Importance of dispute avoidance strategies for large scale building construction projects in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Dispute avoidance is a concept that has been addressed over the years within the construction industry, based on the basic maxim that ‘prevention is better than cure’. Thus, avoidance of potential dispute occurrence is more efficient than rectifying issues after they occurred. In essence, disputes in the construction industry are not merely inconveniences; they have the potential to be highly destructive, undermining the project's success and resulting in financial and reputational losses for all parties involved. This underscores the importance of proactive dispute management and avoidance strategies in the construction sector. Thus, the research focused on a comprehensive investigation of what factors in a construction project that has led to create disputes among parties, their effects and what are the improvements and strategies that can be taken to avoid disputes. Through the literature, it was identified causative factors and effects of disputes, available dispute avoidance strategies, benefits of dispute avoidance strategies, barriers to implement and strategies to overcome such barriers, accomplishing the research objectives partially. A questionnaire survey was conducted to identify the applicability of them to the Sri Lankan context. Fifty-six individuals were selected who possess experience in the construction field and knowledge on dispute avoidance and data was collected through questionnaire survey. The data revealed variations/ design changes and excessive extra works and financial failure of the owner as highest significant dispute causes among twenty causes. Further, the data highlighted the importance of new technological involvement such as digital documentation and Building information modeling (BIM) for the dispute avoidance.