Ray, 1997). In Malaysia, the government is very serious about improving ethics in both public and private sector. For instance, the construction industry has introduced codes of ethics for contractors to encourage self-regulation among the contractor in this sector (The Star, 2006b). Stakeholders of construction projects were asked to enforce the existing code of ethics to safeguard the engineer's good name (The Star, 2006c). The Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) of Malaysia also host integrity courses for contractors to promote the importance of integrity and plans to make the course as a pre-requisite for contractors when renewing their registration (The Star, 2006c). Finally, the launching of the Construction Industry Master Plan (CIMP) by CIDB in 2004 also had in the master plan an objective to enhance professional ethics in the local construction industry (MBAM websites, 2006). Quantity Surveying International Conference. 4-5 September, 2007 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
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RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN QUALITY-RELATED ISSUES AND PROFESSIONAL ETHICS
Besterfield et al (2003) mentioned quality is dependent on ethical behaviour, whereby quality and ethics have a common care premise which is to do right things right and it is a proven way to reduce costs, improve competitiveness, and create customer satisfaction. It is evident that low ethical standards among construction professional will lead to quality problem. These issues were highlighted in the media and received great concern of public (Fleddermann, 2004; NST, 2004b; and RTM, 2006). As an example, the ethical-related case in the construction industry was the collapse of the Hyatt Regency Kansas City walkways (Fleddermann, 2004). It is a hotel project in 1970s with walkways suspended over the large atrium. With the intention to save the cost, the subcontractor for the fabrication and erection of atrium steel suggested changes in the structure and it was approved by the consulting structural engineer. During the construction, part of the atrium collapsed and the engineer came out with the report saying that the design was safe and ready to be opened for business in 1980. The tragedy happened one year after the completion of the project during a dancing party in the atrium lobby. Some of the walkways on which people were dancing collapsed onto the crowded atrium floor, leaving more than a hundred people died and almost two hundreds injuries. Investigation was then conducted by the Missouri Board of Architects, Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors reported that the original design was only marginally acceptable to the Kansas City building code where the walkways would only have had approximately 60% of the capacity required by the code. The situation was even worse in the new design proposed by the steel subcontractor and approved by the engineer. The consultant was found negligence in its investigation of the atrium collapse and places too much reliance on the subcontractor. Therefore, the engineer has been charged for negligence, incompetence, and misconduct. Both the engineer and the consultant firm lose license of practicing. This case strongly indicates that unethical behaviour will lead to quality problems and structural failures. In Malaysia, as an example, a newly opened specialist hospital in Johor Bahru was closed due to fungi attack on the equipments and walls (RTM, 2006). It was found that many of the hospital’s equipments such as oxygen piping and sewerage system are not according to the specifications. This clearly shows the poor ethics of the contractor who failed to do right things right. The contractor was given three months to rectify problems including leaking pipes, broken ceilings and faulty air-conditioning ducts (NST, 2004a). Another sub-standard quality of construction project in Malaysia is the RM238 million Middle Ring Road Two (MRR2) flyover which was closed to traffic after cracks were found in 31 pillars and structural movements were detected (The Sun, 2004). The Government engaged an independent consultant from the United Kingdom to investigate the defects. The independent consultant identified that design deficiencies and improper anchoring of the columns to the crossbeam were the main cause of the cracks (NST, 2004b). Design deficiency is found to be a negligence on the design team and the repair works was then carried out at an estimated cost of RM20 million.
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RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
This study was undertaken to: 1. Assess the level of professional ethical standards and its practice in the Malaysian construction industry, 2. Examine the relationship between quality-related issues and that of professional ethics; and the influence of professional ethics in quality management, and 3. Determine the role of professional ethics in improving quality management in construction industry.
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6.0
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The research adopted three principle methods namely literature review, questionnaire survey, and interviews were used for the study. A thorough literature search for either primary sources or secondary sources was conducted through academic research journals, proceedings, dissertations, occasional papers, publications, textbooks, newspaper and online database. Referring to previous research design also enables the author to grasp the problems and issues related to the topic of study and provide important insight to the author on how to design an efficient research study. Questionnaire survey is the main research methodology used to achieve the research objectives. Five hundred (500) sets of questionnaires were distributed to targeted respondents in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor state by post and via the internet. The questionnaire contains sixteen (16) questions with multiple choices questions in three sections: A, B, and C. Targeted respondents ranging from developer firms, consultant firms, and contracting and they were chosen randomly from various professional organizations which representing their respective professions. To ensure the reliability of the questionnaire survey, the sample size taken was then compared to match with the sample size recommended by Krejcie and Morgan (Sekaran, 2000: 295). To ensure a high response rate, the author has critically thought of ways to achieve a high response rate as shown in Table 1. Data obtained from the returned questionnaire was sorted out and analyzed using SPSS Version 15 and Microsoft Excel 2003. Interviews were conducted to strengthen and to clarify some uncertain findings from the questionnaire survey. Six (6) questions were pointed out in the interviews. Ultimately, conclusions were drawn up to summarize the data gained from questionnaire survey and personal interview.
7.0
FINDINGS
Five hundred (500) questionnaires were distributed and the rate of return was 13.2%. Table 2 shows the breakdown of response by type of company. 7.1
Professional Ethical Standards in Malaysian Construction Industry
About 77.3% of the respondents’ firms have code of ethics/conducts for follow. About 34.9% of the respondents indicated that their organizations have ethics training programs for their staff at least once or twice a year. On the question whether the construction industry is tainted by unethical conducts, 74.2% agreed with the statement. About 43.9% of the respondents ‘dissatisfy’ with the current work ethics in local construction industry. Respondents were furnished with a list of unethical conducts that required them to rank from ‘none’ to ‘very often’. Tables 3 and 4 demonstrate the range of mean for each option and ranking of those conducts by mean. Both top two (2) most frequent unethical conducts scored means within the category of ‘often’ which are 1.67 and 1.61, respectively. Negligence, front loading and claims game, and payment fell under the ‘sometimes’ category with a mean value of 1.48, 1.42, and 1.32, respectively. 7.2
Determination of Relationship between Quality-related Issues with Professional Ethics
About 72.7% of respondents rate ‘average’ for local construction quality. About 93.9% ‘agree’ unethical acts will contribute to the quality-related problems in construction industry. There were 72.7% of the respondents who ‘agree’ that unethical conducts can be the main cause of poor quality project. Meanwhile, 84.8% agreed unethical conducts will affect the effectiveness of quality management implementation. About 57.5% of respondents rate the influence of unethical conducts which affects the effectiveness of quality management as ‘high’. The respondents were furnished with a list of ways to enhance professionalism in construction industry. The two (2) most chosen ways to enhance professionalism are by leaders serving as role models and by setting a standard of code of ethics for the construction industry with 57.6% and 50.0%, respectively. Quantity Surveying International Conference. 4-5 September, 2007 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
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DISCUSSIONS
The reasons behind the low response rate may be due to the tight working schedule of the respondents, limited knowledge to share, uninterested with the topic, relocation of business and also possibility of the questionnaire was not forwarded to the right person. The survey found out that 34.9% of respondents’ firms have conducted ethical training programs. This shows that many firms are unaware of the importance of good work ethics and on the issue of work ethics among their staff. Each company is supposed to have code of ethics/conducts as a guideline for their staff to stringently follow although staff should know things that they can and cannot do. Meanwhile, majority (74.2%) of the respondents and all interviewees were of the view that the local construction industry is tainted by unethical conducts among construction players. Most of them have experienced or seen all the unethical conducts listed in the industry. The five (5) most unethical conducts that they had experienced or seen are: (a) under bidding, bid shopping, and bid cutting, (b) bribery and corruption, (c) negligence, (d) front loading and claims game, and (e) payment game. The ethical standard in local construction industry is rather low. The result of this study is parallel with foreign research conducted by FMI (2006) which revealed that 63% of the respondents in a survey agreed the construction industry is tainted by unethical acts among construction players. Indeed, 84% of the respondents in the FMI’s survey who were comprised of construction players had experienced, observed, or encountered construction transaction which they felt unethical. Failure to take control the bidding exercise may end up an under bidding by contractor, which will affect the quality of the end product delivered to the end user. This is especially prevalent to public projects where those with lowest tender will be awarded with tender. Bribery and corruption is another common unethical conduct noted. This will lead to many incompetent personal producing sub-standard quality works. Thus, the quality of the end product will become questionable to the investors as they are not confident with the product quality. The survey findings are also equivalent to investigation on corruption by Transparency International (TI) which is a global coalition against corruption revealed that 10% of the total global construction in 2004 was loss to corruption in construction industry globally. This means RM390 billion was burned to such unethical conduct. Failure on the part of professional personnel to exercise the degree of care considered reasonable under the circumstances will result in poor workmanship, inadequate safety standards on site and design negligence. Professionals in the construction industry should always exercise duty of care when conducting their responsibility. From the cases reported in the newspapers, quality-related issues are found to have correlation with unethical conducts of the construction players. More than two third of the respondents are not very satisfied with the quality in construction industry which they rate ‘average’. This makes sense as there are many sub-standard quality found in the construction industry. More than 90% of them agreed that unethical conducts will contribute to quality-related problem and majority (72.7%) agreed that unethical conduct can be the main cause for poor quality project. Three out of four interviewees also have the same point of view with the respondents. The respondents also agreed that unethical conducts will influence the effectiveness of quality management implementation. Some claimed that unethical acts will affect the effectiveness on quality checking and inspection by the Clerk of Work, i.e. work to proceed without field check or inspection and testing. It can be summarized that quality related issues and professional ethics are interrelated. The perception that quality problem are caused by human factor can be considered as reliable. Good working ethics is thus very important as it has significant influence on the quality and performance of the product. More than half of the respondents felt leadership serves as role model to enhance professionalism whereas leadership and enforcement of existing law are the popular answer among the interviewees. Leaders should serve as role model among the employees as their conducts will influence the whole company because all staffs look on them in the day-to-day practice.
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9.0
CONCLUSIONS
The findings of the research indicate that professional ethics (in terms of unethical acts) has a direct negative affect on the quality of construction. There exist significant areas of concern in the Malaysian construction industry as the ethical standards among construction professional considered below average and one of the best ways to enhance professionalism is through leadership with leaders serving as role model for the staff. Unethical acts that exist in developing economies can negatively affect the quality of constructed projects, thus undermining the clients and users of those projects. If this situation continues, the development and reputation of construction industry will suffer. Construction professionals are expected to behave with professional integrity and reasonable of care. They should strive to achieve good quality of work as they owe responsibility to the general public. If everyone in this sector plays their part well, professionalism will be enhanced and thus eliminating the qualityrelated problems directly. The main public agency of developing countries must enforce existing laws and procedures and set a standard code of ethics. All construction players must be monitored strictly to follow and generate a standard scheme to measure the quality of work achieved by contractors. It will take quite a while for the concept of TQM to take effect in such situations. Consultants should exercise their duty of care in performing their works and not resort to unethical behaviour for approving any sub-standard work. The contractors should not always view profits and benefits as their major concern and earn money in unethical way. Clients must be fair to the contractors. They should always alert and try to avoid any unethical behaviour among the construction players from happening. Table 1: Ways to increase response rate BEFORE SENDING
AFTER SENDING
Questions designed to be very straightforward
Follow up call by phone
Initial questionnaire sent out to be pilot tested
Sent again to those who are not aware
No personal information of the respondents required
Walk in
Use the addresses which are the most updated
Table 2: Breakdown of response by type of company TYPE OF FIRM
SENT
RESPONDED
PERCENT (%)
275
40
14.55
Architectural
80
11
13.95
Developer
45
6
13.33
100
7
7.00
500
66
13.20
Contractor
Quantity Surveying TOTAL:
Table 3: Classification for frequency scale OPTIONS
MEAN
None
0.00 ≤ Mean score < 0.75
Sometimes
0.75 ≤ Mean score < 1.50
Often
1.50 ≤ Mean score < 2.25
Very Often
2.25 ≤ Mean score < 3.00
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Table 4: Ranking of unethical conducts by construction players UNETHICAL CONDUCTS
MEAN
RANK
Under bidding, Bid shopping, Bid cutting
1.67
1
Bribery, Corruption
1.61
2
Negligence
1.48
3
Front loading, Claims game
1.42
4
Payment game
1.32
5
Unfair & dishonest conduct, Fraud
1.30
6
Collusion
1.26
7
Conflict of interest
1.17
8
Change order game
1.12
9
Cover pricing, Withdrawal of tender
1.06
10
Compensation of tendering cost
0.74
11
* Notes: Rank no. 1 = The most frequent happen Rank no.11 = The least frequent happen
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