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LATENT BENEFITS OF WORKING RELATIONSHIP AMONG NIGERIAN BUILT ENVIRONMENT PROFESSIONALS
  • July 2020
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LATENT BENEFITS OF WORKING RELATIONSHIP AMONG NIGERIAN BUILT ENVIRONMENT PROFESSIONALS
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The built-environment has some sequential non-overlapping roles towards a successful takeoff and delivery of its products-the real estate. However, these roles appeared to be uncoordinated because of the collaboration gap among the built environment professionals (BEP). This may hinder the sustainability of the built environment practice and products. This study investigates the attitudinal issues, the influencing factors, the achieved and potential benefits of the collaborative working relationship among the BEP and how such relationships may enhance the sustainability of the built environment practice and products. Primary data were collected from a sample of 133 fellows of all the BEP bodies in Nigeria through the use of the questionnaire, complemented by a telephone interview. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and the relative importance index (RII). The study discovered that the BEPs safeguard individual profession against encroachment rather than all the built-environment professions (RII 3.96) and the main factor responsible for weak collaboration among the BEPs was working in isolation (RII 3.99). The main benefit discovered from working collaborations among the BEPs was that it enhanced good and reliable practices and products towards a sustainable built-environment (RII 4.20). It is therefore recommended that the BEPs should not limit the working relationships and collaborations to their professions alone but extends such to other professions in the built-environment to exploit the latent potentials of collaboration. The exploitation of these identified potential benefits
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Summation scaling of response of current collaboration level among the BEP
Summation scalingof factors responsible for the current level of collaboration
Summation scaling of untapped potential collaboration among the BEP
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The Lagos Journal of Environmental Studies Vo1. 10, No. 2, 2020Bello, et al 1LATENT BENEFITS OF WORKING RELATIONSHIP AMONG NIGERIAN BUILTENVIRONMENT PROFESSIONALSNurudeen Akinsola BELLO1, Rasheed Olamide ALAO2, Sulaiman Adesoji OLABISI3,and Adetoye Sulaiman ADEPOJU41-3Department of Estate Management, University of Ilorin, Ilorin – Nigeria,4Department of Estate Management, Faculty of Environmental Studies, FederalPolytechnic, Ado Ekiti, Nigeria.AbstractThe built-environment has some sequential non-overlapping roles towards a successful take-offand delivery of its products- the real estate. However, these roles appeared to be uncoordinatedbecause of the collaboration gap among the built environment professionals (BEP). This mayhinder the sustainability of the built environment practice and products. This study investigatesthe attitudinal issues, the influencing factors, the achieved and potential benefits of thecollaborative working relationship among the BEP and how such relationships may enhancethe sustainability of the built environment practice and products. Primary data were collectedfrom a sample of 133 fellows of all the BEP bodies in Nigeria through the use of thequestionnaire, complemented by a telephone interview. Data were analysed using descriptivestatistics and the relative importance index (RII). The study discovered that the BEPs safeguardindividual profession against encroachment rather than all the built-environment professions(RII 3.96) and the main factor responsible for weak collaboration among the BEPs wasworking in isolation (RII 3.99). The main benefit discovered from working collaborationsamong the BEPs was that it enhanced good and reliable practices and products towards asustainable built-environment (RII 4.20). It is therefore recommended that the BEPs should notlimit the working relationships and collaborations to their professions alone but extends such toother professions in the built-environment to exploit the latent potentials of collaboration. Theexploitation of these identified potential benefits will eventually bring about improved realestate products and practice for a sustainable built environment in Nigeria.Keywords: Built-Environment; Professionals; Collaboration; Real estate; Sustainability.1.0 IntroductionBuilt environment activities require the efforts of people who use their hands or skills directlyin accomplishing the tasks lined up to produce real estate. This involvement of human resourcesin the built-environment has physical and non-physical perspectives and typical builtenvironment activities start with site/space provision, planning of the site, architectural andengineering design, estimates of materials and labour, project construction/management andproperty management.In the built environment, human resources are composed of two main sets: the tradesmen andthe professionals. Tradesmen are craft operatives who are skilled in a particular trade such asmetal work, bricklaying, plumbing, painting, woodwork, tiling, electrification, just to name afew. Professionals, unlike tradesmen, usually having a formal education, guided byconventions, standards and shared experiences (Agbola, 2002).It has been observed that previous researches on collaboration among construction staff abound,but this doesn't apply to all the core professions in the built environment. The focus of most ofthese past studies, e.g. Buys and Ludwaba (2012); Akintan and Morledge (2013) among others
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The Lagos Journal of Environmental Studies Vo1. 10, No. 2, 2020Latent Benefits of Working Relationship among Nigerian Built Environment Professionals 2was limited to the construction aspect of the 3 stages of development (pre-construction,construction, and post-construction) and little mention was made of the pre-construction andpost-construction stages. It is unusual to find a study that extended to all the stages ofdevelopment involving all the BEPs in Nigeria. This is a conspicuous gap in the body ofknowledge which this study attempts to fill.There is, therefore, a need for a study that will include the roles of all the core professionals inthe built-environment and span the whole stages of property development i.e. preconstruction,construction, and post-construction, without reducing the scope to the construction stage only.This study, therefore, examined the main factors for and the benefits derivable fromcollaborative working relationships among the BEPs in all stages of development, towardshaving sustainable practice and built-environment products in Nigeria.The objectives of achieving this aim are to: determine the attitudinal issues influencingcollaboration among the BEPs; examine the main factors influencing collaboration among theBEPs; determine the existing and potentials benefits of collaboration among the BEPs inNigeria.2.0 Literature ReviewA profession, according to Mosher (1976), is a reasonably clear-cut occupational field thatordinarily requires higher education at least through the bachelor’s level and which offers alifetime career to its members. In the view of Marcuse (1977), a profession is an activity whichutilises technical methods and esoteric knowledge, the acquisition of which typically requiresadvanced education.Expected benefits derivable from membership of a profession otherwise called professionalbargains include: legally enforced restrictions on entry into the product of activity andmonopoly on the undertaking of certain activities of those permitted entry (Agbola, 2002). Theprofessional bargain also requires those undertaking the professional activity to police theirconduct, to ensure that it contributes efficiently to the maintenance of the system with which itstruck the bargain.Professionals, unlike the tradesmen, usually have formal education and are guided withconventions, standards and shared experiences (Agbola, 2002). The profession, according toAgbola (2002) often exhibits commonalities of the continuing drive to elevate its status andstrengthen its public image, the establishment of the boundary of work scope with exclusiveprerogatives to operate.Other commonalities include the assurance and protection of career opportunities, theestablishment and continuous elevation of the standard of education and entrance into theprofession, the upgrading of rewards and improvement of their prestige among otherprofessions as well as the public at large. Entry into the profession requires the legal registrationby state power to a board that is exclusively and predominantly made up of members of theprofession.The term professional is used to signify persons working within a chosen profession, and in thecase of the built-environment such include: architects, land surveyors, builders, estate surveyorsand valuers, quantity surveyors and the urban and regional planners. In Nigeria, each of theseprofessionals has both the association and regulatory bodies. For instance, architects have theNigerian Institute of Architects (NIA) and the Architects Registration Council of Nigeria(ARCON),land surveyors have the Nigerian Institution of Surveyors (NIS) and the SurveyorsRegistration Council of Nigeria (SURCON),builders have the Nigerian Institute of Builders
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The Lagos Journal of Environmental Studies Vo1. 10, No. 2, 2020Bello, et al 3(NIOB) and the Council of Registered Builders of Nigeria (CORBON) while estate surveyorsand valuers have the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV) and EstateSurveyors and Valuers Registration Board of Nigeria (ESVARBON). Similarly, the quantitysurveyors have the Nigerian Institution of Quantity Surveyors (NIQS) and the QuantitySurveyors Registration Board of Nigeria (QSRBN), while the urban and regional planners havethe Nigerian Institute of Town Planners (NITP) and Town Planners Registration Council ofNigeria (TOPREC).According to Saiv and Sagi (2016), professional bodies are saddled with the responsibilities ofgiving marketing platforms to members; providing a gateway to work and ensuring careerdevelopment. These alsoorganise continued professional development training and workshops,provide professional indemnity insurance, enhancement of networking opportunities, peerrecognition and professional networks; ensuring access to information, resources and advisorynotes; ensuring compliance with standards and ethics and creating the opportunity to participatein enhancing and expanding the profession.Generally, the statutory registration bodies of the built-environment professionals wereestablished to license professionals based on specified standards and to protect the public fromerrant practitioners (SaivandSagi, 2016). However, there should be a synergy among theprofessionals in the built environment in the form of collaborations.Collaboration, according to Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (2015), is the act ofworking with another person or group of people to create or produce something. It takes theform of two or more people or organisations working together to complete a task or achieve agoal. Collaboration is the same as cooperation or team working.Teams that work collaboratively often access greater resources, recognition, and rewards whenfacing competition for finite resources. Collaboration skills will enable the built-environmentprofessionals to interface productively with other professional colleagues either in the sameprofession or other allied professions. Successful collaboration, however, requires a cooperativespirit and mutual respect.Saiv and Sagi (2016) formalize the platform for collaboration among the built environmentprofessional in South Africa, as involving networking between the respective professions;education and knowledge sharing about professional specialists competences; working onindustry standards and practice notes towards improving service delivery; participation in tradeshows/conferences within the built environment and consistency in the registrationrequirements for professionals across the respective professional associations.The identified potential benefits of collaboration in the construction industry according to Siti etal., (2013) include: encouragement of teamwork, development of cooperation, stimulation ofinformation sharing, improvement in quality and project completion time, enhanced servicequality, and better communication among project members. AbdullRahman et al (2014), in asimilar study, identified factors propelling the willingness to collaborate among the BEPs toinclude: encouragement of teamwork, similar racial collaboration, development of co-operation,information sharing simulation, and improvement of quality of the project promptly and bettercommunication. Stiles (1995) identified the factors influencing global collaborationto include:demand occasion by globalization, competition, risk, and uncertainty within the businessenvironment.Buys and Ludwaba (2012) identified the problems that may associate with lack of collaborationamong the BEPs to include: poor productivity, a decline in construction quality, decreases inclient satisfaction of the built-environment products, conflicts and late completion of the built-
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The Lagos Journal of Environmental Studies Vo1. 10, No. 2, 2020Latent Benefits of Working Relationship among Nigerian Built Environment Professionals 4environment products. Specifically, the main problem of collaboration among the built-environment in South Africa is that of the organ of the Government generally not usingprofessionals properly in the right space (Saiv and Sagi, 2016).Akintan and Morledge (2013) highlighted the benefits of collaboration on construction toinclude: delivering lower building cost for the client and higher profits for the contractor;increase in value and predictability of work; reduces the number and severity of contractualdisputes; encourages continuous improvements and; results in shorter overall project timeamongst others. These highlighted benefits impact positively on project delivery.Professionals in the builtenvironment are now realizing that collaboration is critical to thesuccess and sustainability of the built-environment (AbdullRahman et al, 2014). According toAbiola (2017), professional bodies in the builtenvironment, therefore, need to collaborateamong themselves for the effective delivery of housing projects as well as the elimination ofquackery. In a bid to enhance the sustainability of the built environment product in Nigeria,there is a dire need to investigate the potential factors and benefits of collaboration among thecore professionals in the built environment and that is the essence of this study.3.0 MethodologyThe target population for this research consists offellows (the highest membership grade of anyprofession) of each of the BEPs in Nigeria as obtained from their national secretariat. As atDecember 2018, the record put the total as 500 for architecture (ARC), 282 for building (BLD),360 for the estate surveying and valuation (ESV), 363 for urban and regional planning (URP);302 for the quantity surveying (QTS) and 316 for the surveying and geo-informatics (SVG)bringing the total of fellows in the built-environment profession to 2123.The choice of relying on the fellowship category is borne out of tenure of post-qualification andvolume of gathered experience by this cadre of professionals. Ten (10) percent were randomlytaken, using the table of random numbers, as sample size from the list of fellows in eachprofession to have a total of 212 (50 for ARC; 28 for BLD; 36 for ESM; 36 for URP; 30 forQTS and 32 for SVG).The questionnaires were administered through the use of hard copy questionnaires, e-mails andtelephone interviews as conveniently applicable to the respondents. Questions such as theattitudinal issues of the BEPs, factors influencing the achieved and potential benefits ofworking collaboration among the BEPs were asked the respondents. However, of 212questionnaires distributed 133 were successfully retrieved and administered representing a62.74% response rate which was deemed appropriate for this study. Responses from theadministered questionnaires were analysed to produce descriptive statistics of frequency andsummation scaling of 5 points as previously adopted by Ayedun et al (2017) among others.Five (5) points embraced SA, A, N, D, SD, representing strongly agree (5), agree (4), neutral(3), disagree (2) and strongly disagree (1) respectively. The frequency of each response wasmultiplied by the point allocated to the response to have the frequency weight (FW) used tocalculate the relative importance index (RII).4.0 Results and FindingsMost of the fellows in the built-environment professions, consisting of 96 respondents (72%)attained the status of fellow of their professional bodies between 10 and 20 years, while37(28%) were fellow of more than 20 years. The attitude of BEPs to the working collaborationamong the built-environment professionals is shown in Table 1.