Indigenous contractors' perceptions of the importance of topics for contractor training in Nigeria

Abstract

Provision of training is prominent among other initiatives to enhance domestic contractors' performance and contributions to economic growth in developing countries. Unfortunately, efforts in this respect are only marginally successful. The literature on small-medium sized enterprises (SMEs) indicate that owner-managers' personal characteristics and factors relating to their organisations as well as the training programmes on offer influence their perceptions of importance of training, training needs and preferred delivery systems. Little effort was made in the past to train Nigerian indigenous contractors. This paper reports an exploratory study on contractors' perceptions of the importance of topics for training programmes to improve indigenous contractors' performance, part of a larger questionnaire survey of contractor training and development needs in south-west Nigeria. The majority of the respondents were trained construction professionals under forty five years old with previous work experience in the industry prior to establishing construction contracting business. The subject categories perceived as most important in descending order of importance are accounting and financial management, entrepreneurial studies and project management. Responses were analysed on the basis of certain personal and organisational factors, no statistical difference was observed in the perceptions of the sample in most instances. These findings provide insights into topics that will make training attractive to contractors in the region. The paper concludes that programmes to improve indigenous construction capacity in developing countries should promote entrepreneurial and managerial skills in construction education so that graduates are encouraged to consider self-employment or business ownership as alternative to career aspirations in employment. Thus trained indigenous professionals are better prepared as future owner-managers of construction enterprises. However, the findings cannot be generalised to other parts of the country due to the limitations of the study. Potential differences in personal and organisational characteristics imply differences in needs and preferences.