Delays to mechanical services-type projects associated with national culture in Saudi Arabia

The aim of this paper is to identify the origin of delays in building projects that are associated with the national cultural factors of Saudi Arabia. In most major building projects in Saudi Arabia, the various mechanical services components, elements and installations are often designed and manufactured abroad by foreign organisations from various countries with sometimes divergent cultures and installed using workforce that come from yet more divergent cultural backgrounds. In such projects, the mechanical services package may be in excess of 40% of the overall cost of the project. The work reported in this paper is a literature-based research that forms part of the early stages of a PhD research that aims to investigate the effect of national culture on the occurrence of delays in building projects, particularly in the delivery of the mechanical services packages in Saudi Arabia. The paper has established that Saudi Arabia is a highly power distance economy (where most of the decisions are centralised) with a high uncertainty avoidance culture. The origins of delays in building projects have been identified from numerous publications and categorised into eight using the Hofstede's national cultural factors. This provides a basis for further research to evaluate the effect of national culture on the delivery of mechanical services-type projects in Saudi Arabia.