Evaluating Risk Management Practices in the Pakistani Construction Industry: The Current State of Play

The construction industry of Pakistan has experienced rapid growth in recent years due largely to stronger investment in infrastructure development. Mega projects, of a scale never experienced by Pakistani construction practitioners, require higher levels of planning and management to ensure effective procurement delivery. Moreover, construction managers need to be more meticulous when addressing construction risks, necessitating the implementation of structured risk management procedures. However, the concept of a formal and prescribed risk management process is somewhat new to these managers and they are still chiefly assessing risks through intuition, judgment and experience. While such long-established informal approaches may have been acceptable in the past, they will undoubtedly gain poor outcomes on large scale projects. This research attempts to reveal the current state of utilization of formal risk management practices in Pakistan. Specifically, a questionnaire survey instrument was adopted to ascertain current processes and procedures used to identify, analyze and mitigate risks on construction projects. The research uncovered a total of forty (40) risks which are frequently encountered in the Pakistani construction industry as well as a range of unstructured, partially structured and structured approaches for quantifying and addressing risks. In general, this study confirmed that the large majority of Pakistani construction firms still tend to approach risk management in an ad hoc manner. Further research aims to develop a road map for improving rates of adoption of formalized risk management approaches in the Pakistani construction industry. Such a road map may have value for other developing and newly industrialized nations.