Project Management Practices and Performance of Building Construction Projects in Kakamega County in Kenya

Abstract

Government funded projects schools and markets in Kakamega County continue to face challenges of underperformance regarding cost, timelines and quality. The main objective of the study was to establish the influence of the project management practices and performance of building construction projects in Kakamega County, Kenya. The specific objectives were to establish project planning management, project stakeholder management, project risk management, project monitoring and evaluation influence performance of construction projects in Kakamega County, Kenya and the moderator was project leadership. The study was guided by the theories namely theory of Change, theory of Constraints and contingency theory. The study adopted the research of positivism. The research design was descriptive survey research design, with a target population of 1761. Unit of analysis was construction projects and the unit of observation was employees who consisted of contractors, project managers and site supervisors. The sample size was 326 respondents. Stratified random sampling for all 12 sub counties and purposive sampling for project managers. The study adopted self-administered questionnaires, interviews and project reports as the main data collection tools. Reliability was measured using Cronbach`s Alpha validity and validity was tested using face validity and content validity. The study used descriptive and inferential statistics to obtain the data analysis. Descriptive data was analyzed using frequency distributions and percentages. Inferential statistics correlation and regression to determine the relationship between project management practice and performance of construction projects. Project leadership was the moderator. The findings revealed that project planning and project leadership had a positive significant effect on performance of construction projects. While project stakeholders’, project monitoring and evaluation had a negative and insignificant and risk management had insignificant relationship on performance of construction projects. The study concluded that project planning had clear timelines, resource allocation and task coordination in building construction. Poorly managed stakeholder can hinder project outcome. The study recommends that policy makers should invest in risk identification, assessment and response to building construction projects in Kakamega County, Kenya.