Challenges of Construction Industry

A summary

After studying the article on the challenges in construction industry, I realize that the construction industry everywhere faces problems and challenges, especially developing countries. Based on my understanding from the article, globalization, culture and environment are some of the implications for the construction industry in developing countries.

GLOBALIZATION :

Globalization is an economic concept which is the integration of markets, trade and investments with few barriers to slow the flow of products and services between nations. Globalization is important in the construction industry because it is important for each nations socio-economic development. Some of the advantages of globalization in developing countries in the construction field is that it allows involvement of international finance and foreign investments which makes possible major projects and the increase in construction demand which creates more working opportunities for local firms. Not only that, globalization also allows presence of foreign firms and competition among themselves which enables technology transfers and lowering the cost for projects. However, globalization could cause disadvantages as well, for example local firms with no funds and lacks capability would not be able to participate in privatised projects and foreign funded projects. Nevertheless, the gap between local and foreign firms could be filled through joint ventures between firms.

CULTURE :

Cultural differences also has an impact on daily businesses, either negative or positive, of construction enterprises working nationally or internationally. This is because, every organization has different cultures determined by its history, size, corporate goals and objectives, technology of production, market and operating environment. Therefore, it is important to manage cultural issues in construction projects especially in multi-cultural situations to avoid failure such as the event of failure to consider and incorporate cultural traits in the procurement system adopted in Southern Africa that led to poor performance in their project. Thus, I learned that it is important to formulate procurement approaches which enables the integration of construction process in the context of the country concerned.

ENVIRONMENT :

Lastly, environmental issues are also one of the challenges in developing countries. This is because, most developing countries are the countries that are facing the worst environment related problems due to their fragile environment and high level of land degradation such as erosion, drought and flooding. Furthermore, developing countries are also facing problems such as pollutions and deforestation due to rapid urbanisations. Another important issue highlighted in the article is the lack of physical resources for infrastructure to raise the living standards of their people. Consequently, developing countries should learn from industrialised countries to ensure that their construction industry adopt materials, techniques and practices which allows operations to have a lower environmental impact.

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