PASOS DESCRIPCIÓN

Perception is defined as ‘a way of understanding or interpreting something’ (Oxford, 2013). The ‘perceptual process’ is a complex psychological process, which attempts to explain how our individual perceptions are formed but is not well understood in organisational management and is out with the scope of this research (Mullins, 2016). Moreover, the importance of perception as an influential people factor should not be underestimated, in particular its effect on the preceding factors. Every individual has the human trait of perception, and how we perceive is strongly based on our environment, individual needs, cultural upbringing, life experiences, the present situation and our emotional state, which suggests that to change someone’s perception of a process or method would be extremely difficult (Walker, 2011).

The construction industry is generally perceived by external stakeholders as a macho industry, populated by contractors who cannot be trusted (Walker, 2011). Trust and how trust is perceived is important for the productivity achieved on any construction project. A survey of construction professionals to identify the main factors that they perceived were important to engender trust identified face to face communication and timely response to requests for information as influential in building trust between parties in the construction process. Although the survey had a low response rate of 16.5 percent, the significance of direct communication between parties, as an alternative to electronic communication, should not be understated (Zuppa et al., 2016). Internal stakeholders also perceive fellow professionals in a stereotypical way; for example, quantity surveyors are perceived as cost-centric and as control freaks (Walker, 2011).

Lim and Mohamed (1999, cited in Toor and Ogunlana, 2010) argue that there are two levels of perceived success: the macro-level relates to the end users’ perceptions as to whether the project has fulfilled their expectations and the micro level consists of the parties directly involved in the construction process, that is, client, design team, main contractor and subcontractors. Their perception is fundamentally linked to cost, time and quality. Toor and Ogunlana (2010) carried

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out a questionnaire survey, to gauge the micro level of stakeholders’ perceptions as to what factors constitute project success. The survey generated an extremely high response rate of 95 percent. The findings suggest that while cost, time and quality are deemed measures of project success, on their own they do not provide the full picture. Factors contained in the project strategy should also be included, for example safety performance, sustainability, energy efficiency and maintainability. A comparative study by Lai and Lam (2010) had 324 responses, compared to 76 in Toor and Ogunlana’s study, and the quantitative analysis indicated a slight deviation in the order of importance, to time, cost, environmental, quality, safety and effectiveness of the construction process, confirming safety and sustainability (environment) as factors that stakeholders now consider contribute to project success, and these are all factors that can be achieved better by using offsite in lieu of traditional construction.

Stakeholder perception of offsite construction in housing is still influenced by the post-war failed attempts at prefabrication and industrial building, such that potential homebuyers would rather purchase a traditional home with the many defects that are endemic in traditional construction than embrace the innovative technology now producing offsite construction, to a consistent quality (Pan et al., 2007; Kamali and Hewage, 2016). Human perception is a powerful factor such that it is not only home buyers that have a negative view of offsite methods, it also resides in many architects, developers and clients (Pan et al., 2007; Gosling et al., 2016). An international study carried out by Gosling et al. (2016) to identify the various perceptions among the many stakeholders concluded that to dissipate the negative perception of modular in particular and offsite in general requires a greater level of unity between the design team and the operations management team. This more unified approach will also benefit the identification and management of interfaces. Moreover, where repetition is dominant, offsite bathroom construction has now become the preferred choice for clients investing in hotels and student accommodation, which can only give heart for modular and volumetric construction (Alazzaz and Whyte, 2014).

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A questionnaire survey by Boothman et al. (2014) to ascertain both construction professionals’ and educationalists’ perceptions on the use of offsite construction of school buildings identified interesting findings. Forty-two percent confirmed that both sets of stakeholders preferred the bespoke design and traditional construction methods. However, when the client has an understanding of offsite methods, they are more readily amenable to offsite construction, citing reduction of defects as a contributing factor. Furthermore, potential clients of offsite construction need to be better informed of the benefits and constraints, to enable them to have a more informed perception of offsite construction (Boothman et al., 2014). Nadim and Goulding (2010) add that architects in general have a negative perception and are reluctant to inform clients of the benefits of offsite methods, preferring to remain in the traditional camp.

A study of house builders in the UK identified a negative perception by potential buyers of offsite techniques being used to construct modern homes. Interfacing problems between offsite and traditional construction were perceived by the house builders as a significant complex barrier to the uptake of offsite methods in house building (Pan et al., 2008b). However, Arif and Egbu (2010) argue that housing clients’ perceptions of a benefit of the use of offsite construction is that there are fewer interfaces between trades and that the interfaces are better managed when offsite methods are included. The difference in opinions on the use of offsite construction and the management of resulting interfaces would suggest that additional training and education is required to have a positive influence on stakeholders’ perceptions of the management of interfaces and offsite construction (Pour-Rahimian et al., 2014).

3.4 Summary

The nine process and seven people factors have been analysed individually in the form of a literature review. The aim of the literature review was to determine each factor’s relationship to offsite construction in general, and offsite bathrooms and IM in particular. As previously stated, literature directly related to IM in construction

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and IM of offsite forms of bathroom construction is scant in peer reviewed publications. However, some literature relating to the factors have eluded to IM indirectly.

Although the 16 factors were reviewed individually, the interrelationship between various factors has become evident, for example quality and tolerance. Furthermore, the interrelationship does not solely reside between groups of process or people factors but equally resides between individual process and people factors, confirming the importance of the interaction of process and people factors to the IM of offsite forms of bathroom construction.

The next chapter will justify the methodology and methods used to gather and analyse primary data, which will be discussed in a later chapter with the literature in this chapter and the preceding Chapter 2.

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