Assessing Project Management Skills in the UAE Contracting Industry

NB: We do not resell your papers. Upon ordering, we do an original paper exclusively for you.

NB: All your data is kept safe from the public.

Table of Contents

History of Changes
Problems of Practice
New Initiatives
Proposed Changes
Research That Has Been Carried Out In the Recent Past
Research Gap
Aim and Objectives
Methodology
Contributions
Reference List

History of Changes

The impressive development of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the non-oil segment results in the improvement of the construction activity (Haddad 2014). The discovering of the oil resources contributed to the dramatic transformation of the country in the sphere of industry and economics. The willingness of the government to reduce the oil dependence consequently led to the investments into the non-oil sector (Haddad 2014).

The constructing industry received the priority and became the significant part of the UAE economics. Being the engine of the economic development of the country, constructing industry enjoys incredible popularity over the last decades (Gorgenlander 2011).

Since project management is an essential element in construction, employees engaged in these positions need to build up the skills corresponding to the high level of the industry development (Ochieng, Price & Moore 2013; Yousif, Hossan & McNeil 2015). Wippel et al. (2014) have examined the specific features and innovative methods that are implemented into the working process of the project managers of the construction sector and found that despite the immense progress in the field, improvements are still welcomed.

Problems of Practice

Although the construction industry provides many benefits to the country’s economy, it is to make an accent that the industry faces numerous problems and issues.

The book A Strategic Analysis of the Construction Industry in the United Arab Emirates Opportunities and Threats in the Construction Business provides the detailed analyses of the peculiarities of the construction in the United Arab Emirates with the PESTEL analysis to demonstrate that there exists the lack of properly made decisions due to the insufficient level of expertise among 30% of the project managers (Gorgenlander 2011). To address the problem, the UAE firms are constrained to attract expatriate workers (Wippel et al. 2014).

New Initiatives

With the existing problem of the lack of expertise among some of the project managers in the UAE construction industry, corporations resolved to invest more in the accumulation of human resource well-prepared for working out the newly-aroused issues in the industry (Jaeger & Adair 2013).

The studies presented in Yousif et al. (2015) provide an understanding that technological change and the drive to the low-carbon solutions impacts the skills in demand for the project managers in this industry. In addition, Yousif et al. (2015) state that the UAE constructing corporations began to work on building the proficiencies in the project managers enabling them to use innovative construction methods and new materials and technological solutions.

Proposed Changes

The UAE companies engaging in the construction area need to focus on elevating the proficiency rates among the local project managers to eliminate unnecessary disbursements on attracting expatriate employees (Ochieng, Price & Moore 2013).

Research That Has Been Carried Out In the Recent Past

In the recent past, solid research has been conducted on the congruence between the existing level of project managers’ competence and the requirements placed on them by the current economic situation (Gorgenlander 2011).

Research Gap

Evaluation of the scope of the existing literature suggests the conclusion that there exists a research gap in the field of practical solutions for educating the highly qualified project management employees. To eliminate this gap, this research aims to analyse the survey with the UAE construction industry leaders and generate the new knowledge as for the strategies that can apply to cultivate the new generation of the highly proficient project managers.

Aim and Objectives

The main aim of this research is to investigate the relationship between the development of the managers’ skills in the construction industry and the economic environment in the UAE. To achieve the stated above goal, the following objectives will implement:

To collect the data regarding the development of managers’ skills and proficiency in the field of construction over the past five years.
To measure the congruity between the current level of managers’ proficiency and skills and the economic climate in the United Arab Emirates.
To identify the existing knowledge gap as for the research theme understanding and propose further investigations to eliminate this gap

Methodology

To achieve the aim, the mixed method of the research design with the literature analysis and survey will be implemented. The combination of the qualitative and quantitative approach will provide the better involvement into the issue and help to collect the data from applicable sources.

Contributions

Project managers’ skills in the UAE generally correspond to the requirements. However, certain gap still exists. To eliminate the existing gap, construction corporations resort to attracting expatriate workers. However, attracting foreign assignees places additional expenses on companies. Current economic situation when the oil prices go down on the daily basis places the need to invest more funds in raising the local human resource to occupy the vacant positions in the construction project management.

Reference List

Gorgenlander, V 2011, A strategic analysis of the construction industry in the United Arab Emirates opportunities and threats in the construction business, Diplomica Verlag, Hamburg.

Haddad, E 2014, A critical history of contemporary architecture: 1960-2010, Ashgate Publishing, Burlington.

Jaeger, M. & Adair, D. 2013, “Cross cultural construction project management in the GCC countries: a local perspective on western project parties”, International Journal of Construction Project Management, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 67-83.

Ochieng, E, Price, A & Moore, D 2013, Management of global construction projects, Palgrave Macmillan, New York.

Wippel, S, Bromber, K, Steiner , C & Krawietz , B 2014, Under construction: logics of urbanism in the Gulf Region, Ashgate Publishing, Burlington.

Yousif, Y.A., Hossan, C. & McNeil, N. 2015, “Evaluation of leadership styles in the construction sector of UAE”, International Journal of Business and Management, vol. 10, no. 12, pp. 71-79.

Click Here To Order Now!