External Stakeholder Management in the Sri Lankan Construction Industry

Abstract

AbstractExternal stakeholders are a major source of uncertainty in construction projects. Therefore, management of project stakeholders is an important task to be carried out during a construction project. Successful construction project management can be carried out only when the responsible project managers take into account the influence of the project’s stakeholders towards the project during all stages of the project. The aim of this research was to identify and assess the role of stakeholders in construction projects in the Sri Lankan construction industry. Data were collected from two major representative projects, namely the Southern Expressway Project carried out by RDA and a Project carried out by National Water Supply and Drainage Board of Sri Lanka. The top three factors affecting the stakeholder management process in construction projects were ranked based on their Relative Importance Index were identifying external stakeholders (RII = 88.00%), communication and engaging with the external stakeholders properly and frequently (RII = 84.00%), and understanding the area of external stakeholders’ interests (RII = 83.20%). The findings of the study show that the stakeholder priority according to their influence index which is ranked from the highest to lowest influence on the construction industry placed the Road Development Authority at the first position followed by Survey Department and Central Environmental Authority. The attributes of stakeholders are assessed by considering seven major considerations: Attitude, Vested Interest, Power, Proximity, Legitimacy, Urgency and Knowledge. The data that have been gathered under these attributes were transferred into a Probability of Impact Matrix to distribute the stakeholders into categories based on their engagement level. The stakeholders who are directly and actively participating for the ongoing project (both government and non-government) and stakeholders who are responsible for administration and funding are recognized as key players while the stakeholders representing minority communities and associations should be kept satisfied with the project.KeywordsClassificationPrioritizationStakeholdersManagement