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Aldaiyat, R M R E (2017) Perception eccentricities in risk time dimension of construction professionals in the state of Kuwait, Unpublished PhD Thesis, School of Civil and Building Engineering, Loughborough University.

  • Type: Thesis
  • Keywords: interview; perception; questionnaire survey; risk management
  • ISBN/ISSN:
  • URL: https://hdl.handle.net/2134/25748
  • Abstract:
    The role of risk management in construction has become increasingly important in recent decades. Risk management is often considered as a practice intended to identify and quantify all potential risks likely to affect a projector organisation, so that appropriate decisions can be made to mitigate any potential impact. Risk management in construction is currently practised on the basis that similar conditions to similar risk events faced by different professionals in different projects should have similar decisions.However, the identification and quantification of significant risks that require mitigation relies on the perception of the individual responsible for making decisions related to those risks. An important aspect of the individual’s perception is the level of awareness for estimating the time within which an identified risk event should be mitigated; termed herein as ’the time dimension of risk’. The time dimension of risk in construction is somehow considered to be subsumed within the assigned probability of risk events or/and project activities. A critical review of essential sources related to risk management within and beyond construction revealed that the different perceptions of individuals have a strong influence on the decisions that are made in the process of risk management. In responding to the differences in perception, two sets of investigations were conducted to establish their nature and scale. The first of these involved establishing the pre-existing concepts, current mitigation approaches, and responses predominantly practiced in construction. The second investigation contextualised and characterised the time dimension of risk for the professionals in construction. The findings from the investigations revealed that professionals utilise different sources of information and have different requirements in their estimation of the time dimension of risk, and therefore, their decisions vary accordingly. The findings also confirmed that the different risk attitudes of individuals play a dominant role in implementing decisions, especially when these are related to time dimension of risk. The analysis showed that 86% of professionals do not systematically estimate the risk time dimension in their projects. The results from the analysis were employed in developing an assessment matrix to establish the scale of deviation (eccentricity) in the perceptions of professionals when estimating the time dimension of risk. The assessment matrix was validated as efficacious for determining the deviations exhibited by professional in their exercise of decisions on time dimension of risk. The significant contribution made by the development of the assessment matrix lies in its innovation and improvement in how risk timeframe should be defined with greater clarity. It also provides a new approach for augmenting current solutions employed for the management of risk.