Abstract:
Joint venture (JV) has become a common business form for construction contractors
in undertaking large construction projects worldwide. However, most of studies
found that construction joint ventures (CJVs) can be failed due to several issues such
as, unclear partner roles, unequal risk sharing, misunderstanding of practices etc.
Hence, a necessity was emerged to conduct this research with the purpose of
determining the issues which are critical for construction joint ventures in Sri Lanka
in order to propose probable attributes to overcome.
Accordingly, thirty six issues in CJVs were determined though literature review and
preliminary survey. The identified factors were evaluated by conducting a
questionnaire survey with respect to the quantitative approach. Thus, the survey was
conducted among the forty professionals who are engaged in CJVs in Sri Lanka and
having a detailed knowledge and more than five (05) years of experience in the
relevant field. The data collected through survey was analysed by using Mean
Weighted Rating, Relative Importance Index and Box plot techniques to identify the
issues which are critical in CJVs in Sri Lanka.
As the results denoted, twenty five critical issues were determined. Among them, not
having formal guideline for partner selection and entering to JVs based only on
qualification/resources issues were obtained highest rankings. Facing unavoidable
events, leakage of information to outside parties and failures with respect to their
political, social, legal and government procedures and no proper way to deal with
additional installments were identified as least critical issues. Further verifications
obtained through the visualization of box plots showed that not having formal
guideline for partner selection has obtained the top ranking issue in CJVs in Sri
Lanka with a high level of agreement among the survey respondents. Finally, the
probable strategies were proposed to overcome the critical issues in CJVs in Sri
Lanka. As the main implication of this research, the evaluation of issues of CJVs and
the proposed strategies can be used by industry practitioners as a basis to evaluate the
current status of CJV projects in order to initiate the successful CJVs in Sri Lanka.