Impacts of COVID-19 on construction project management: a life cycle perspective
Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management
ISSN: 0969-9988
Article publication date: 7 June 2022
Issue publication date: 1 September 2023
Abstract
Purpose
The impacts of COVID-19 on construction projects have attracted much attention in the construction management research community. Nevertheless, a systematic review of these studies is still lacking. The purpose of this paper is to systematically analyze the impacts of COVID-19 on the different stages of a project life-cycle, and comprehensively sort out the epidemic response measures adopted by project participants. In addition, the study also attempts to explore the challenges and opportunities faced by project management practitioners under the context of COVID-19.
Design/methodology/approach
This study comprehensively demonstrates the systematic review process of COVID-19 related research in the construction industry, systematically summarizes the research status of the impact of COVID-19 on construction projects, and defines the strategies to deal with COVID-19 in project management; and through the visualization research, determines the current key research topics and future research trends.
Findings
This study identifies 11 construction activities in the project management life cycle that are affected by COVID-19 and finds that the COVID-19 epidemic has the greatest impact on construction workers, construction standards, construction contracts and construction performance. The study further summarizes the six main epidemic countermeasures and mitigation measures taken within the construction industry following the arrival of the epidemic. In addition, the results of this study identify opportunities and future trends in intelligent construction technology, rapid manufacturing engineering and project management in the construction industry in the post-epidemic era through literature results, which also provide ideas for related research.
Practical implications
COVID-19 has brought severe challenges to society. It is of great significance for the future sustainable development of the construction industry to identify the impact of COVID-19 on all phases of the project and to promote the development of coping strategies by project stakeholders.
Originality/value
First of all, there is little study comprehensively reviewing the impacts of COVID-19 on the different stages of construction projects and the strategies to deal with the negative impacts. In addition, from a life cycle perspective, the used articles in this study were grouped into different categories based on project stages. This promotes an integrated and comprehensive understanding of historical studies. Moreover, on the basis of a comprehensive review, this paper puts forward future research directions to promote the sustainable development of the construction sector.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the professionals who collaborated on this study. The authors would also like to thank all the reviewers who provided suggestions to improve this paper.
Funding: This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China ( 72071096, 71971100, 71671078); the Social Science Fund of Jiangsu Province (19GLB005, 19GLB018); The Key Project of Philosophy and Social Science Research in Colleges and Universities in Jiangsu Province (2018SJZDI052) sponsored by Qing Lan Project of Jiangsu Province; the Key Research Base of Universities in Jiangsu Province for Philosophy and the Social Science Research Center for Green Development and the Environmental Governance.
Declaration of competing interest: There is no conflict of interest.
Citation
Li, Z., Jin, Y., Li, W., Meng, Q. and Hu, X. (2023), "Impacts of COVID-19 on construction project management: a life cycle perspective", Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Vol. 30 No. 8, pp. 3357-3389. https://doi.org/10.1108/ECAM-10-2021-0873
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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