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Delay causes in Kazakhstan’s construction projects and remedial measures

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 International Journal of Construction Management

ISSN: 1562-3599 (Print) 2331-2327 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tjcm20

Delay causes in Kazakhstan’s construction projects

and remedial measures

Md Aslam Hossain, Dinmukhambet Raiymbekov, Abid Nadeem & Jong Ryeol

Kim

To cite this article: Md Aslam Hossain, Dinmukhambet Raiymbekov, Abid Nadeem & Jong
Ryeol Kim (2019): Delay causes in Kazakhstan’s construction projects and remedial measures,
International Journal of Construction Management, DOI: 10.1080/15623599.2019.1647635

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT
https://doi.org/10.1080/15623599.2019.1647635

Delay causes in Kazakhstan’s construction projects and remedial measures

Md Aslam Hossain, Dinmukhambet Raiymbekov, Abid Nadeem and Jong Ryeol Kim
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nazarbayev University, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Delay in construction projects is a major concern. Research was conducted to find the construc- Delay causes; project
tion delay causes and mitigation measures. Literature reveals that different countries experience parties; construction project
various causes of delays and significances of these causes are different based on project types. types; remedial measures
This study explores delay causes in Kazakhstan’s construction industry and analyzes their influ-
ence on different types of construction projects. Fifty-five delay causes relevant to construction
projects in Kazakhstan have been identified through literature review and primary interviews
with selected construction professionals. Afterwards, a comprehensive survey was conducted
among the industry professionals. The survey results show that different delay causes have dif-
ferent importance based on the project types (industrial, residential, commercial, etc). Moreover,
project parties (client, contractor and consultant) have different views on the delay causes.
Accordingly, the study ranks delay causes based on project parties and project types and com-
pares their correlations. Finally, recommendations for the most prominent delay causes have
been provided. This study provides better understanding on delay causes and gives important
guideline for stakeholders of Kazakhstani construction industry and other construction professio-
nals in the world to control their projects. Similar studies can be conducted in other countries
to identify causes and remedial measures for delays.

Introduction (2006) found that 7 out of 10 studied Saudi Arabian

Construction is among the main industries that
accounts for 9% GDP (gross domestic product)
share and about 7% of the total employment around
the world (Crosthwaite 2000; Horta et al. 2013).
As reported in Statista (Global Construction
Expenditures 2014–2025), total worldwide spending
in construction was $11 trillion in 2017. It is pro-
jected to be $14 trillion in 2025. Despite the huge
contribution in countries’ economic development,
construction projects are characterized by low prod-
uctivity due to the complex interaction between vari-
ous parties involved in a single project that eventually
delays different construction operations leading to
cost and time overruns. Regardless of technological
advancement in construction industry, project delay
is still among the major concerns throughout the
world (Ruqaishi and Bashir 2015). For instance, study
of Odeyinka and Oladapo (1997) showed that 70% of
surveyed projects in Nigeria reported to have delays,
while according to Faridi and El-Sayegh (2006), half
of the United Arab Emirates’ construction projects
encountered delays. Further, Assaf and Al-Hejji
large construction projects had time overruns of 10%
to 30% on average. Study of Sambasivan and Soon
(2007) stated that around 17% of Malaysian construc-
tion projects faced average delays of three months.
According to Ruqaishi and Bashir (2015), only 62%
out of 40 construction projects in Oman were com-
pleted on time between 2012 and 2015. Existing lit-
erature reveals that majority of construction projects
are experiencing delays.
Therefore, it is very important for stakeholders to
have a clear view on factors that negatively affect
timely completion in the early stages of construction
projects and apply delay reducing remedies (Odeh
and Battaineh 2002) since delay would cause enor-
mous economic loss considering the huge annual
spending in the construction industry. There are
numerous causes of delays that can be categorized
based on their sources. Table 1 summarizes these cat-
egories of delay causes. These delay causes may have
different significance on construction projects in dif-
ferent countries. The details are presented in the lit-
erature review section.

CONTACT Md Aslam Hossain md.hossain@nu.edu.kz

ß 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 A. HOSSAIN ET AL.
Table 1. Delay causes based on their sources (Shi and Cheung 2001; Odeh and Battaineh 2002; Sweis
et al. 2008; Gunduz et al. 2015; Ruqaishi and Bashir 2015; Arditi et al. 2017).
Source
Contractor
Client/owner
Consultant
Labour & equipment
Materials
Contract
Contractual relations
External conditions
Construction in Kazakhstan is a booming industry
(Lambla 2016) and delays are common like other
countries. However, there are no comprehensive stud-
ies that explore the delay causes in Kazakhstan’s con-
struction industry. Accordingly, the aim of this study
is to explore delay causes for construction projects in
Kazakhstan and their relative importance on different
types of construction projects. The study also aims to
discover if delay causes in construction projects are
perceived significantly different by project parties
such as contractors, clients and consultants. Finally,
recommendations for the most prominent delay
causes are provided to eliminate or minimize delays
in construction projects.
Literature review
Delay in construction is traditionally defined as a
time overrun between the scheduled date of an activ-
ity or a project and the actual completion date (Assaf
and Al-Hejji 2006). From the owner’s point of view, a
delay induces loss of income due to the lack of pro-
duction infrastructure and/or rentable facilities while
for contractors, delay may result increased overhead
costs for longer working period, increased material
cost because of inflation and higher cost for labour
(ibid). Moreover, client parties want to complete their
projects in the shortest time period which provokes
them to pass responsibility for delays on contractor
and consultant parties and claim liquidated damages
and heavy penalties according to the contractual
agreements (Williams 2003). Accordingly, various
delay causes are found in the literature that have dif-
ferent influences on project completion. Each delay
cause must be carefully investigated so that appropri-
ate measures can be taken against the corresponding
delay cause. For instance, Aibinu and Odeyinka
(2006) categorized 43 delay causes into 9 groups and
applied covariance and Pareto analysis to find that
88% of delay causes were common in 90% of the pro-
ject delay scenarios. Consequently, none of the causes
was marked as the major delay contributor.
Example of delay causes
Poor planning and scheduling, reworks due to mistakes
Progress payments delays, change orders
Improper or incomplete design
Poor productivity of labour, breakdowns of equipment
Shortage of materials, delays in delivery/manufacturing
Mistakes in the contract agreement
Unclear interface leading to scope creep
Unforeseen weather/geological conditions, inflation
Table 2 reveals that different countries usually
experience different causes of delay. It summarizes
selected studies conducted for various countries and
different types of construction projects over the past
two decades. The frequency as listed at the end of the
Table is an indication of overall importance of delays
causes in construction projects.
A study on United Arab Emirates construction
delay causes found that more than half of construc-
tion projects were delayed mainly because of the
issues with the construction drawings’ approval, slow
decision-making processes and poor planning (Faridi
and El-Sayegh 2006). These delay causes were also
found common in Saudi Arabia (KSA) and Lebanon.
However, as reported in Al-Khalil and Al-Ghafly
(1999) and Al-Kharashi and Skitmore (2009), there
were other important delay causes as well. These dif-
ferences prevent generalizing delay causes over the
countries. For example, ‘poor agreement among pro-
ject stakeholders’ was identified as one of the major
delay causes in Saudi Arabia. Similarly, a study (Iyer
and Jha 2005) conducted on Indian construction proj-
ects identified conflicts between project parties, lack
of experience, poor cooperation, long decision-making
process, weather conditions and difficulties in bidding
process were the key factors affecting project comple-
tion time. On the other hand, Chan and
Kumaraswamy (1997) found poor risk control,
unforeseen site conditions, lack of supervision and
slow decision-making process as the main construc-
tion delay causes in Hong Kong. Hence, it can be
argued that different countries usually experience dif-
ferent causes of delays. In addition, countries from
the same region may experience different causes of
delay as well. For instance, Jordan and Saudi Arabia
are in the Middle East region, yet, the studies from
these two countries stated different causes of delays.
According to Assaf and Al-Hejji (2006), Saudi con-
struction experienced delays due to shortage of
labour, delays in progress payments and project bid-
ding types. In contrast, Sweis et al. (2008) stated that
contractor’s financial difficulties and change orders by
the client are the main delay causes in Jordan. Hence,
Table 2. Literature review of the previous studies.
Labour & Contract Contract
Client related Contractor related Consultant related Material related Equipment related relation-ship External causes

Change orders or Financial Poor

design changes Delays in Slow decision Poor site Inadequate difficulties communication Economic
during progress making management contractor’s of the Poor planning Incomplete/ Shortage of equipment/ Delay in Poor labour Poor contract among all conditions (e.g.
Country Researchers construction payments process &supervision experience contractor and scheduling improper design materials/ manpower materials delivery productivity management parties fluctuations, inflation)
Egypt Abd El-Razek 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉
et al. (2008)
Ghana Frimpong and 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉
Oluwoye (2003)
China Chen et al. (2019) 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉
Yemen Al-Fadhali 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉
et al. (2019)
Hong Kong Lo et al. (2006) 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉
India Doloi et al. (2012) 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉
Iran Fallahnejad (2013) 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉
Jordan Al-Momani (2000) 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉
Jordan Odeh and 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉
Battaineh (2002)
Jordan Sweis et al. (2008) 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉
Kuwait Koushki et al. (2005) 䊉 䊉 䊉
Malaysia Abdul-Rahman 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉
et al. (2006)
Malaysia Alaghbari 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉
et al. (2007)
Malaysia Sambasivan and 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉
Soon (2007)
Nigeria Aibinu and 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉
Odeyinka (2006)
Oman Ruqaishi and 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉
Bashir (2015)
Palestine Mahamid et al. (2012) 䊉 䊉 䊉
Saudi Arabia Al-Kharashi and 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉
Skitmore (2009)
Saudi Arabia Assaf and Al- 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉
Hejji (2006)
Taiwan Yang and Wei (2010) 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉
Thailand Toor and 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉
Ogunlana (2008)
Turkey Gunduz et al. (2015) 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉
Turkey Kazaz et al. (2012) 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉
UAE Faridi and El- 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉
Sayegh (2006)
Zambia Kaliba et al. (2009) 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉 䊉
Frequency 13 15 10 10 10 14 19 12 14 11 7 9 7 4
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT
3
4 A. HOSSAIN ET AL.
it can be stated that different delay causes may be
experienced not only in different countries, but also
in projects within one region or even one country.
To the best of authors’ knowledge, there is no sig-
nificant study that explores delay causes in construc-
tion industry of Kazakhstan. Therefore, it is worth to
investigate significance of different delay causes and
possible remedial measures in the perspective of
Kazakhstan’s construction projects.
Methodology and data collection
As described in the previous section, a significant
number of studies had been conducted investigating
construction delay causes in many countries. The pre-
liminary list of commonly encountered delay causes
was selected from the literature to prepare the survey
questions for this study. A questionnaire was designed
with close-ended questions for proper control of data
collection and standardized analysis. Primary inter-
views were conducted with a few selected construc-
tion professionals (project managers, project control
managers, planning engineers and engineering man-
agers) regarding the preliminary list of delay causes.
They were asked to review the list of delay causes and
provide their perceptions of the survey items. After
consulting with them, some of the delay causes were
added, some of them were merged, modified or
excluded. Eventually, 55 delay causes were selected for
the survey questionnaire and these were categorized
into 8 main groups: client-related (8 causes), contrac-
tor-related (14), consultant-related (5), material-
related (5), labour & equipment-related (5), contract-
related (6), contract relationship-related (5) and exter-
nal (7) causes. See Appendix A for the details of the
questionnaire survey.
To ensure that the responses of the survey are reli-
able, it is important to understand the background of
the respondents. Accordingly, the questionnaire was
divided into two parts: the first section was designed
to gather information about respondents’ background
including professional experience (age, year of experi-
ence, position) and company profile (owner type and
scope of work); and the second section comprised
questions related to delay causes in construction proj-
ects. The respondents were asked to evaluate the level
of importance of each delay causes on five-degree
Likert scale (5 for extremely important causes, 4 for
very important, 3 for important, 2 for not very
important, 1 for not important). Moreover, the
respondents were also requested to provide new delay
causes and give additional comments.
Data collection
One of the critical issues during data collection was the
selection of the sample size. In this research, the aim
was to get as many responses as possible which is typ-
ical practice in other similar studies. The questionnaire
was developed in www.qualtrics.com, which is a widely
used online survey system. The survey link was sent to
more than 800 construction professionals in Kazakhstan
via email and WhatsApp. The professionals include pro-
ject managers, engineers, planners and other specialists
from client, contractor and consultant organizations. A
sum of 73 valid responses were received with a response
rate of 9%. Unfortunately, the response rate was not
very high. However, this is a typical problem for similar
types of research. For instance, the number of responses
in the studies of Abdul-Rahman et al. (2006) and Assaf
and Al-Hejji (2006) were 48 and 57, respectively.
Hence, the sample size can be considered satisfactory
when compared with the previous relevant studies.
Data analysis
Relative importance index (RII) was used to evaluate
the delay causes and rank them according to the
source of delay, project parties and type of projects.
RII was calculated using the following equation (Assaf
and Al-Hejji 2006; Abd El-Razek et al. 2008).
P5
1 W i Xi
RII ¼ P (1)
4 51 Xi
where, i ¼ index of response category and i ¼ 5, 4, 3,
2 and 1 for extremely-, very-, moderately-, slightly-,
not-important, respectively
Wi ¼ weight given to the ith response and Wi ¼ 4,
3, 2, 1 and 0, respectively
Xi ¼ frequency of the ith response
Furthermore, Spearman’s rank correlation
approach (Field 2005; Abd El-Razek et al. 2008) was
used (see equation 2) to assess the level of correlation
between project parties. The correlation was also
assessed by project types.
h X  i
r ¼1 6 d2 =ðn3 nÞ (2)
where, r ¼ Spearman’s rank correlation among two
groups
d ¼ rank differences
n ¼ number of rank pairs
Survey results
Table 3 depicts the frequency of survey respondents
according to their years of experience, expertise
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT 5

(working departments), and field of specialization or
project types. As can be seen, there is a wide range of
expertise with significant number (34%) of the
respondents have experience of 6-10 years. This
ensures better knowledge sharing through the pro-
vided responses. On the other hand, although most of
the respondents are working in either construction
(26%), engineering (32%), or management (16%)
departments, the responses have come from variety of
working departments which ensures that the obtained
responses represent the views of a diverse sample of
stakeholders of construction projects. Furthermore,
Table 3 shows that there is a fair distribution of the
responses in terms of fields of specialization of the
respondents or project types. This indicates that the
obtained results regarding the importance of delay
causes by project types are representative.
The next part of the survey collected data about
delay occurrence in different types of construction
projects. As can be observed from the survey results,
28 out of 46 respondents claimed that they had expe-
rienced time delays in their latest projects. Remaining
27 respondents (out of total 73 responses) did not
provide any information if they experienced time
delay for their projects or not. Figure 1 depicts delay
scenarios in different types of projects that displays
average delay in months and number of projects
encountered delay (see the numbers in the corre-
sponding bar). It has been identified that average
time overrun as calculated for all projects was equal
to 8.3 months which accounts about 58% of the total
project duration. This clearly indicates that delay is a
major concern for construction projects in
Kazakhstan. The Figure also depicts that the residen-
tial construction projects had the least delay duration
of 4.7 months while the longest delay occurred in
commercial & institutional construction projects with
an average duration of 10.3 months. This may be due
to their complex interactions among different
stakeholders.

Table 3. Respondents’ background. Importance of delay causes

No. of respondents Percentage
Year of experience
Overall delay causes
1–5 15 21%
6–10 25 34% Ranking of delay causes has been made based on RII
11–15 13 18% calculated from all responses. Table 4 shows the rank-
16–20 9 12%
More than 20 11 15%
ing of delay causes found in this study along with the
Working department ranking made by some other similar studies. As can
Commercial 2 3% be seen from Table 4, the most important delay cause
Commissioning 4 5%
Construction 19 26% as found in this study is incomplete/improper design
Engineering 23 32% which is related to the consultant, followed by delay
Management 12 16%
Procurement 3 4% in materials delivery, financial difficulties of the client,
Project Planning 4 5% slow decision-making process and so on. The average
Quality Control 4 5%
Other 2 3% RII for all 55 delay causes is 0.725. There are almost
Fields of specialization half the number of considered delay causes (27) with
Industrial Construction 18 25%
Residential Construction 23 32%
more than the average RII. The importance level of
Commercial & Institutional Construction 15 21% the considered delays is therefore well distributed
Infrastructure & Heavy Construction 17 23% from high to low importance levels. This ranking also

Figure 1. Delay scenarios in different types of construction projects.

 6

Table 4. Overall importance of delay causes.

Ranking of this study Other studies, numerical values in the parentheses show number of factors considered in the study

Odeh Faridi and Aibinu and Sambasivan Abd Yang and Gunduz Bajjou and
Delay Causes Source of Delay RII Rank and Battaineh 2002 (28) El-Sayegh 2006 (44) Odeyinka 2006 (44) Lo et al. 2006 (30) and Soon 2007 (28) El-Razek et al. 2008 (32) Ou 2008 (37) et al. 2015 (83) Anas 2018 (49)
Incomplete/improper Consultant 0.845 1 20 1 3, 7 13 16 20 – 38 33
design
Delay in materials’ delivery Material 0.842 2 – 12 6 – – 6 19 5 22
Financial difficulties of Client 0.837 3 3 13 2 – 4 4 25 – –
A. HOSSAIN ET AL.

the client
Slow decision- Client 0.818 4 5 3 15 – 13 8 13 11 –
making process
Lack of quality control/ Contractor 0.808 5 16 33 – – 10 30 – 22 23
mistakes during
construction
Poor labour productivity Labour & Equipment 0.806 6 4 6 – 21 11 18 – 31 19
Quality of materials Material 0.803 7 26 – – 30 12 – 19 67 34
Shortage of manpower Labour & Equipment 0.803 7 15 4 18 26 7 24 15 14 –
(skilled, semi-skilled
or unskilled)
Poor planning and Contractor 0.798 9 9 2 8 – 1 – – 2 8
scheduling of project
Shortage of equipment Labour & Equipment 0.796 10 12 28 17 – 8 23 15 45 –
Shortage of materials Material 0.793 11 10 12 12 – 6 12 12 29 37
Lack of communication Contract Relationship 0.786 12 21 16 – – 25 7 21 14 21
with vendors during
procurement and
engineering stages
Failure of equipment Labour & Equipment 0.785 13 12 41 5 – 8 – – 49 20
Incompetency of Contractor 0.781 14 – 7 – – – 27 20 14 17
contractor’s
technical personnel
Inadequate Contractor 0.781 14 1 22 – 4 3 – 20 1 38
contractor’s experience
Change orders or design Client 0.777 16 22 14 13 10 21 3 29 9 43
changes during
construction
Delays during preparation Consultant 0.775 17 20 1 26 13 16 10 9 33 –
and approval of
drawings and
submissions
Poor site management & Contractor 0.771 18 11 5 36 6 2 – – 2 47
supervision
Poorly defined scope Client 0.767 19 – – 32 – – – 31 75 48
of work
Ignorance of safety rules Contractor 0.767 19 – – – 27 – 32 22 – –
and regulations on site
Incompetency of Consultant 0.764 21 – – – – – – – 28 –
consultant’s
technical personnel
Problems with obtaining External 0.760 22 – 20 40 9 – 16 – 18 7
permits/excessive
bureaucracy
(continued)
Table 4. Continued.
Ranking of this study Other studies, numerical values in the parentheses show number of factors considered in the study

Odeh Faridi and Aibinu and Sambasivan Abd Yang and Gunduz Bajjou and
Delay Causes Source of Delay RII Rank and Battaineh 2002 (28) El-Sayegh 2006 (44) Odeyinka 2006 (44) Lo et al. 2006 (30) and Soon 2007 (28) El-Razek et al. 2008 (32) Ou 2008 (37) et al. 2015 (83) Anas 2018 (49)
Poor communication Contract Relationship 0.754 23 19 16 – 20 9 7 – 14 15
among all parties
Changes in materials’ Material 0.750 24 – 14 – – – 15 – 38 35
specifications
Poor equipment efficiency Labour & Equipment 0.746 25 – – 39 – – 29 – 46 –
Unfamiliarity with Contractor 0.736 26 – – – – – – – 77 –
governmental laws and
regulations
Unclear interface definition Contract Relationship 0.732 27 16 – – 25 24 – 33 – 31
leading to scope creep
Poor coordination among Contractor 0.719 28 – 16 – 20 – 7 21 14 –
contractor’s parties
Poor contract management Contract 0.718 29 8 – – – 19 5 31 40 –
Major disagreements and Contract Relationship 0.718 30 17 36 – 15 14 – – 46 14
negotiations
Improper technical study in Contractor 0.716 31 – – – – – – – 31 –
the bidding stage
Problems related to Contractor 0.716 31 5 21 19 24 5 9 – 6 6
subcontractors
Financial difficulties of Contractor 0.715 33 – 10 1 1 – 1 18 – 25
the contractor
Inadequate quality of Consultant 0.711 34 23 – 24 – 22 – – – 23
assurance & control
Poor coordination among Client 0.705 35 – 16 – 20 – 13 21 22 21
clients’ parties
Conflicts between joint Contract 0.704 36 – – – – – – – 40 –
owners (for joint-
venture projects)
Discrepancies and mistakes Contract 0.700 37 16 – 25 17 5 31 – –
in the
contract agreement
Delays in Client 0.699 38 3 13 2 – 4 2 – 11 1
progress payments
Implementation of Contractor 0.695 39 13 27 – – 15 – 35 18 26
inappropriate
construction methods
Delays for approval of Consultant 0.694 40 18 30 – – 23 21 13 7 –
testing and inspections
Inadequate project duration Contract 0.687 41 7 18 – 7 24 – – 49 4
stated in the contract
Economic conditions (e.g. External 0.687 41 – – 9 – – – 1 73 28
fluctuations, inflation)
Vague cash flow Contract 0.683 43 – – – – – – – – –
distribution/unclear
payment milestones
Poor organizational Contract Relationship 0.679 44 21 16 – – 25 – – – –
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT

structure linking the

parties of the project
(continued)
7
 8 A. HOSSAIN ET AL.

conforms the frequency distribution of the delay

Rank and Battaineh 2002 (28) El-Sayegh 2006 (44) Odeyinka 2006 (44) Lo et al. 2006 (30) and Soon 2007 (28) El-Razek et al. 2008 (32) Ou 2008 (37) et al. 2015 (83) Anas 2018 (49)
Bajjou and
causes found in literatures and as summarized in

28

16

29

39
–
–

–
Table 2. The delay causes with higher RII values show
the similar trends with the higher frequency values in
Table 2 which is an indication of overall importance
Gunduz

63/74
70

18
36

14

77

52

80
–

–
9 of the delay causes. For instance, issues with poor
planning and scheduling, financial difficulties of the
clients, slow decision-making process, incomplete/
Yang and

34

16

10

32

11

24
–

–
7

improper design, etc. are with high RII values and the
Other studies, numerical values in the parentheses show number of factors considered in the study

same is true with frequency in Table 2. On the other

hand, poor contract management, delay causes related
to external source, etc. receive low RII and found
Abd

25
22

31
–

–
with low frequency in Table 2. However, differences
can be observed for some delay causes. One such
example is poor labour productivity which received low
importance in the literatures (frequency 7 in Table 2)
Sambasivan

but high RII (0.806 with a rank of 6th) in this study.

20
18

26

27

28
–

– Table 4 also depicts that the sources of the top ten

delay causes are consultant, client, contractor, labour
& equipment and material related causes. Thus, it can
be noted that no single project party is outstandingly
11

17

23
–

–
2

responsible for project delays. In fact, the average RII

for consultant, contractor and client related delay
causes are 0.758, 0.736 and 0.734 respectively. These
Aibinu and

numbers are not much different from each other

38

21

37
–

–
–

–
4

which corroborate the observation that no single pro-

ject party is outstandingly responsible for project
delays. The labour & equipment, and material catego-
Faridi and

ries have higher RII than the project party related

10

13
–

–
–

delay causes at 0.787 and 0.770 which shows that the

problems with primary project inputs are more
important causes of project delays in Kazakhstan.
Therefore, efforts should be made by all parties to
mitigate or prevent project delays. Similar statements
Odeh

25

28

24

27
–

–
2

were made by (Abdul-Rahman et al. 2006; Abd El-

Razek et al. 2008). However, when the top ten delay
causes of this study and a similar study made in
0.662 45

0.658 46
0.651 47
0.646 48

0.640 49

0.637 50

0.634 51

0.618 52

0.613 53

0.507 54

0,483 55

Egypt (Abd El-Razek et al. 2008) are compared, only

three causes (delay in materials’ delivery; financial dif-
RII

ficulties of the client; and slow decision-making pro-

cess) are found to be in common. Similarly, five
Source of Delay

causes are found common among top ten causes

Contractor

Contractor

between this study and a study made by Faridi and

Contract
Material

External

External

External

External

External

El-Sayegh (2006) in the UAE. Of course, the rankings

Client

Client

are different for the common delay causes. Moreover,

some of the delay causes that are identified as rela-
delays/ poor incentives
Changes in governmental

Inadequate penalties for

Table 4. Continued.

geological conditions

laws and regulations

tively less important in this study were found to be

Delays in mobilization

Effects of cultural and

weather conditions
Complications in the
Lack of contractor’s

top ranked in other countries. For instance, financial

bidding process
Client interference

(administrative)
materials’ price
Ranking of this study

Problems related

social factors
to neighbors

difficulties of the contractor is ranked 33 in this

Fluctuations of

personnel
Unforeseen

Unforeseen

study. In contrast, the same delay cause was ranked 1

Delay Causes

in Nigeria (Aibinu and Odeyinka 2006), Hong Kong

(Lo et al. 2006) and Egypt (Abd El-Razek et al. 2008).

Figure 2. Average RII of delay categories by project parties.
This is because the construction projects are awarded
to financially solvent contractors in Kazakhstan. On
the other hand, though the financial difficulties of the
client is found to be one of the important delay
causes (ranked 3) in this study, progress payment by
the client is found to be less important delay cause
with a rank of 38. However, the later was ranked
among the top in the studies done in Jordan (Odeh
and Battaineh 2002), Nigeria (Aibinu and Odeyinka
2006), Egypt (Abd El-Razek et al. 2008) and Morocco
(Bajjou and Anas 2018). Again, progress payment is
not a significant cause of delay in Kazakhstan if the
client has no financial difficulties.
The aforementioned discussion clearly indicates
that the importance of delay causes are different in
Kazakhstan when compared with other countries. On
the other hand, seven out of the top ten delay causes
of this study were found to match with the top ten
most cited major delay causes as comprehended by
Zidane and Andersen (2018) that accumulated over
one hundred studies from 45 countries. This shows
that the important delay causes in Kazakhstan are
similar with other countries combined. In qualitative
terms, the most important delay causes identified here
should be given due attention by all project parties
while preparing the risk management plan of the con-
struction projects in Kazakhstan. The mitigating strat-
egies for the ten most important delay causes have
been explored and discussed later in this paper.
Delay causes with respect to project parties
Figure 2 shows mean RII trend recorded for eight
delay categories as responded by three project parties:
client, contractor and consultant responses. It can be
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT 9
noted from Figure 2 that contractor responses have
relatively higher values than client and consultant
responses. However, overall tendency of all three lines
is similar for all delay categories, with an exception
for consultant related delay causes. Both contractor
and client parties ranked those causes among the
most important, while consultant respondents have
disagreement on this. This may be explained by their
conflicting views toward each other.
A careful investigation of the survey responses
reveals that different respondents have different opin-
ions regarding the importance of delay causes. Hence,
a separate ranking has been made according to the
responses categorized by clients, consultants and con-
tractors who are the key responsible parties to com-
plete a project on time. Table 5 shows the top ten
delay causes according to project parties together with
overall ranking.
Out of the top ten delay causes from the view
point of client, three are related to the problems with
consultant, two each with labour/equipment and
materials categories while one each is related to the
problems with contractor, the client itself and external
environment, respectively. Therefore, in view of the
client the delay causes on construction projects are
mainly due to the problems with consultants and the
main input resources to the project.
For contractors, three delay causes were related
each to labour/equipment and client, two for material
and one each for the consultant and contract relation-
ship categories. In view of the contractors, most of
the delay causes are due to the problems with the cli-
ent and primary input resources to the project.
From the perspective of the consultant, 4 delay
causes were related to the problems with contractors,
10 A. HOSSAIN ET AL.
two each to the client and the material and one each
to consultant and contract relationship categories.
Therefore, the consultant view that the delays are
mainly caused by the problems with contractor and
the material issues.
As can be seen, the rankings of the delay causes
are different for different parties which is expected.
For instance, ‘incomplete/improper design’ has been
identified as the most important delay factor by the
client and the contractor and the responsible party
for this delay cause is the consultant. On the other
hand, the consultant has identified ‘lack of quality
control/mistakes during construction’ as the most
important delay cause. However, the first three
ranked delay causes from the overall response have
appeared in the top ten ranking of all 3 project par-
ties (marked in Italics).
Table 6 depicts the Spearman’s rank correlation
results which explains that the degree of agreement
between project parties is relatively low and ranges
from 0.641 to 0.755. The highest level of agreement
can be seen between consultant and contractor, while,
the lowest level of agreement is between client and
contractor. Generally, these results show that there is
a lower agreement between client and contractor par-
ties, which corresponds to their opposing views.
A total of 20 different delay causes have appeared
in the top ten most important delay causes from the
point of view of project parties. The frequency of
occurrence of each of these 20 delay causes is shown
in Table 7, where a frequency 3 indicates that the cor-
responding delay cause has appeared in all three cate-
gories as the top ten most important delay causes are
listed by project parties. Such a qualitative ranking of
the delays can be considered as a pointer towards
controlling the most important delay causes on con-
struction projects.
Delay causes with respect to project types
Survey results were analyzed separately for different
types of construction projects. Like project parties,
Figure 3 shows mean RII trends recorded for eight
delay categories as responses were separated for four
types of construction projects: industrial, residential,
commercial & institutional and infrastructural &
heavy construction projects. It can be seen from
Figure 3 that infrastructural & heavy construction
projects tend to have higher concerns with client,
contractor, consultant and material related delay
causes. While, residential construction projects have
highest values for consultant related causes with the
emphasis on ‘complete and proper drawings’ prepared
by consultant party on time. It is to be noted that
other project types do not have such high concerns,
which may probably indicate problems with consul-
tant’s qualifications in the residential projects sector
of Kazakhstan. Whereas, RII values are similar for all
construction project types in the case of external
causes, contract relationship, contract, labour &
equipment related delay causes, showing high level of
agreement between respondents. Moreover, industrial
and commercial & institutional construction projects
are having similar tendency for all delay categories,
which may be explained by having similar construc-
tion methods used in these types of projects
in Kazakhstan.
Table 8 shows ranking of delays causes categorized
by construction project types. For industrial projects
most of the top delay causes are related to the labour
& equipment and materials categories at three each
whereas two causes are related to client and one each
for consultant and contractor. It indicates that indus-
trial projects in Kazakhstan are more susceptible to
problems related with the primary construction
resource inputs than the problems with main pro-
ject parties.
Out of the top ten delay causes for residential proj-
ects, three are related to the consultant, two each to the
materials, labour & equipment and contractor and one
cause for the client. The causes of delays in residential
construction projects are therefore more towards the
problems with the primary project input resources.
For commercial & institutional projects, out of the
top ten delay causes, three each were related to client,
contractor and labour & equipment and only one
cause was related to consultant. The delays in commer-
cial & institutional projects are therefore significantly
affected by the problems of the project parties than the
primary input resources to the project.
Among the top 10 delay causes in infrastructural &
heavy construction projects, four were related to cli-
ent, two each to contractor and materials and one
each for consultant and labour & equipment. This
category of projects also seems to be heavily influ-
enced by project party related delay causes than the
primary input resources related delay causes.
Also, it can be seen from Table 8, the highest level
of agreement is observed between ‘industrial construc-
tion’ and ‘infrastructural & heavy construction project
types’. The first three most important delay causes
from the overall response analysis (shown in Italics)
appear within top ten rankings by project types (of
course, in different rank order), except for
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT 11

Table 5. Ten most important delay causes by project parties.

Rank Overall results Client responses Contractor responses Consultant responses
1 Incomplete/improper design Incomplete/improper design Financial difficulties of Lack of quality control/
the client mistakes during
construction
2 Delay in materials’ delivery Delay in materials’ delivery Slow decision- Incomplete/improper design
making process
3 Financial difficulties of Delays during preparation and Shortage of materials Financial difficulties of
the client approval of drawings and the client
submissions
4 Slow decision-making process Failure of equipment Shortage of manpower Delay in materials’ delivery
(skilled, semi-skilled
or unskilled)
5 Lack of quality control/ Incompetency of consultant’s Incomplete/improper design Incompetency of
mistakes during technical personnel contractor’s
construction technical personnel
6 Poor labour productivity Quality of materials Delay in materials’ delivery Poor planning and
scheduling of project
7 Quality of materials Poor labour productivity Lack of communication Slow decision-
with vendors during making process
procurement and
engineering stages
8 Shortage of manpower Problems with obtaining Poor labour productivity Inadequate
(skilled, semi-skilled permits/excessive contractor’s experience
or unskilled) bureaucracy
9 Poor planning and Financial difficulties of Shortage of equipment Quality of materials
scheduling of project the client
10 Shortage of equipment Inadequate Change orders or design Poor communication
contractor’s experience changes during among all parties
construction

Table 6. Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient by pro-

ject parties.
Project party Client Contractor
Client 1.000 0.641
Contractor 0.641 1.000
Consultant 0.682 0.755
‘commercial & institutional construction’, in which
the delay cause ‘delay in materials delivery’ is ranked
13th. In general, it can be stated that different con-
struction project types have different delay causes,
with varying level of agreement between each other.
For instance, ‘poorly defined scope of work’ has been
reported to be the 1st ranked delay cause for infra-
structural & heavy industrial projects, which can be
explained by the projects’ characteristics of being sub-
divided among different main contractors and numer-
ous subcontractors.
Spearman’s rank correlation results (Table 9) show
that the degree of agreement between four construction
project types ranges from 0.512 to 0.856. The highest
level of agreement can be observed between ‘industrial
construction’ and ‘infrastructural & heavy construction’
projects, which is also evident from Table 8. On the
other hand, ‘infrastructural & heavy construction’ proj-
ects have relatively low correlation with ‘commercial &
institutional construction’ and ‘residential’ projects.
This is also evident from the trends of the type of
delay causes for each project type as qualitatively ana-
lyzed in the preceding paragraphs.
Based on the frequency of delay causes occurring
in the top ten for each project type, 20 different
Consultant
0.682 delays causes were identified. These delay causes are
0.755 shown in Table 10 in the decreasing order of fre-
1.000
quency, where a frequency 4 indicates that the corre-
sponding delay cause has appeared in all four
categories as the top 10 most important delay causes
are listed by project types. Such an order of delay
causes may give a qualitative hierarchy of their
importance and thus efforts should be directed to
control those delays.
Remedial measures
Having an understanding of the importance of delay
causes based on project parties and project types, this
study aims to provide recommendations to mitigate
delay causes and minimize the delay in project com-
pletion. A second survey was conducted with the
respondents who agreed to participate in the focus
group. The respondents were asked to provide pos-
sible measures of mitigation for the top ten most
important delay causes. Table 11 summarizes the rec-
ommendations provided for the most prominent
delay causes. Recommendations found in literature
have also been listed for the same delay causes.
As can be seen in Table 11 and has been men-
tioned earlier that the sources of the top ten delay
causes are consultant, contractor, client, labour &
12 A. HOSSAIN ET AL.

Table 7. Summary of the ten most important delay causes by project parties.
Delay Causes Frequency
Financial difficulties of the client 3
Incomplete/improper design
Delay in materials’ delivery
Slow decision-making process 2
Inadequate contractor’s experience
Poor labour productivity
Quality of materials
Change orders or design changes during construction 1
Delays during preparation and approval of drawings and submissions
Incompetency of consultant’s technical personnel
Lack of communication with vendors during procurement and engineering stages
Poor communication among all parties
Lack of quality control/mistakes during construction
Poor planning and scheduling of project
Incompetency of contractor’s technical personnel
Problems with obtaining permits/excessive bureaucracy
Shortage of manpower (skilled, semi-skilled or unskilled)
Shortage of equipment
Failure of equipment
Shortage of materials

Figure 3. Average RII of delay categories by project types.

equipment and material. Hence, efforts should be
made by all parties to mitigate or prevent project
delays. Moreover, by nature, various project parties
are interdependent during different stages of con-
struction project. Therefore, project parties should
work together for the remedial measures of the delay
causes irrespective of their sources. For instance,
‘incomplete/improper design’ is the top ranked delay
cause for which consultant is the key responsible
party. While the remedial measures are provided for
the consultants, other project parties such as client
and contractor can play important role in this regard.
The client should avoid delay in reviewing and
approving design documents (Assaf and Al-Hejji
2006) and the contractor should maintain proper
communication and coordination to avoid any misun-
derstanding or misinterpretation of the drawings and
setting out the works (Mahamid et al. 2012).
Furthermore, the same delay cause can be the con-
tractor’s source in the case of design and build
contract. Accordingly, contractor and client should
work together to overcome the delay cause of
‘incomplete/improper design’. It is to be noted that
the survey was conducted considering this delay
cause as consultant’s source. However, it would be
interesting to see how ranking will be influenced if
delay cause is common between more than one
project party, for which further investigation
is necessary.
Another important delay cause is ‘financial difficul-
ties of the client’. Since the source of the delay cause
is client, he/she has the major role to make sure that
payment is made on time to the consultants and con-
tractors. Otherwise, project progress will be hampered
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT 13

Table 8. Ten most important delay causes by project type.

Commercial & Institutional Infrastructural & Heavy
Rank Industrial Construction Residential Construction Construction Construction
1 Delay in materials’ delivery Incomplete/improper design Poor planning and Poorly defined scope
scheduling of project of work
2 Slow decision-making process Delays during preparation and Financial difficulties of Incomplete/improper design
approval of drawings and the client
submissions
3 Financial difficulties of Incompetency of consultant’s Lack of quality control/ Delay in materials’ delivery
the client technical personnel mistakes during
construction
4 Shortage of materials Delay in materials’ delivery Shortage of equipment Shortage of materials
5 Quality of materials Failure of equipment Slow decision- Financial difficulties of
making process the client
6 Poor planning and Quality of materials Incomplete/improper design Change orders or design
scheduling of project changes during
construction
7 Incomplete/improper design Financial difficulties of Poor site management & Lack of quality control/
the client supervision mistakes during
construction
8 Poor labour productivity Inadequate Shortage of manpower Ignorance of safety rules
contractor’s experience (skilled, semi-skilled and regulations on site
or unskilled)
9 Shortage of manpower Poor labour productivity Poor labour productivity Shortage of manpower
(skilled, semi-skilled (skilled, semi-skilled
or unskilled) or unskilled)
10 Failure of equipment Incompetency of contractor’s Poorly defined scope Slow decision-
technical personnel of work making process

Table 9. Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient by project types.

Commercial & Institutional Infrastructural & Heavy
Project type Industrial Construction Residential Construction Construction Construction
Industrial Construction 1.000 0.717 0.743 0.856
Residential Construction 0.717 1.000 0.700 0.566
Commercial & Institutional 0.743 0.700 1.000 0.512
Construction
Infrastructural & Heavy 0.856 0.566 0.512 1.000
Construction

Table 10. Summary of the ten most important delay causes by project types.
Delay Causes Frequency
Financial difficulties of the client 4
Incomplete/improper design
Slow decision-making process 3
Poor labour productivity
Shortage of manpower
Delay in materials’ delivery
Poorly defined scope of work 2
Lack of quality control/mistakes during construction
Poor planning and scheduling of project
Failure of equipment
Quality of materials
Shortage of materials
Change orders or design changes during construction 1
Delays during preparation and approval of drawings and submissions
Incompetency of consultant’s technical personnel
Incompetency of contractor’s technical personnel
Inadequate contractor’s experience
Poor site management & supervision
Ignorance of safety rules and regulations on site
Shortage of equipment

such as, delay in material delivery, difficulties in pay- proper allocation of financial resources based on real-
ing employers/workers’ salaries and so on. At the istic schedule. Other delay causes can be similarly
same time, proper cash flow analysis shall be done by addressed following the principled remedial measures
both the contractor, consultant and client parties for as presented in Table 11.
14 A. HOSSAIN ET AL.
Table 11. Remedial measures for the top ten most important delay causes.
Rank Delay Causes and their sources
1 Incomplete/improper design
(Consultant/ contractor)
2 Delay in materials’
delivery (Material)
3 Financial difficulties of the
client (Client)
4 Slow decision-making
process (Client)
5 Lack of quality control/mistakes
during construction (Contractor)
6 Poor labour productivity (Labour
& Equipment)
7 Quality of materials (Material)
8 Shortage of manpower (skilled,
semi-skilled or unskilled) (Labour
& Equipment)
9 Poor planning and scheduling of
project (Contractor)
10 Shortage of equipment (Labour
& Equipment)
Remedial measures according to survey
 Having high quality schematic drawings
before detailed design stage
 Proper integration and configuration
management system
 Following all required stages of
design approval
 Accurate data into material
planning activities
 Early orders placement for long lead items
 Penalty on supplier for late delivery
 Proper expediting procedure in place
 Proper cash flow analysis by all parties
 Checking Client credit history before
accepting a project
 Prices for services to be agreed and fixed by
project parties
 Resolving arising issues as soon as possible
 Incorporation of decision times (max) in
contract agreements
 Having proper means of communications
in place
 Control of all stages starting from
manufacturing to commissioning by quality
control team
 Ensuring quality control staff is competent
 Proper quality systems are in place.
 Setting realistic targets for employees
 Proper supervision and organization of
construction processes
 Motivation of workers via salary increase
 Providing adequate materials specifications
 Good supplier pre-qualification systems
 Proper quality control and third-party
inspections
 Accurate estimation of work scope and
required personnel
 Having experienced Project Team prior
project start
 Hiring expatriates or via Subcontractors
 Hiring experienced planners
 Implementation of effective
planning practices
 Involving project team in scheduling and
planning processes
 Well established procurement procedures
 Ensuring up front equipment is available
taking note of lead times
 Utilization of latest technologies
and equipment
In literature
 Allow sufficient time for design and information
documentation (Mahamid et al. 2012)
 Schedule set by A/E to complete design
documents on time (Assaf and Al-Hejji 2006)
 Allocate sufficient time and money on the
design phase (Koushki et al. 2005)
 Prepare and approve drawings on time
(Sambasivan and Soon 2007; Rachid
et al. 2018)
 Form a management group specifically for
logistic planning (Ruqaishi and Bashir 2015)
 Make progress payment to contractors on time
(Assaf and Al-Hejji 2006; Mahamid et al. 2012)
 Make sure funds are available before projects
are commissioned (Kaliba et al. 2009; Rachid
et al. 2018)
 Better communication and coordination with
other construction parties (Kaliba et al. 2009;
Mahamid et al. 2012)
 Business strategy training; Anchor major
decisions in advance of engineering (Zidane
and Andersen 2018)
 Recruiting qualified site manager and allocating
appropriate number of workers per supervisor
(Ruqaishi and Bashir 2015)
 Integration of knowledge management
processes (Fikri Mohamed and Anumba 2006)
 Detailed site investigation at design stage to
avoid variation and late changes during
construction (Mahamid et al. 2012)
 Motivate labour to improve productivity (Assaf
and Al-Hejji 2006)
 Increasing productivity by working overtime
hours or working by shifts; use skilled labour
(Abdul-Rahman et al. 2006)
 Check for resources and capabilities before
awarding the contract (Sambasivan and Soon
2007; Mahamid et al. 2012)
 Assign large number of skilled labours (Mahamid
et al. 2012)
 right personnel with the right qualifications
(Kaliba et al. 2009)
 Dedicated team for planning and follow-up of
pending issues (Ruqaishi and Bashir 2015)
 Structuring the planning phase (Zidane and
Andersen 2018)
 Provide reliable schedules to owners (Rachid
et al. 2018)
 Schedule work considering weather condition
(Kaliba et al. 2009)
 Continuous process during construction to
match with resources and time (Assaf and Al-
Hejji 2006)
 Check for resources and capabilities before
awarding the contract; Invest more in reliable
and new equipment (Mahamid et al. 2012;
Rachid et al. 2018)
 Capacity building for contractors (Kaliba
et al. 2009)
 Coherence between procurement systems, local
culture, administrative systems and authority
structure (Toor and Ogunlana 2008)

Table 11 also depicts that there are other sources
of delay causes in the forms of primary construc-
tion resource inputs (e.g. material, and labour &
equipment). Again, project parties have the import-
ant roles to overcome these delay causes. For
example, delay in material delivery is one of the
most important delay causes for which suppliers/
manufacturers are responsible for timely delivery of
materials. Nevertheless, they are not the direct pro-
ject parties. Contractor along with consultant and/
or client should make accurate material planning,
identify items with long lead time to place early
orders, imposing penalty on suppliers for late deliv-
ery, and so on.
When comparing the remedial measures as
obtained from the survey and the literature, it is
found that they are complimentary if not overlapped.
The comparison also suggests that there is no univer-
sal solution for a specific delay cause. Moreover, as
can be seen from Table 11, remedial measures for the
delay cause ‘Quality of materials’ were not found in
other literature. One possible reason could be that
remedial measures were provided for the most
important delay causes, in most cases, for the top ten
delay causes. As mentioned in Zidane and Andersen
(2018), some delay causes may be unique to certain
countries, in this study, ‘quality of materials’ is one of
those causes.
Conclusions
Construction is one of the main industries in
Kazakhstan that accounts for a sizeable share of the
country’s GDP. Nevertheless, construction delay is
one of the main problems of the industry that greatly
hampers country’s further economic development.
This study analyzed construction delay causes in
Kazakhstan, identified the most important delay
causes categorizing by project parties and project
types, and provided recommendations for their miti-
gation. A comprehensive survey was conducted with a
list of 55 delay causes that were obtained from litera-
ture and clarified through the construction professio-
nals in Kazakhstan. According to the survey results,
61% of respondents (out of 46 respondents who men-
tioned whether their project was delayed or not) have
experienced project delays with an average delay of
about 8 months that accounts 58% of total project
duration. Based on overall results, the most important
delay causes were identified to be: incomplete/
improper design, delay in materials’ delivery, financial
difficulties of the client and so on. The delay causes
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT 15
were further categorized based on project parties and
project types. For some of the delay causes, low
degree of correlation between project parties were
observed. This may be explained by having conflicting
contractual views and consequently not accepting
own responsibilities. Finally, recommendations were
provided for most prominent delay causes through a
second survey and compared with recommendations
found in literature for the same delay causes. Both
recommendations were found to be complimentary.
Findings of this study may serve as a guide for
Kazakhstani construction stakeholders, international
constructors involved in Kazakhstan, as well as con-
struction professional in other countries. The results
of delay analyses showed similar trends regarding the
importance of delay causes when compared with
other countries with few exceptions. Therefore, it is
recommended to conduct similar study in other
regions/countries to investigate the importance of
delay causes and find remedial measures.
This study presented a comprehensive understand-
ing of delay causes of construction projects in
Kazakhstan and provided recommendations for the
most prominent delay causes in the form of best
practices as remedial measures. Using the knowledge
of delay causes, future studies can be conducted to
analyze the construction delays by adopting a suitable
delay analysis method (Abdelhadi et al. 2018).
Furthermore, investigation should be made to estab-
lish a trade-off between loss due to delay and add-
itional effort and cost that would be needed to
implement remedial measures.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to express their heartfelt gratitude
to the respondents who participated in the survey and
interviews and provided valuable feedback for this research.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by
the authors.
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 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT 17

Appendix A
Survey questionnaire
General question
Following questions will provide an opportunity to know more about your experience and the company you are employed.

1. What is your gender?________________

2. What is your age?_____________________________________
3. What is your working experience? (years)____________________
4. Please, classify the company where you are employed
Client Company Contractor Company Consultant Company

5. In which department are you working in?________________________

6. What is your working position? (Optional)_____________________________________
7. In which fields is the company mainly specialized?

Residential Housing Construction Industrial Construction

Commercial and Institutional Building Constr. Infrastructural and Heavy Construction

8. Has your latest project experienced delay? If yes, for how long? (e.g. Yes, project lasted 14 months instead of
12 month) ____________________________________________________________________________

In the following 8 questions, you will be asked to rate the importance of delay causes in Kazakhstani construc-
tion sector.
If you have no opinion on a question, you can leave it blank.
1) Client related delay causes: Please, assess the importance of the following delay causes.

Not at all important Slightly important Moderately important Very important Extremely important
Delays in progress payments ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Financial difficulties of the client ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Poor coordination among clients’ parties ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Slow decision making process ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Complications in the bidding process ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Poorly defined scope of work ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Change orders or design changes ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
during construction
Client interference ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌

2) Contractor related delay causes: Please, assess the importance of the following delay causes.

Not at all important Slightly important Moderately important Very important Extremely important
Financial difficulties of the contractor ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Poor coordination among contractor’s parties ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Improper technical study in the bidding stage ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Lack of contractor’s personnel (administrative) ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Incompetency of contractor’s technical personnel ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Delays in mobilization ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Ignorance of safety rules and regulations on site ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Inadequate contractor’s experience ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Poor planning and scheduling of project ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Poor site management & supervision ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Problems related to subcontractors ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Implementation of inadequate construction methods ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Lack of quality control / mistakes during construction ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Unfamiliarity with governmental laws and regulations ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
18 A. HOSSAIN ET AL.

3) Consultant related delay causes: Please, assess the importance of the following delay causes.

Not at all important Slightly important Moderately important Very important Extremely important
Incomplete/ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
improper design
Incompetency of ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
consultant’s
technical personnel
Delays during ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
preparation and
approval of
drawings and
submissions
Delays for approval of ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
testing and
inspections
Inadequate quality of ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
assurance & control

4) Material related delay causes: Please, assess the importance of the following delay causes.
Not at all important Slightly important Moderately important Very important Extremely important
Delay in materials’ delivery ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Quality of materials ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Fluctuations of materials’ price ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Shortage of materials ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Changes in materials’ specifications ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
5) Labour & equipment related delay causes: Please, assess the importance of the following delay causes.

Not at all important Slightly important Moderately important Very important Extremely important
Shortage of manpower (skilled, semiskilled, unskilled) ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Poor labour productivity ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Shortage of equipment ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Poor equipment efficiency ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Failure of equipment ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌

6) Contract related delay causes: Please, assess the importance of the following delay causes.
Not at all importantSlightly importantModerately importantVery importantExtremely important
Inadequate project duration stated in the contract ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Discrepancies and mistakes in the contract agreement ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Inadequate penalties for delays/ poor incentives ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Vague cash flow distribution / unclear payment milestones ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Conflicts between joint owners (for joint-ventures) ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Poor contract management ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌

7) Contract relationship related delay causes: Please, assess the importance of the following delay causes.

Not at all important Slightly important Moderately important Very important Extremely important
Poor organizational ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
structure linking
project parties
Poor communication ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
among all parties
Major disagreements ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
and negotiations
Lack of communication ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
with vendors during
procurement and
engineering stages
Unclear interface ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
definition leading to
scope creep
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT 19

8) External factors: Please, assess the importance of the following delay causes.
Not at all important Slightly important Moderately important Very important Extremely important
Problems with obtaining permits/excessive bureaucracy ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Economic conditions (e.g. inflation) ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Unforeseen geological conditions ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Unforeseen weather conditions ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Problems related to neighbors ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Effects of cultural and social factors ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌
Changes in governmental laws and regulations ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌

What other delay causes you can suggest that have significant influence? Please feel free to include any additional com-
ments you deem necessary.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________-
_________________________________________________________________________________________________-
_________________________________________________________________________________________________-
_________________________________________________________________________________________________-
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Please type your e-mail address if you are willing to participate in an interview or a focus group later.
_________________________________________
Thank you again for your time and participation.

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