An Assessment of risk awareness in medium-sized and large construction organizations in Kuwait

Abstract

This research provides an attempt to understand the risk awareness within the large and medium construction organizations in Kuwait. It is known that; the risk awareness has significant influence on building organizational strategies. Organizations’ risk awareness would direct the implementation of diverse strategic decisions in the construction organizations. The study used an online survey that was sent to construction organizations who are registered under Category 1 in the Central Agency for Public Tenders (CAPT) in Kuwait. The survey was structured to collect organizations’ responses that can be used as indicators to the level of risk awareness within the target organizations in Kuwait. It can be argued that adequate risk awareness is critical for minimizing business risk. The findings of the survey helped to reveal the main concerns/risks faced by construction organizations when conducting construction projects in Kuwait. The responses showed that the most critical risks that were faced by the organizations include: financial, economic, government instability, subcontractors, owner, and design risks. It is believed that the findings of this research would support the efforts undertaken by construction organizations to eliminate such concerns and to suggest other risks that may be overlooked by the target organizations. On the other hand, the research findings indicated that most of the medium and large organizations in Kuwait lack the adequate understanding of the concept of risk management. Accordingly, it is anticipated that this research would promote for a systematic implementation of risk management process in Kuwaiti construction organizations by revealing its promised advantages and providing a comprehensive understanding for risk attitude. Achieving this goal would aid the realization of the 2035 development vision of Kuwait, since most of the development projects under this vision seek the involvement of international construction organizations who may be advanced in the risk management field, thus would be interested in understanding the level of risk awareness of their target market in Kuwait.