Professional Perspectives on Factors Influencing the Capture and Reuse of Project Knowledge in the Nigerian Construction Industry

Abstract

The construction industry's struggle to align with the knowledge economy has resulted in underperformance, as meeting client expectations for cost, quality, and timeliness becomes challenging due to project knowledge loss. This study aims to identify factors contributing to valuable knowledge loss in construction projects, caused by inadequate knowledge management practices. Objectives include identifying and evaluating factors affecting project knowledge capture and reuse through literature review and assessing construction professionals' perceptions. A quantitative approach employing a questionnaire survey was adopted, with a sample of 209 firms selected from a population of 1,962 registered construction firms with the Cooperate Affair Commission (CAC) in Abuja. Self-administered questionnaires were used for data collection, employing simple random sampling. Descriptive analysis using SPSS identified factors influencing project knowledge capture and reuse, including personnel changes, the need for standardized knowledge capture and sharing platforms, employee retirements and transfers, the perception of knowledge as a competitive edge, outsourcing, organizational culture, team separation after project completion, motivation, self-confidence, and death. Findings highlighted the significance of standardized knowledge capture and sharing platforms (Mean=3.90) and team separation after project completion (Mean=3.86) in affecting project knowledge capture and reuse, as reported by construction professionals. Therefore, this study concludes that establishing standardized knowledge management platforms and effectively managing team separation after project completion are crucial for preventing knowledge loss. Construction firms are recommended to prioritize the establishment of standardized platforms to enhance project performance and mitigate knowledge loss.