Predictor Role of Profession in Explaining Personal Value Priorities and Conflicts between Construction Stakeholders

Abstract

This study investigated the relationship between “profession” and personal values to explain the potential conflicts between various groups of construction stakeholders. In this study, personal values of three professional groups of project consultants including architects, engineers, and quantity surveyors were assessed through questionnaire survey in the Malaysian construction industry. Using comparative analysis, the personal value priorities and conflicts between these professional groups of stakeholders were identified. The research findings indicated dissimilar patterns of personal values which explain potential conflicts between the stakeholders with different professions in the Malaysian construction industry. Therefore, this research confirmed the predictor role of “profession” variable in explaining personal values although this relationship was an ambiguous issue in the extant literature. This research, through identifying the value priorities of different groups of construction stakeholders, provides better understanding of their different needs, expectations, and preferences which would help project managers to have better perception of the potential conflicts between these groups of construction stakeholders.

Value conflicts and organizational commitment of internal construction stakeholders

“…It means conflicts even beyond the effects of personal values, which can be affected by variables like "age", "gender", "marital status", "race", "religion", "profession", and "level of education"; and OV which can be affected by variables like "type of company", "type of construction project", and "type of company ownership", as the past research demonstrates (e.g. Schwartz, 2006;Ueda and Ohzono, 2013;Panahi et al, 2015), were the predictors of OC of the internal stakeholders.…”

“…Scrutinizing the results generated by the comparative analyses revealed that they were in a narrow width of the Likert scale and the small differences between the mean scores were significant. This issue can be justified through three reasons: the nature and conceptual content of values is (Schwartz, 2006), therefore, the inferiority of values especially in personal profile is not usually expected; personal value priorities of people are affected by demographic factors, this fact also holds true for OV according to the different factors which affect the organizational culture of the organizations (Panahi et al, 2015). This study targeted different groups of internal construction stakeholders including architects, engineers, and quantity surveyors from various construction organizations.…”

Searching for meso‐level superordinate identities: An assessment of managerial value orientations across six industries

“…Scholars examining the construction industry at the meso level uncovered similar unethical situations attributed to the role of the industry. Panahi et al (2015) investigated the relationship between profession (an aggregate term used in their research in the absence of a formal professional association) and personal values among construction managers. Their research confirmed the predictor role of the profession variable that explained potential conflicts between the construction industry and its stakeholders leading to questionable behavior by the contractors.…”