Barriers to Sustainable Construction Practices (Case Study: The Role of National Culture)(مقاله علمی وزارت علوم)
حوزههای تخصصی:
This s tudy examined national culture dimensions that cons titute barriers to the implementation of sus tainable cons truction practices among cons truction professionals in Nigeria. It deployed S tatis tical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) software to analyze data collected through a ques tionnaire survey. Mean Score Index (MSI) result revealed 47 national culture variables that have great potential for causing barriers to implementation of sus tainable cons truction practices in Nigeria with the MSI range of 3.30 - 4.72. The variables were grouped into six of Hofs tede’s national culture dimensions (large Power Dis tance, Individualism, Masculinity, s trong Uncertainty Avoidance, Short-Term Orientation, and Res traint) with an average MSI range of 3.84 - 4.22. The Kruskal-Wallis H and Mann-Whitney U tes ts indicated that irrespective of organizational and individual characteris tics, there was no significant difference in the national culture of cons truction professionals hindering the implementation of sus tainable cons truction practices in Nigeria (p>0.05); but for Individualism (IDV) and Uncertainty Avoidance (UAI) dimensions which indicated significant differences (p <0.05) due to personal attributes, disposition, and exposure. The study established that the differences have only a small effect (r = 0.171 and 0.156 respectively), signifying that the observed differences in IDV and UAI culture dimensions based on years of experience, were not a result of differences in the sizes of the groups. They then study raised concern for a new way of thinking towards overcoming barriers to implementing sustainable construction practices in Nigeria and suggested for optimization and operationalization of national culture dimensions that support the implementation of sustainable construction practices and eschewing those that cause barriers.