Team performance of road maintenance teams in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Well- maintained roads support national and local economies by ensuring that freight and businesses can move efficiently and safely. Therefore, road maintenance management is of considerable national importance in Sri Lanka and the major item of public service provision by territorial local government. The Road Development Authority (RDA), under the Ministry of Highways plays vital role as the pioneer organization for road construction and maintenance in Sri Lanka during last two decades. The road maintenance in this country is generally understood as a set of activities intended to preserve the road system in what would be termed as "an acceptable condition". Teams with varied skills in, the RDA, are involved in these activities to ensure the above requirement. The aims of this research study were to explore the nature of the road maintenance process in Sri Lanka and the factors that influence the performance of road maintenance teams. The case study research approach was selected for the study and accordingly three Executive Engineer Divisions under the RDA were selected as cases. Data collection was carried out using techniques such as semi-structured interviews and observations by selecting three key maintenance team members for each case. Content analysis and cognitive mapping techniques were used for data analysis. Cross-case analysis includes a comprehensive comparison between the selected cases and with the extant literature. The key findings revealed that, these findings offer implications for the key organizations involved in road maintenance teams in Sri Lanka as to how their team performance can be improved