THE IMPACT OF THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT KNOWLEDGE AREAS ON THE PERFORMANCE OF THE KEY PLAYERS IN CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

A typical construction project has associated key players whose inputs are needed to improve project management effectiveness. The project performance of these key players is impacted by a number of dynamic factors which may be tangibles or intangibles. This research study assessed the impact of the project management knowledge areas on the project performance of construction industry's key players. A questionnaire was administered to 250 selected project management personnel from 10 randomly selected companies in the construction sector in the North Central Zone of Nigeria operating over the last decade. The valid responses obtained from the respondents were 213. Altogether, 12 latent variables and 52 manifest or observed variables were used for the data analysis after the preliminary data analysis to check the validity, reliability and reduce the number of variables using the average variance extracted (AVE), the Cronbach's alpha test, the composite reliability test and exploratory factor analysis in Microsoft Excel and the statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS) respectively. The result of the structural equation model (SEM) in linear structural relationship (LISREL) software used to test 29 hypotheses indicates that skillfulness in the utilization of the project management knowledge areas by the key players in construction projects improves their project performance. This is because 23 of these hypotheses were validated and only 6 were rejected because of unacceptable path coefficients. It was identified that the strongest relationships exist in the interaction of the client and quality management, the client and cost management, the client and communication management, the consultant and communication management and the project manager and quality management in the order of their path coefficients.