Beyond the Iron Triangle in Public Construction Projects

Abstract

Traditionally, construction professionals have focused on time, cost, and quality tradeoffs for successful completion of public construction projects. In addition to this, no-dispute and safety criteria have also been added, but the distinguishing feature of public construction projects is the oversight mechanism. Therefore, compliance with audit regulation and transparency parameters is a must. Defenders of financial- and transparency-related regulations assert that these are necessary for fair performance and can help prevent corruption. However, their compliance is still felt to be a hindrance in the domain of public construction projects and remains a neglected area. It is hypothesized that public construction project performance is influenced by the compliance of norms, composed of transparency- and audit-related variables. This study validated the relationship between compliance of audit and transparency regulations and public construction project performance. Thereafter, the irregularities related to audit and transparency regulations were studied to develop a comprehensive list based on a questionnaire survey using the Delphi method of analysis. The findings reveal the frequently, sometimes, and seldom occurring irregularities, which, if taken care of, will help in making the project transparent and audit-compliant. Therefore, it is strongly recommended to adopt the compliance of audit and transparency norms as one of the criteria in public construction projects besides time, cost, quality, safety, and no-dispute to reduce corruption. This qualitative study from the Indian perspective can be applied to the entire public projects domain worldwide after customization of relevant items.