Examining unethical professional practices in construction projects in Malaysia

Tan, Ke Ling (2021) Examining unethical professional practices in construction projects in Malaysia. Final Year Project, UTAR.

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Abstract

Unethical professional practices in the Malaysian construction industry have posted serious issue in relation to building failures and national economy aspects. This research aims to discover the unethical professional practices plaguing the Malaysian construction industry, with the intention to suggest appropriate strategies to overcome the current problems. To achieve this aim, a comprehensive literature review was conducted and resulted in the identification of 8 types of unethical professional practices, 10 influential factors and 22 preventative strategies. This research adopted quantitative research, to collect data via electronic questionnaire. A total of 206 respondents who represent the construction practitioners in Malaysia has participated the questionnaire survey. The leading unethical practices identified by the respondents were: (1) inadequate health and safety provisions, (2) unfair conduct, (3) conflict of interest, and (4) bribery. The five most significant influential factors were revealed as: (1) intense competition, (2) economic survival, (3) lack of supervision, (4) individual financial pressure, and (5) social ties. The top five most significant preventative strategies included: (1) leadership, (2) communication, (3) debarment and blacklist, (4) checks and balances, and (5) rigorous supervision. Besides, factor analysis was conducted to uncover five major underlying categorised variables that represent the preventative strategies, comprising: (1) managerial construct, (2) regulatory construct, (3) probing construct, (4) promotional construct, and (5) reactive construct. Additionally, correlation test was employed and had identified leadership, whistleblowing mechanism, and quality assurance group as the most significant cause-driven preventative strategies. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of unethical professional practices by revealing the prevalent unethical conducts in the industry with respective causes, at the same time recommending feasible strategies to overcome the issues.

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