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Alaka, H A (2017) 'Big data analytics' for construction firms insolvency prediction models, Unpublished PhD Thesis, Faculty of Business and Law , University of the West of England, Bristol.

  • Type: Thesis
  • Keywords: artificial intelligence; conflict; construction firms; factor analysis; financial ratio; insolvency; interview; liquidity
  • ISBN/ISSN:
  • URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/886158
  • Abstract:
    In a pioneering effort, this study is the first to develop a construction firms insolvency prediction model (CF-IPM) with Big Data Analytics (BDA); combine qualitative and quantitative variables; advanced artificial intelligence tools such as Random Forest and Bart Machine; and data of all sizes of construction firms (CF), ensuring wide applicability The pragmatism paradigm was employed to allow the use of mixed methods. This was necessary to allow the views of the top management team (TMT) of failed and existing construction firms to be captured using a qualitative approach. TMT members of 13 existing and 14 failed CFs were interviewed. Interview result was used to create a questionnaire with over hundred qualitative variables. A total of 272 and 259 (531) usable questionnaires were returned for existing and failed CFs respectively. The data of the 531 questionnaires were oversample to get a total questionnaire sample of 1052 CFs. The original and matched sample financial data of the firms were downloaded. Using Cronbach’s alpha and factor analysis, qualitative variables were reduced to 13 (Q1 to Q13) while11 financial ratios (i.e. quantitative variables) (R1 and R11) reported by large and MSM CFs were identified for the sample CFs. The BDA system was set up with the Amazon Web Services Elastic Compute Cloud using five ‘Instances’ as Hadoop DataNodes and one as NameNode. The NameNode was configured as Spark Master. Eleven variable selection methods and three voting systems were used to select the final seven qualitative and seven quantitative variables, which were used to develop 13 BDA-CF-IPMs. The Decision Tree BDA-CF-IPM was the model of choice in this study because it had high accuracy, low Type I error and transparency. The most important variables (factors) affecting insolvency of construction firms according to the best model are returned on total assets; liquidity; solvency ratio; top management characteristics; strategic issues and external relations; finance and conflict related issues; industry contract/project knowledge.