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Introduction
Productivity is an important consideration in any industry. It can be defined in several different ways depending on the context. Oxford dictionary defines productivity as, “the effectiveness of productive effort, especially in industry, as measured in terms of the rate of output per unit of input”. Construction productivity is widely measured in the form of unit rate which is the number of actual work hours required to perform the appropriate units of work (Jang et al., 2011). However, units of measurement change with the construction activity depending upon the types of input and output. Nevertheless, the importance of productivity in reducing the cost and generating profit is central across all industries including the construction industry.
The construction industry is a significant contributor to the economy in most countries. It accounts for almost 6–9 per cent of an economy’s gross domestic product (Arditi and Mochtar, 2000; Chitkara, 2004). Since productivity is a reflection of the efficiency, continuous improvement in the construction productivity has remained a major focus area for both the government and the industry. However, the construction industry’s productivity is still low compared to services and other industries such as manufacturing. Previous studies show that productivity in the construction industry is facing weak or negative growth in many countries and it usually lags behind other industries (Zhi et al., 2003; Bankvall et al., 2010; Timmer et al., 2010; Tran and Tookey, 2011).
Considerable research has been performed in the area of construction productivity. The past few decades have witnessed construction productivity as one of the most researched areas. Various attempts have been made to determine factors affecting construction productivity by many researchers across the globe. As a result, a large number of variables influencing construction productivity have been proposed. These variables cover a wide range of productivity problems in various geographical areas and construction work of different nature. Identification of the relevant factors affecting construction productivity is an essential criterion for improving productivity in the construction industry (Choy and Ruwanpura, 2005; Ghoddousi and Hosseini, 2012). However, despite continuous efforts, productivity improvement is still an area in which much research work needs to be done to explore its true potential in a practical industry context (Ranasinghe et al., 2012). The...