Abstract
Small and Medium-sized Contractors (SMCs) play a pivotal role in stimulating socio-economic development worldwide through employment creation, wealth redistribution and poverty alleviation. Additionally, these organisations make a significant contribution towards economic growth of nations. However, most SMCs encounter innumerable sustainability challenges which impede their longevity. Concerted efforts made by governments, policy makers and other stakeholders over the years to catalyse SMC growth and sustainability, have yielded little success thus far. It is evident that the concept of SMC sustainability has been insufficiently researched, particularly in developing countries since SMC sustainability challenges are incessant. Consequently, there is a dearth of literature on comprehensive and contextualised theoretical frameworks that meaningfully inform the development and sustainability of SMCs in developing countries. Arguably, there is no development model that could be universally applied to different contexts abitrarily, due to disparate socio-cultural-economic and political dynamics. Thus, the context within which SMCs operate plays a fundamental role in dictating the appropriate framework. Most Eurocentric models that were adopted in the past 4 decades in most developing countries, particularly in the Global South, seem to be incongruent with respective local business environments as SMCs in those countries continue to grapple with high failure rates. Therefore, the study aims to develop a robust framework which catalyses the development and sustainability of SMCs, with a particular focus on the City of Windhoek and Oshakati Town in the Namibian context. A corpus of literature was reviewed to establish the level of SMC development and identify the key enablers of development in various countries. The Resource Based and Institutional theoretical frameworks were adopted and used as the lenses that assisted in framing the study.
The study was underpinned by post-positivism interpretive philosophical lens. Thus, a contextualised framework was informed by a priori theories and later refined by the views and interpretations gathered from various stakeholders with lived experiences within their natural setting. A multi-method qualitative approach consisting of semi-structured interviews,
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observations, and document analysis was adopted and the results were triangulated. Data were collected from the City of Windhoek in central Namibia (Khomas region) and Oshakati Town in northern Namibia (Oshana region). A total of forty (40) participants were purposefully selected for the study. These included twenty-two (22) SMCs from which only owner-managers were interviewed, and then eighteen (18) industrywide key stakeholders that were drawn from various population categories that included the Ministry of Works and Transport, financial institutions, training institutions, construction professional consultants and contractors’ associations. The study conducted one-on-one interviews which encompassed face-to-face, telephone and electronic or online interviews. The study started by interviewing owner-managers using an open-ended semi-structured interview guide. Data saturation was reached at the fifteenth interview. Then, interviews with key stakeholders reached data saturation at the twelveth interview. Thereafter, data were analysed using thematic analysis. Both deductive and inductive coding of data were done manually since it was easier to identifiy errors and fix them.
Regarding the first objective which sought to determine the level of SMC development, the findings from Windhoek and Oshakati demonstrated that SMCs in the Namibian construction sector are underdeveloped as evidenced by the absence of a regulatory body which oversees the development of SMCs, as well as the lack of proper grading or classification of contractors in Namibia. Additionally, the study discovered inconsistencies in employment levels, annual turnover, and physical asset base which resulted in nuances in SMC taxonomy. Thus, the study observed transitional classes and overlaps which revealed the existence of eight (8) classes namely micro, micro-small, micro-medium, small, small-medium, small-large, medium, and medium-large contractor. This is contrary to the three (3) classes which are specified in the Namibian policy on Micro, Small and Medium enterprises (MSMEs).
Pertaining to the second objective which sought to establish the key enablers of SMC development and sustainability, the study found six (6) key enablers which include an enabling construction business environment, training of SMCs, adequate and affordable finance, consistent work supply and collaborative public and private institutions’ support. The study
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further established that each of the identified key enablers has a direct positive influence on SMC development. The findings also confirmed that institutional support moderates the influence of each of the identified key enablers of SMC development. Besides, the results observed a cyclical relationship between SMC development and SMC sustainability. The research findings culminated in the development of an Integrated Framework for Catalysing Development and Sustainability of SMCs (IFCDS-SMCs). Therefore, the study recommends the adoption of IFCDS-SMCs in the Namibian construction industry and similar contexts, particularly in the Global South, to enhance the development and sustainability of SMCs.
Keywords
Small and Medium-sized contractors, SMC development, SMC Sustainability, Key enablers, Framework, Context, Developing countries, Namibian construction industry.