Determining the Technical Competencies of Construction Managers in the Malaysia’s Construction Industry

¹ Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, 86400 Parit Raja, Johor, Malaysia
² Centre for Construction Project and Infrastructure Management, Universiti Teknologi Mara, 40450 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia

^a Corresponding author : hairuddin81@gmail.com

Abstract

It is a common conviction that project management, construction management, and site management are the tools for improving the performance of the construction project as a whole. Notwithstanding the similarities and differences between all of them, construction management which consists of off-site and on-site activities is deemed to have the major influence on the succession of a project. Consequently, a competent construction manager is required throughout the particular phase to shape the construction stability and geared up to complete the proposed development as according to several common objectives. Nonetheless, a competent construction manager will not just appear “out of the blue”, they need to be teach, train, and develop in order to equip them with comprehensive competency sets. For that reason, education, training, and continuing professional development (CPD) are in place to provide the required knowledge, skills, and abilities. However, the debates on the inadequacy and problems on current construction management programs are continued to impede Malaysia’s construction environment. It has been observed that lack of term of reference on the technical competency for construction manager is became the major setback. Hence, this paper tries to unfold the circumstances by offering a preliminary countermeasure to alleviate the situation through analysis of literatures. It was found that, the associated central phenomenon is believed to be explored holistically with the inclusion of multi layered thematic analysis as a tool to assist the exploration processes. Then, the respective outcomes from the analysis are deemed to be ready for subsequent phases, for instance the validation phase.