Transactions Template JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY, VOLUME 2, ISSUE 2, JUNE 2015 167 Strategic Planning in Construction Companies in Gaza Strip Khalid El-Hallaq 1 Bassam A. Tayeh 2 1 Civil Engineering Department, Islamic University of Gaza, Gaza, Palestine, khalaq@iugaza.edu.ps 2 Civil Engineering Department, Islamic University of Gaza, Gaza, Palestine, btayeh@iugaza.edu.ps Abstract--This paper presents a study that aims to explore the reality of the strategic planning in the construction companies in Gaza Strip. The clarity of the scientific concept of strategic planning has been investigated, in addition its significance, the degree of implementation and use, also the participation involvement in setting strategic plans and ability to adapt with their internal and external changing environment to be considered. This study relied mainly on the field study methods, where a special questionnaire was designed and distributed on a sample of "149" construction company, therefore, a full comprehen- sive survey was adopted. A "66" questionnaire out of "90' were retrieved and were processed and analyzed. The results of the study recommended the necessity of starting up with the use of strategic planning as an administrative tool to help these companies to adapt with their internal and external environments, also to provide more training courses for top management on strategic management and planning, and to emphasize on the sharing principle when setting strategic plans, where differ- ent administrative levels are involved. Index Terms: Construction Companies; Gaza Strip; Strategic planning; Strategy 1. INTRODUCTION Palestine is a developing country in the Asia region that suf- fers from economic and financial problems due to the cur- rent unstable political situation. The construction industry has played an important role in Palestinian economic growth [1]. The industry has contributed approximately 5-8% of the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Technology has been continuously improving, causes high business pressures that affect organizations' current and fu- ture competitiveness. These pressures cause common and rapid changes on all industries. Construction industry is also affected by these changes and firms which operate in the construction industry are challenged with increased global competition. In this global environment, it is clear that con- struction firms will have to be vigilant and forward looking to survive [2]. Tactical considerations will need to be re- placed by, or at least put in the context of, strategic ones. The need to adopt a strategic perspective to business opera- tions has been recognized in other industries of the economy for over four decades. More recently, frameworks and priorities have shifted to a greater extent from the short-term and tactical to the long-term and strategic [3]. However, this shift is relatively slow in the construction industry when compared with other ones. The concept of strategy is also important in the construction industry especially in this global competitive environment. When industry conditions and high competition is consid- ered, the concept of strategy and the need for strategic planning is obvious in the construction industry in Gaza Strip. This paper presents the investigation of the perspectives of contractor companies in Gaza Strip to the concept of strate- gy and strategic planning by describing the current strategic planning practices in construction industry in Gaza Strip. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 The concept of strategy In the literature, the concept of strategy is based on two dif- ferent sources in terms of the origin of the word. One of them is "stratum" in Latin, which means the path or line. The second one is "strategos" in Greek, which defined as the art of the general. The concept of strategy firstly recognized at the end of the 18th century when war tactics became in- creasingly important. Hence, the strategy concept owes its progress as a scientific discipline to the military field. Today, the concept of strategy is used to define achieving goals in various fields such as sports, politics, economics and etc. Moreover, it has recently started to have an important place especially in the field of management. In this context, John- son and Scholes (1999) defines strategy as follows: "Strate- gy is the direction and scope of an organization over the long-term: which achieves advantage for the organization through its configuration of resources within a challenging environment, to meet the needs of markets and to fulfill mailto:khalaq@iugaza.edu.ps mailto:btayeh@iugaza.edu.ps Khalid El-Hallaq, Bassam A. Tayeh/ Strategic Planning in Construction Companies in Gaza Strip (2015) 168 stakeholder expectations". Therefore, strategy needs to focus on how an organization competes, how to position itself in the industry and how to turn its strengths to a strategic ad- vantage. At this point, it is important to also mention about the con- cept of strategic planning. If the strategy is an overall approach and plan, strategic planning is the overall planning that facilitates the good management of a process. Furthermore, strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy. In this context, there are some important concepts which are related to the concept of strategy and strategic planning. These con- cepts are mission, vision, goals and objectives. These con- cepts are the key components of strategic planning. The first component is the mission. A strategic plan starts with a clearly defined mission which defines the fundamental pur- pose of an organization, briefly describing why it exists and what it does to achieve its vision. Mintzberg (1994) defines a mission as follows "A mission describes the organization's basic function in society, in terms of the products and ser- vices it produces for its customers". The second one is the vision which outlines what the organization wants to be. The vision is a long-term view and concentrates on the future. Other key components are goals and objectives. After de- termination of the organization's mission and vision, it is also important to determine goals and objectives which help the organization to guide, measure and evaluate its future strategies. Therefore, goals are general guidelines that ex- plain what you want to achieve. They are usually long-term and represent global visions. On the other hand, objectives form implementation steps to attain the identified goals. Unlike goals, objectives are specific, measurable, and have a defined completion date. 2.2. Strategic planning in the construction industry The concept of strategy and strategic planning is also very important in the construction industry. Several studies have been done in order to put forward the importance of strategic planning and strategic management in the construc- tion industry. One of them is the review of the application of strategic planning by enterprises in the construction industry [2]. It is found that all construction enterprises would ulti- mately have to consider strategic concepts to be able to operate effectively in the emerging industry context. Another study presents a methodological procedure for strategic planning in a con- struction company for the development of a competitive strategy [6]. The procedure consists of four steps such as examination of the company's mission, surveying the company's business environment, analyzing the company's main resources, and development of a strategy. Another methodology is described in order to ana- lyze construction firms' long-term strategies [7]. This meth- odology provides a systematic approach to study and ana- lyze external and internal scenarios for a construction firm doing strategic planning. The need for a strategic perspective has also been stressed by some country-specific studies, such as that in the UK construction industry. One of them is the study which sought to evaluate business strategies adopted by construction engineering firms within the UK in order to ascertain how they are coping with evolving market conditions [8]. Other study aimed to review the current use of strategic manage- ment and examined how strategic management practices were changed within UK construction organizations [9]. Another study reviewed recent literature on the strategic management process and considers several paradoxes viewed from a construction perspective [9]. It is found that for many construction organizations the key to success de- pends upon developing strategies that have an optimal bal- ance within these paradoxes. Moreover, studies on this sub- ject have been varied through different perspectives such as frameworks for corporate strategy. For instance, a new con- ceptual model for corporate strategy in the construction in- dustry is developed which adopts an open, generic format to cater to the diversities of success and failure factors in con- struction and the different theories related to strategy devel- opment [10]. Another study is aimed to provide a structured and integrated framework of corporate strategy in order to help practitioners and researchers identify critical issues related to the Chinese construction industry and analyze its dynamics from a holistic viewpoint [11]. Furthermore, a survey was conducted to determine how widespread strate- gic planning is used as a management tool by contractors in Ghana [12]. There are also studies in Turkey in order to determine the importance of strategy and strategic planning in the construction industry. One of them is the investigation of the international competitiveness of Turkish construction companies using Porter's diamond framework [13]. Another study is aimed to propose a conceptual framework for the analysis of a strategic perspective and present results of a questionnaire carried out to explore the strategic perspec- tives of Turkish contractors [14]. Two more study carried out in the Turkish construction industry is a study that aims to define the present position of Turkish construction compa- nies in terms of strategic management [15,16]. 3. METHODOLOGY To achieve the research objective, a questionnaire survey was used to collect factual profiles, perceptions and attitudes of the respondents [17,18]. The research focused on profes- sionals from the Palestinian Contractors Union (PCU) cate- gories that are classified under the building categories in Gaza Strip. These categories are "1st, 2nd, 3rd, Building categories" that have valid registration. The small categories (4th and 5th) were not considered due to the low practical Khalid El-Hallaq, Bassam A. Tayeh/ Strategic Planning in Construction Companies in Gaza Strip (2015) and administrative experience of these companies in con- struction works and the low experience of their subcontrac- tors. Based on the list of registered contractors at the PCU in January 2011, the size of population for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, building categories was 149 companies. To determine the sample size for each population of con- tracting companies, Kish (1965) equation was used. n= n'/ [1+(n'/N)] n' is the sample size from infinite population, which can be calculated from this formula [n' = S²/V²]. The definitions of all variable can be defined as the following: n: sample size from finite population. N: Total population (149 contracting companies). V: Standard error of sample population equal 0.05 for the confidence level 95%, t = 1.96. S²: Standard error variance of population elements, S²= P (1- P); maximum at P= 0.2 The sample size for the contractors' and subcontractors' pop- ulation can be calculated from the previous equations as follows: n' = S²/V² = (0.16)/(0.05)² = 64 n= 64/ [1+(64 / 149)] = 45 Although the calculated sample size for construction com- panies is 45, the questionnaires were distributed to 90 con- tracting companies to overcome the risk of low participation from the respondents and to ensure higher reliability and benefits of the study. Fortunately, the response rate was 73% for contracting companies. As shown in Table 1. Table 1: Sample Size and Response Rate of The Study Populations Population Category Total Population Calculated Sample Size Distributed questionnaire Number of respondents Response Rate Contracting companies 149 45 90 66 73% Moser and Kalton (1971) showed that a response rate of less than 30% is likely to produce results subject to non-response bias. Based on this, they obtained response rates of 73% are reasonable and will reflect good results and outputs. The good design of the questionnaire is a key to obtain good survey results and warranting a high rate of return. The questions of the research questionnaire are constructed based on:  Literature review.  Several interviews with consultants to obtain many basic important thoughts which can be useful for creating questions. A questionnaire survey was undertaken to determine the regarding factors affecting the use of strategic planning in construction companies in Gaza Strip. A six page question- naire, accompanied by a covering letter was sent to six con- sultants to judge and help creating it. The questionnaire comprised of two sections to accomplish the aim of this re- search, as follows: 1) Section One: General information about the companies. 2) Section Two: Factors affecting the use of strategic plan- ning in construction companies. Four previous studies [21-24] were incorporated in this re- search to compile a comprehensive list of factors. The previ- ous studies were used to build a comprehensive list of fac- tors affecting strategic planning in construction companies. It was decided to divide the factors into six main groups which are: 1. Factors related to the use of the company's strategic plan- ning, 2. Factors related to corporate Structure, 3. Factors related to the prevalence of a culture of strategic planning in the company, 4. Factors related to the application of the strategy, 5. Factors related to the optimal use of available resources, and 6. Factors related to the monitoring and evaluation of Strate- gy. In order to fit into conditions in the Palestinian construction industry, a pilot study was performed for preliminary ques- tionnaire. Six experienced experts were involved in this pilot study. All respondents were experienced industry profes- sionals; with an average working experience in the construc- tion industry of 25 years. The designations of the respond- ents were managing directors, general managers, and senior project managers. Therefore, it is expected that the data col- lected from them are reliable. The six respondents were asked to critically review the design and structure of the questionnaire. Their valuable comments and suggestions were used to revise the questionnaire. All suggested com- ments and modifications were taking into consideration. Minor changes, modifications, and additions were accom- modated based on pilot study findings to develop the final questionnaire. The questionnaire was validated by the crite- rion-related reliability test that measures the correlation co- efficients between the factors selected for in each group and for all groups as one entity, and structure validity test (Spearman test). Cornbach’s a coefficient of internal con- Khalid El-Hallaq, Bassam A. Tayeh/ Strategic Planning in Construction Companies in Gaza Strip (2015) 170 sistency reliability tests for level of frequency responses was also used. The relative index technique has been widely used in con- struction research for measuring attitudes with respect to surveyed variables. Several researches [24,25] used the rela- tive importance index in their analysis. The respondents were asked to gauge the identified interface problems on a five-point Likert scale (1 for the strongly disagree to 5 for the strongly agree). Based on the survey response, a relative importance index was tabulated using the following equa- tion: Relative Importance Index = N nnnnn AN w 5 12345 12345    Where W is the weighting given to each factor by the re- spondent, ranging from 1 to 5, (n1 = number of respondents for strongly disagree, n2 = number of respondents for disa- gree, n3 = number of respondents for neutral, n4 = number of respondents for agree, n5 = number of respondents for strongly agree). "A" is the highest weight (i.e. 5 in the study) and N is the total number of samples. The relative im- portance index ranges from 0 to 1. 4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Table 2 shows that the average mean equal 3.82 and the weight mean equal 76.36% which is greater than " 60%" and the value of t test equal 14.152 which is greater than the critical value which is equal 2.00 and the p- value equal 0.000 which is less than 0.05, that means the company's use strategic planning largely. Table 2: Determining the use of the company's strategic planning Items Mean standard deviation Weight mean t-value P- value 1-The company provides adequate time to prepare their strategic plans. 4.08 0.751 81.52 11.643 0.000 2-Managers are able to provide the time needed for the strategic planning process. 3.92 0.730 78.48 10.288 0.000 3-Management believes in the importance of clarify- ing the concept of strategic planning for workers. 3.85 0.864 76.97 7.981 0.000 4-The company has a clear message in the mind of the director. 4.00 0.911 80.00 8.913 0.000 5-The company has a future vision. 3.98 0.920 79.70 8.699 0.000 6-The company has the flexibility to meet the changes that occur in the environment and adapta- tion. 3.95 0.812 79.09 9.550 0.000 7-Management depends on a variety of information sources including personal experience in the prepa- ration of the strategic plan. 4.03 0.859 80.61 9.746 0.000 8-The company compare and choose between strate- gic alternatives. 3.77 0.675 75.45 9.304 0.000 9-The company evaluated and follow-up strategies in place. 3.83 0.796 76.67 8.507 0.000 10-Appropriate standards are developed in order to control the performance in the implementation of strategic plans. 3.89 0.844 77.88 8.609 0.000 11-The company moves to focus on projects with very short term, rather than large projects that re- quire a long period of time. 3.23 1.174 64.55 1.573 0.121 12-The company has a strong tendency to diversify its investment activities in the areas of different. 3.62 1.019 72.42 4.951 0.000 13- The company uses in the preparation of the plan for the SWOT to know the strengths and weaknesses and the risks and opportunities. 3.52 1.099 70.30 3.809 0.000 14-The company has a strong willingness to invest in opportunities and carrying out the risk of. 3.77 0.856 75.45 7.337 0.000 All items 3.82 0.470 76.36 14.152 0.000 *Critical value of t at df "65" and significance level 0.05 equal 2.00. From Table 4.2, it is shown that, The first factor " The com- pany provides adequate time to prepare their strategic plans" was ranked first and confirmed by the mean reaching 4.08 and the weight mean 81.52%, indicating that contractors agree completely that they devote sufficient time to develop strategic plans. Khalid El-Hallaq, Bassam A. Tayeh/ Strategic Planning in Construction Companies in Gaza Strip (2015) Table 3 shows that the average mean equal 3.72 and the weight mean equal 74.37 % which is greater than “60%” and the value of t test equal 12.080 which is greater than the critical value which is equal 2.00 and the p- value equal 0.000 which is less than 0.05, that means In developing the strategic plan is reviewed and revised the organizational structure in line with the strategic plan. Table 3: Corporate Structure (Organizational Structure) Items Mean standard deviation Weight mean t-value P- value 15- In developing the strategic plan is reviewed and revised the organizational structure in line with the strategic plan. 3.89 0.787 77.88 9.228 0.000 16- It Identify aspects of the activity in the organiza- tional structure according to the Strategic Planning. 3.83 0.815 76.67 8.308 0.000 17- There is an administrative post and wide to iden- tify those points in your company. 3.65 0.813 73.03 6.509 0.000 18-There are mechanisms to enable management to perform a monitoring role in the implementation of the strategic plan. 3.80 0.728 76.06 8.963 0.000 19- Serve the functional sites present in the compa- ny's strategic planning process. 3.82 0.893 76.36 7.445 0.000 20- Influenced by strategic planning staff turnover rate in the organizational structure. 3.64 0.939 72.73 5.508 0.000 21- Management is largely responsible for the fail- ure to implement plans, programs and contracts for their projects. 3.39 1.108 67.88 2.889 0.005 All items 3.72 0.483 74.37 12.080 0.000 *Critical value of t at df "65" and significance level 0.05 equal 2.00. From Table 4.3, it is shown that, The first factor also" In developing the strategic plan is reviewed and revised the organizational structure in line with the strategic plan" was ranked first and confirmed by the mean reaching 3.89 and the weight mean 77.88%, That most construction companies in the development of the strategic plan review and modify the organizational structure in line with the strategic plan. Table 4 shows that the average mean equal 3.55 and the weight mean equal 71.07%which is greater than “60%” and the value of t test equal 8.371 which is greater than the criti- cal value which is equal 2.00 and the p- value equal 0.000 which is less than 0.05, that means Encourage company management personnel at all organizational levels to partici- pate in strategic planning and Staff working in the company as a team to prepare a strategic plan . Table 4: The prevalence of a culture of strategic planning in the company Items Mean standard deviation Weight mean t-value P- value 22- The company encourage management personnel at all organizational levels to participate in strategic planning. 3.74 0.966 74.85 6.246 0.000 23- The company links it's management policy stra- tegic culture of the local community. 3.68 0.826 73.64 6.708 0.000 24- The company discuss its management strategic plan with the employees without imposing dictates. 3.20 0.996 63.94 1.607 0.113 25- Staff working in the company as a team to pre- pare a strategic plan. 3.79 0.937 75.76 6.833 0.000 26- Employees provides the information necessary for the implementation of the strategic planning ac- tivities. 3.61 0.820 72.12 6.001 0.000 27- The company aspire the management staff con- stantly on the future plans. 3.53 0.964 70.61 4.468 0.000 28- The company evolve its management staff to 3.44 1.040 68.79 3.433 0.001 Khalid El-Hallaq, Bassam A. Tayeh/ Strategic Planning in Construction Companies in Gaza Strip (2015) 172 Items Mean standard deviation Weight mean t-value P- value study obstacles to strategic planning. 29- The plan focuses the company's strategy to raise the level of services provided by. 3.67 0.934 73.33 5.801 0.000 30- Company is committed to working in the deci- sions of senior management. 3.82 0.858 76.36 7.750 0.000 31- The company's management develop a sense of the company's management to work in. 4.03 0.976 80.61 8.575 0.000 32- The discussion of ideas about working in the company is transformed to personal differences. 2.59 1.240 51.82 -2.680 0.009 All items 3.55 0.537 71.07 8.371 0.000 *Critical value of t at df "65" and significance level 0.05 equal 2.00. From Table 4.4, it is shown that, The tenth factor also" The company's management develop a sense of the company's management to work in" was ranked first and confirmed by the mean reaching 4.03 and the weight mean 80.61%, This high percentage shows the interest of overall management of the development of a sense of belonging for the Construc- tion companies because of its importance to the success of the administration's policies in the strategic planning pro- cess, and coincided a al- madhon (2007), Lashway (1997), the study Bliss (1999) this result with the result of Schaffer & Taylor (1984) and el jondi (1999). Through the develop- ment of performance and the involvement of employees and study. Table 5 shows that the average mean equal 3.84 and the weight mean equal 76.82% which is greater than “60%” and the value of t test equal 11.591which is greater than the criti- cal value which is equal 2.00 and the p- value equal 0.000 which is less than 0.05, that means company's specific strat- egy is implemented immediately and Plans that are devel- oped are applied to a significant. Table 5: The application of the strategy Items Mean standard de- viation Weight mean t-value P- value 33-When you use your company's specific strategy is implemented immediately. 3.89 0.767 77.88 9.466 0.000 34- Plans that are developed are applied to a sig- nificant (more than 75%). 3.79 0.691 75.76 9.264 0.000 All items 3.84 0.589 76.82 11.591 0.000 *Critical value of t at df "65" and significance level 0.05 equal 2.00. From Table 4.5, it is shown that, The first factor also" When you use your company's specific strategy is implemented immediately " was ranked first and confirmed by the mean reaching 3.89 and the weight mean 77.88%, This high per- centage shows that The construction companies, the imple- mentation of strategic plans, which put them in as soon as possible so as to changes in the external environment of constantly changing. Table 6 shows that the average mean equal 6.82 and the weight mean equal 76.49% which is greater than “60%” and the value of t test equal 12.155which is greater than the crit- ical value which is equal 2.00 and the p- value equal 0.000 which is less than 0.05, that means Administrative leaders are trained are able to maximize the utilization of resources and possibilities available. Khalid El-Hallaq, Bassam A. Tayeh/ Strategic Planning in Construction Companies in Gaza Strip (2015) Table 6: The optimal use of available resources Items Mean standard deviation Weight mean t-value P- value 35- limited resources available to the company. 4.05 0.732 80.91 11.597 0.000 36-There is participation by the various levels in- volved in the inventory of resource requirements. 3.86 0.762 77.27 9.204 0.000 37- providing the resources required for the exercise of strategic planning. 3.73 0.833 74.55 7.094 0.000 38-Employees are informed of the availability of the resources available. 3.77 0.908 75.45 6.914 0.000 39-the company works to stimulate the use of availa- ble resources. 3.82 0.875 76.36 7.592 0.000 40-Employees are trained on how to use the resources available. 3.82 0.783 76.36 8.493 0.000 41-Administrative leaders are trained to be able to maximize the utilization of resources and possibilities available. 3.73 0.937 74.55 6.304 0.000 All items 3.82 0.551 76.49 12.155 0.000 *Critical value of t at df "65" and significance level 0.05 equal 2.00. From Table 6, it is shown that, The first factor also" limited resources available to the company " was ranked first and confirmed by the mean reaching 4.05 and the weight mean 80.91%, this result coincided a attallah (2005) and also got the highest rank in her study. Table 7 shows that the average mean equal 3.95 and the weight mean equal 79.09 % which is greater than “60%” and the value of t test equal 11.774which is greater than the criti- cal value which is equal 2.00 and the p- value equal 0.000 which is less than 0.05, that means there is a wide participa- tion of management in the evaluation and review strategic plans. Table 7: Monitoring and Evaluation Strategy Items Mean standard deviation Weight mean t-value P- value 42-There is a wide participation of management in the evaluation and review strategic plans. 4.09 0.872 81.82 10.160 0.000 43-Your company to pursue other companies that produce or provide the same services. 3.91 0.836 78.18 8.832 0.000 44-The plan is reviewed after putting them on a regular basis (every year - six months -.....). 3.86 0.910 77.27 7.714 0.000 All items 3.95 0.659 79.09 11.774 0.000 *Critical value of t at df "65" and significance level 0.05 equal 2.00. From Table 7, it is shown that, The first factor also" limited resources available to the company " was ranked first and confirmed by the mean reaching 4.09 and the weight mean 81.82%, this refers that most construction companies are encouraged to participate in the evaluation and review of strategic plans through the work of a periodic review of plans. 5. Conclusion - The study showed that the percentage (76.36 %) of those surveyed agree that the strategic planning is used in the construction companies, which is a large use. - The study showed that (74.37%) of the study sam- ple there a relationship between strategic planning in construction companies and the organizational structure of the college, and that fit with the strate- gic planning process. - The study showed that the percentage (71.07%) of a sample of the study support a relationship be- tween Strategic planning in the construction com- panies and the prevalence of a culture of strategic planning , to serve the process Planning and devel- opment of the construction company. - Construction companies have plans with short and long term and have the vision, mission and goals Khalid El-Hallaq, Bassam A. Tayeh/ Strategic Planning in Construction Companies in Gaza Strip (2015) 174 are clear. 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