Towards developing competency-based measures for construction project managers: Should contextual behaviours be distinguished from task behaviours?

Abstract

Competency-based measures are increasingly being recognised as the most viable option for engendering the continuing professional development (CPD) of construction project managers (CPMs). Presently, an emerging view from the HRM genre is that, a somewhat robust approach for developing a more rigorous understanding of these measures is to distinguish contextual performance behaviours from task performance behaviours. The contention is that, the contextual–task framework allows for a more fine-grained analysis of managerial behaviour, its effects and measurement. Stimulated by the need to develop performance measures for CPMs in the context of a developing country, the framework has recently been replicated in identifying and developing competency profiles for project managers (PMs) in mass house building projects (MHBPs) in Ghana. Drawing from a positivist-based research approach, structured questionnaires were used to elicit the relevant data from property developers (homebuilders) who belong to the Ghana Real Estate Developers Association (GREDA). The findings presented potentially reasonable evidence that the contextual–task model has empirical relevance for application in project-based sectors of the construction industry. Subsequently, here, we proposed that the contextual–task framework could be adopted across geographical and project-based sectors by construction management researchers who are in need of an alternative methodology that can further an in-depth understanding of the competency profile of CPMs.