Clients' Perceptions of Architect Performance on Building Projects in Ghana

摘要

This paper aims to establish clients' perception of the performance of architects on building projects in Ghana. It reports on a survey of both public and private clients of recently completed building projects in two major metropolitan areas of the country. Data from the survey were analyzed by first computing performance indexes and subsequently comparing similarities and differences between results obtained for the two sector clients. The results showed that private sector clients are likely to be more concerned with cost, while public sector clients are more concerned with buildability of design. A total of 71% of the 28 architect performance assessment criteria identified from literature were similarly selected by both sectors with respect to importance of the criteria. Using these, both public and private sector clients were asked to assess the performance of their architects. The results showed that architects were perceived to perform better on public sector building projects than on private sector ones. Their performance on 25% of the performance assessment criteria employed was indicated as being statistically different. The study also revealed that clients expected their architects to improve their performance significantly in approximately 82% of the 28 performance assessment criteria used in the study. The results from this study provide vital feedback to architects on their perceived performance on building projects in Ghana. On a broader level, the paper offers practicing architects some useful feedback that will allow for correction of misconceptions about their true role so as to improve on their relationship with project clients for improved project delivery. (C) 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.