Scope Creep in Construction Industry of Saudi Arabia

Construction is a highly dynamic process. It is continuously conditioned by the interplay of both the internal as well as the external environment. Given so, it is only logical to expect perpetual changes and alterations within the ambit of the project scope in order to fit in the newly emerged demands. These changes can even be in the form of slow and unauthorized ones without concomitant changes in the other factors of the project such as budget and deadlines. This has been referred to as the phenomenon of scope creep. This work would specifically try to study and analyze the phenomenon at length in order to make sense of its real nature instead of banishing it out rightly as a boon or a bane. Elucidation of the possible causes, repercussions and tentative recommendations for dealing with the phenomenon has been sought to be unearthed through research conducted via the survey method. This study involved the use of a pre-formulated questionnaire administered to 50 respondents from the construction companies itself, in order to ascertain the views of individuals who are involved in the process, in real time. Given the limits of stretching the resources beyond a point, this research has focused upon deducing the perceptions of a limited number of individuals, randomly chosen from ten construction companies in and around the vicinity of Riyadh.