ASSESSING THE FACTORS CAUSING PROJECT COMPLETION DELAYS IN THE CONSTRUCTION SECTOR OF OMAN USING SEM-PLS

Purpose: The objectives of the study were to investigate the causes of the delays to analyze the factors causing the construction delay in Oman and to investigate the effects of such delays. Design/methodology/approach: To carry out this study 210 samples were collected through a well-defined questionnaire from the construction stakeholders viz. the consultants, contractors, and the clients who were selected on a random sampling basis. Smart PLS for Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) technique was used to analyze the data to obtain the formative measurement models, the structured model, and the goodness of fit. Findings: The results of the study reveal that the client-related factors, equipment-related factors, and material related factors have a significant impact on the completion delay in construction projects. The findings of the study also revealed that the Client related factors were – Delay in providing services, Delayed decision-making process, Allocation of insufficient time. Equipment related factors were – Existing low productive equipment, Unskillful Equipment operator, Breakdown of equipment and Outdated equipment; Material related factors were – Delay in supply of raw materials, Nonavailability of materials, Change of materials during construction, Non-availability of accessories and Damaged materials. Research limitations/Implications: The present study covers the stakeholders of the construction projects from selected regions only. The future studies can be extended to other projects and other regions as well. Social implications: The study suggested that the clients’ cooperation especially in providing the contractors with the necessary equipment, facilities, and sufficient time will avoid such delays of the construction projects in Oman. Originality/Value: Only very few have examined the completion delay of the construction projects in Oman using SEMPLS and it is a first-hand study of its kind and the results will be useful to the stakeholders.


INTRODUCTION
Oman continues to realize the aims of its ninth five-year development plan -2016 to 2020 plan focuses on the sectors with growth potentials. The construction sector is one of the major sectors in Oman with more growth potentials (Ali, Nusair, Alani, Khan, & Al Badi, 2017) and the rise in the construction projects market since 2016 largely attributes to the Government's economic diversification efforts (Malik & Mitchell, 2018). Since 2007, the construction projects in Oman are getting delayed in completion for various reasons such as improper planning and scheduling, poor construction, changes in designs, variation and claims thereby, and material shortage .
Construction delays occur when the actual progress is slower than the planned / contract schedule (Hari & Pandey, 2016). Delay / the time lag in the completion of construction projects is a critical issue affecting the construction industry and is an alarming issue over the globe. There are various occurrences in which delays are caused by more than one factor. Sometimes one delay leads to the other as well. For example, the massive delays in construction projects related to airport works endanger investments in Oman. The transport and logistics sector very much depends on their completion (Shaibany, 2015). Delays in such completion put on hold millions of Rials of other investments. In complex projects involving different types of activities, delays are analyzed based on two major parameters, i.e., time and cost. Indeed, the impact level of the delay differs from project to project. Delays can adversely affect the stakeholders, end up with zero incentives or negative productivity or termination of contract agreements or litigations.
It is becoming unusual that a project work gets over within the stipulated period. According to Ogweno, Muturi, and Rambo (2016), successful completion of a construction project in time, considered to be a sign of project efficiency. The successful accomplishment of a project is measured basically by the time spent, the total cost involved and the quality of work done. The construction delay affects the timely completion, cost, and quality. Proper decision making well ahead of starting a The increasing delays in the construction projects are affecting the national economy of Oman as it results in wastage of resources, increased costs of projects, and dissatisfaction among the clients. Thus, it becomes important for the project managers to complete the projects within the budgeted cost and time. As Oil and Gas (O&G) construction projects are a major arena that could directly affect the economic growth of Oman, it becomes essential to pay more attention to find out the causes. Thus the purpose of the study was to analyze the causes for such delays, to analyze the factors causing the construction delay in Oman and to investigate the effects of such delays.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Improperplanning, designing, construction, and finishing are the causes for the construction time overrun in Oman (Al Saadi, Latif, & Al-Nuaimi, 2018). Time delays are the major challenges for the construction sector (Pourrostam, Ismail, & Mansournejad, 2011) and delays can severely affect the project stakeholders (Al-Khalil & Al-Ghafly, 1999). The delay causes a hike in costs, loss of productivity, and revenue resulting in termination of the contract sometimes (Kraiem & Diekmann, 1987). Kaming, Olomolaiye, Holt, and Harris (1997) stated that cost overruns are more than time overrun and that cost overruns are caused by material price variation and price assessment errors. Odeyinka and Yusif (1997) stated that the delay occurs mainly during the construction phase which originates from the design phase due to inadequate schedule control, untimely review of designing, non-introduction of latest technologies into the designs. Poor project formulation at the initial stage and hesitancy to take timely decisions are the factors causing delays (Iyer & Jha, 2005). Improper calculation of project duration, inconsistencies with the contracts, specifications, and understanding are the factors causing delays in the construction completion (Olawale & Sun, 2010). The causes of the delays might be due to unrealistic deadlines and cultural influences (Ren, Atout, & Jones, 2008). Sambasivan and Soon (2007) identified that the maximum causes for the delays arise from the contractor's side. However, the shortage of materials and equipment, and inadequate labor supply causes a delay for the contractor from completing his project. Failure to supervise the contractors' work leads to delay in the project (Acharya, Lee, Kim, Lee, & Kim, 2006). Odeh and Battaineh (2002) confirmed that the main cause for the construction delay was due to low labor productivity and inadequate contractor monitoring. Bhatia (2017) claimed that the contractors get affected largely due to completion delays and as a consequence, their revenue declined. Sweis, Sweis, Hammad, and Shboul (2008) stated that most of the delays arise due to poor management; and natural calamities add fuel to it. Umar (2018) revealed that the contractual issues, workforce problems, unavailability of materials, and non-coordination between the parties were the factors causing delay to construction projects in Oman. Shaibany (2015) stated that the delays are mostly due to material shortages, delays in payments, equipment failures and frequent project variations. The effects of variations in construction projects in Oman were the delayed completion date, cost overruns; additional costs incurred by contractors due to variations, and disputes (Al Harthi, 2005).
Latif, Al Saadi, and Rahman (2019) identified that changes in project scope, lack of communication between the parties, shortage of labor, construction mistakes, and lack of design were the causes for the delay in completion. Emam, Farrell, and Abdelaal (2015) confirmed that the factors causing a delay in construction projects' completion were the delayed response from utility agencies, major design changes during construction, ineffective planning and scheduling, inefficient control of progress, and changes in the scope of the project. Chan and Kumaraswamy (1997) found that the factors creating delays were unanticipated field conditions, variations, inefficient site management, and poor decision making. Assaf and Al-Hejji (2006) pointed out that the most probable cause for the delay is due to change orders. Sacks and Goldin (2007) explained that the changes in the project lead to delay, an increase in the cost of the project and ends in complications. Faridi and El-Sayegh (2006) confirmed that the delay in the preparation and approval of drawings, specifications and documents, and changes in drawings are the major factors causing delays from the consultant side. Assaf, Al-Khalil, and Al-Hazmi (1995) pinpointed out that the drawings and the design amendments are the factors which trigger delays and break the smooth relationship between the supplier and the project. Al-Momani (2000) identified the main causes of delay as poor design and change orders, and attention needs to be paid to minimize the disputes arising thereby avoiding the resulting failures.
Al  claimed that the client related causes were the prime reason for any construction delay in Oman. Alnuaimi and Mohsin (2013) confirmed that the client is the main cause for the delay of the construction projects in Oman and the issue could be resolved easily only if the owners of the project follow up on the projects at all stages. Alnuaimi, Taha, Al Mohsin, and Al-Harthi (2010) studied the change orders determined that the additional works and design modifications caused delays, disputes, and cost overruns.
Divakar and Subramanian (2009) came out with a program for computing activity delays leading to project delays. Toor and Ogunlana (2008) constructed a decision support system to analyze construction delays concluded that the major factors as equipment, material, labor, management, client, subcontractors, and weather.
Le-Hoai, Dai Lee, and Lee (2008) identified the critical factors causing a delay are a sluggishness, incompetence, design, estimation, finance, government, and workers. Nkado (1995) claimed that the project implementation delay causes a delay in architectural fields. According to Kadir, Lee, Jaafar, Sapuan, and Ali (2005), the primary factors causing delay were the shortage of materials, delayed payments, change orders, late submission of drawings, inadequate labor supply, and poor site management.
Gündüz, Nielsen, and Özdemir (2013) found that insufficiency of labor, poor site management, improper project planning, and time lag of materials supply are the lead causes for the delays from the contractor side. Ling and Hoi (2006) found out the technical causative factors for the delays were design failures, estimation errors, and failure of new technology adoption. All the above-referred factors have been taken into consideration in our study questionnaire.

HYPOTHESES
From the above literature review, 54 items have been identified and they were grouped under five variables viz. clientrelated factors, contractors related factors, equipment-related factors, labor-related factors, and material related factors were taken into consideration and thus the following hypotheses were framed viz.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
To carry out this study 210 samples were collected through a well-defined questionnaire from the construction stakeholders viz. the consultants, contractors, and the clients who were selected on a random sampling basis. Smart PLS for Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) technique was used to analyze the data to obtain the formative measurement models, the structured model, and the goodness of fit.

FINDINGS
Demographic details of the respondents are given in Table 1.  The test for data reliability and internal consistency confirms that the value is greater than 0.70.
The present study considers factors such as client-related factors, contractors related factors, equipment-related factors, labor-related factors, material related factors, and the Effects of Project completion delay factors. The details of the latent variables (factors) and apparent variables (sub-factors) are given in the table, given below:

Material related factors m1
Shortage of materials in the market m2 Non-availability of materials in the market m3 Change of materials during construction m4 Delay of raw materials to project site m5 The startup got delayed due to non-availability of specific accessories m6 Materials received found to be damaged m7 Delay in work-in-process due to non-availability of materials m8 Work in process materials stay for a longer time Breakdown of equipment e2 Equipment operator's skill is low in this project e3 Existing equipment is not effective and leads to low productivity e4 The equipment used is not of the latest technology e5 Improper equipment selection for the project e6 There is a shortage of equipment e7 There is no safety measures environment of using the equipment Labor-related factors l1

Shortage of labors l2
There is an unqualified workforce l3 There is an issue with the contract regarding the nationality of labors l4 Labors' productivity level is low l5 Personal conflicts among labors l6 No motivation for the labors l7 Poor linguistic understanding by labors

Contractors related factors c1
Contractor lacks working capital finance for the project c2 The conflict between the contractor and sub-contractor during the execution phase c3 Review of drawings lead to rework during construction c4 There was a conflict between the contractor and other parties (consultant and/or owner) c5 Poor site management and supervision by the contractor c6 Poor coordination by the contractor with others c7 Ineffective planning and scheduling of the project by the contractor c8 Contractor's staff not technically qualified c9 Delay by the contractor in spadework towards project execution c10 Unknown delays from subcontractor's side Client related factors cl1 No proper coordination between the client and other parties cl2 Delay in progress payments release by the owner cl3 Delay in providing services from utilities by the arranger cl4 Project completion time calculated wrongly and time was not sufficient cl5 Time lag due to the delayed decision-making process by the owner cl6 There was a suspension of work by the owner due to poor quality cl7 Delay in revision and approval when change request was made cl8 Delay in furnishing and delivering the site to the contractor by the owner cl10 There were conflicts between the joint-ownership of the project cl11 Delay performing inspection and testing

Effects of Project Completion delay pd1
Execution delay may lead to abandonment if issues are not resolved pd2 Inferior quality of materials can lead to project failure pd3 Disputes and claims for the losses arise due to such delays pd4 Delay may end up with a bad reputation pd5 Time overrun at the time of completion pd6 Budget overrun during the completion pd7 Improper completion due to high penalties The latent variables are also known as constructs that will be tested along with the apparent variables using the measurement model. The conceptual model is shown in figure 1.
The structural model specifies the suppressed constructs. Tenenhaus, Vinzi, Chatelin, and Lauro (2005) defined that measurement model, structural model, and structural regression equationin the order are used to measure the quality of the model.
The reliability of the measurement model was validated by assessing the sub-factors reliability and the factor loadings. A minimum value of 0.45 can be considered preferable for loading of the sub-factors (Comrey & Lee, 2013) but for our study, the sub-factors loading above 0.50 was considered (Hulland, 1999) and those sub-factors with lesser loadings were removed from the model and the resulting final path model is shown in figure 3.

Reliability
Construct reliability and inner consistency were adjudged using composite reliability as it is more appropriate compared to Cronbachs Alpha (Hair, Sarstedt, Ringle, & Mena, 2012). As per Gefen, Straub, and Boudreau (2000), the least score for composite reliability should be 0.7 and as per Hair, Black, Babin, Anderson, and Tatham (1998) the minimum score for Cronbachs alpha should be 0.6. The factor loadings, composite reliability and Cronbach's alpha values obtained through PLS algorithms were shown in Table 4. As can be seen, Cronbachs alpha value was above 0.755 except Obsessive Passion qualities. It was also seen that the composite reliability score was more than 0.799 except the score of the Obsessive Passion qualities which was close to 0.70. Therefore, the model can be considered trustworthy.
From Table 4 it can be seen that the variance extracted ranged from 0.60373 to 0.752412, and thus the convergent validity is satisfactory.

Discriminant Validity
Discriminant validity is to ensure that a construct (latent variable) has the strongest relationships than any other construct in the PLS path model. The values of the AVE square root and constructs correlations in Table 5 shows that the constructs Discriminant validity is satisfactory.

Structural Model Analysis
Through the path coefficient values, the relationship among the R-square value, independent variable, and dependent variable is tested. The values obtained through the bootstrapping test using PLS are shown in Table 6.  , 2001). A value greater than zero means the model has predictive significance, whereas value lesser than 0 mean that the model lacks predictive significance as presented in figure 5.

CONCLUSION
From the above analyses and the proven hypotheses, it can be observed that the Construction Project completion delay was mostly by Client-related factors, followed by equipment-related factors and Material related factors.
To be specific, The Client related sub-factors were Delay in providing services, Delayed decision-making process, Allocation of insufficient time.
The Equipment related sub-factors were Existing low productive equipment, Unskillful Equipment operator, Breakdown of equipment, and Outdated equipment.
The Material related sub-factors were Delay in the supply of raw materials, Non-availability of materials, Change of materials during construction, Non-availability of accessories, and Damaged materials.
Therefore, it is suggested that the clients' cooperation especially in providing the contractors with the necessary equipment, facilities and sufficient time will avoid such delays of the construction projects in Oman.