Uso de criterios múltiples para introducir y clasificar los criterios de diseño

de recompensa en proyectos de construcción

Using multiple criteria to enter and rank reward design criteria in construction projects

Masoud Koochakzadeh

1

, Valiollah Azizifar

2a

Ghaemshahr Branch, Islamic Azad University, Ghaemshahr, Iran

12

esta investigación se clasifican los criterios de diseño de recompensas en proyectos de

construcción. En el presente estudio, para identificar y clasificar los criterios de asignación de

recompensas a los empleados se utilizaron los métodos de Demetel y la expansión del

desempeño de calidad difusa en dos pasos. Los resultados mostraron que la ética profesional

es el criterio más importante para la asignación de recompensas a los empleados en los

proyectos de construcción. Los resultados muestran que considerar el clima laboral de los

proyectos de construcción, mantener la disciplina y tener compromiso organizacional y ayudar

a los demás es muy importante. Además, tener el espíritu de trabajo en equipo y cooperación

con los demás es muy importante para trabajar en estos entornos. Uno de los puntos destacables

en los hallazgos de este estudio es la menor atención prestada por los gerentes de obra al uso

Abstract

The objective of this study was to The Use of Multi-Criteria Decision Making to Introduce and

Rank of Design Criteria of Reward in Construction Projects. In this research, the design criteria

of rewards in construction projects are ranked. In the present study, in order to identify and

a

Correspondencia al autor

E-mail: v.azizifar@gmail.com

ethics is the most important criterion for reward allocation to the employees in the construction

projects. Results show that considering the work environment of construction projects,

maintaining discipline and having organizational commitment and helping others is very

important. Also, having the spirit of teamwork and cooperation with others is very important

for working in such environments. One of the notable points in the findings of this study is the

less attention paid by construction managers to the use of labor quantity measurement

indicators as a criterion for reward allocation and more attention to quality criteria such as

professional ethics, creativity, etc., which shows the difference between the nature of the work

and the end product of this industry with manufacturing industries such as parts manufacturing.

compensation and rewards fixed with the budget and revenues. The set of performance

evaluation and reward system and effective wage, forms the performance management of an

organization (Valipour, 2018).

The selection of an effective reward system is done in different ways, one of which is

the performance-based payment method. the reward is also one of the types of performance-

based payment that in various sectors of industry, both public and private, forms of It is

available. Housing as one of the primary and basic living needs of human beings and

households of a society in particular, and so the construction industry and its related jobs have

a special rank in Iran economy today (Sepehri Rad, 2019). This industry has a share of 14.2%

of employees in the country based on annual statistics of 2017 except the part of the service

sector that is indirectly related to it and is one of the thriving businesses in the country (Onishi,

Ontime delivery of projects, especially in the mass production sector, while having its

materials and wages of specialized works and compliance with the time table and schedule of

contracts, also has significant political effects in gaining popular satisfaction and economic

education, so there is a need to review the reward system to improve medical education. In this

study, the lack of a proper evaluation system has been identified as one of the main reasons for

the failure of the reward system project.

Sepehri Rad (2019) has proposed a mathematical model of reward payment for

employees of the organization with a 360-degree performance evaluation approach in the

National Productivity Organization. In this study, at first the indicators of employee

based on the characteristics of the studied organization and similar to Valipour (2018) study

into four categories of personal characteristics, technical skills, human skills and perceptual

Yang and Chen (2018) propose an incentive payment system for project management

based on the responsibilities allocation matrix and fuzzy language variables. This study

presents a new payment system for active team members in each project. Performance

evaluation is performed without specifying a specific criterion and based on judgments made

with the help of fuzzy linguistic variables. In this system, four models are proposed for different

project management conditions.

studied organization. The criteria used in this study to evaluate employee performance are:

production ability, ability to be creative and innovative, financial performance and how to serve

customers.

Opheli (2019) in a study on construction companies operating in the Nigerian industry,

considers the factors affecting the general reward systems as including the internal and external

factors. Internal factors include organizational culture, organizational strategy and

organizational life cycle. External factors also include the market, specialization, productivity

indicators, and human-personnel relations activities. He also suggests the factors affecting on

payment based on performance as the performance evaluation, education and development,

union-manager relations, and organizational culture. In this study, the determinant factors of

wage for life.

Lai et al. (2020) conducted a comparative study about the impact of human resource

operations, including performance and reward evaluation and reward, in safety management in

construction projects in the United States and Singapore. Based on this research, criteria such

as reporting unsafe or dangerous actions, fewer accidents, individual safety performance and

group safety performance have been selected as criteria for rewarding the safety management

terms of safety and rewarding employees based on their safety performance is effective on the

safety management of construction projects.

in jobs where performance-based pay was implemented than in other jobs. They then propose

a model in which employees with greater ability and higher risk tolerance receive greater

rewards through performance-based pay. With the implementation of this model, employee

satisfaction was assessed equally in all jobs, but employees in jobs that were paid based on

performance and had a higher risk tolerance, expressed higher satisfaction.

Onishi (2020) examines the effects of service compensation schemes on Research and

resources managers of the construction companies that are implementing the reward plan or

are at first steps of this implementation.

In this study, due to the limited number of experts as well as senior managers of the

studied construction organizations where were implementing the reward plan, the available

sampling method is used. Due to the fact that the statistical population of the research is limited

to experts with experience in the field of service compensation systems, reward systems and

will be questioned.

Figure 1 shows the steps of conducting research.

used in this research:

Triangular method: In this method, several researchers, several data sources, or several

methods are used to validate emerging data. In this research, by choosing a mixed

method and using the literature and opinions of experts, we try to increase the validity

of the obtained model.

To determine the reliability of the researches such as the present study, much of which

is qualitative, there is no need to determine reliability in the form of statistical research, but to

- Triangulation: In this method, similar to what is used to confirm validity, it is also

used to confirm reliability. This means that the use of mixed research method can show the

reliability of research findings.

- Auditing by an arbitrator: In this method, the researcher increases the reliability of the

research results by clarifying how to collect data, how categories are derived and how to make

a decision during the investigation for the auditor and its approval by the arbitrator. In this

- Retest method: To conduct the retest method, three interviews are selected and each

of them is coded twice in a period of 20 days by the researcher. Then the retest reliability

which was more than the minimum acceptable value of 60%.

In this research, in order to analyze the qualitative data obtained from the interviews,

the theme analysis method is used. Theme analysis is a method of determining, analyzing, and

expressing patterns (themes) within data. This method, at a minimum, organizes the data and

describes it in detail. But it can go beyond this and interpret different aspects of the research

topic. The six stages of theme analysis are described below (Clark and Brown, 2016):

Step 1. Prepare and familiarize with the data: Before analyzing the data, the data should

be easy to work with.

Step 2. Creating the initial codes: The second step begins when the researcher has

- In the sixth step, the causal relationship diagram is made based on the values of ri +

ci and ri-ci.

By reviewing the results of literature review and analyzing the data obtained from

interviews, eight criteria for reward allocation and ten consequences of reward plan

implementation were identified, which are presented in Tables 2 and 3 below. Criteria and

consequences are introduced in these tables, which in addition to the results of data analysis,

value creation (C7) are the factors which have both a high impact on other criteria and a high

impact from other criteria. But the factors of creativity and innovation (C3), teamwork (C4),

knowledge and ability to use it (C6) and professional ethics (C8) according to the positive

values of ri-ci, are located in the cluster of causal criteria. Also, the factors of project

performance (C1), task performance (C2), stakeholder satisfaction (C5) and value creation and

profitability (C6) with respect to the negative values of ri-c, are known in the cluster of disabled

The causal criteria that have the greatest impact on other criteria and therefore should

be used in designing an effective reward system are: knowledge and ability to use it (C6),

DEMATEL method is a tool that is used always to identify the internal relationships between

concepts than rather than rank them Therefore, it is necessary to prioritize the four criteria of

identified causes by using a complementary multi-criteria decision method. For this purpose,

the fuzzy quality performance expansion approach is used.

In this part of the research, the 9 expected consequences of the implementation of the

their greater importance in the ranking process by using fuzzy quality performance expansion.

In the following, data analysis using DEMATEL method is presented.

plan presented in Table 3, experts were asked to in order to determination of impacts of each

of the expected consequences on the others and to identification the internal relationship among

2 (high impact) and 3 (very high impact). Then the arithmetic mean led to summarize the

opinions of experts. Table 9 summarizes the opinions of experts in this regard.

experts who had sufficient experience and knowledge in the implementation of the reward plan,

the most important criteria that can be used in construction projects were identified. In order to

prioritize the above criteria, it was necessary to identify the expected consequences of the

implementation of the reward plan in order to prioritize the reward allocation criteria based on

these consequences. The expected consequences of the implementation of the reward plan were

also identified with the help of semi-structured interviews.

In this regard, by using interviews and questionnaires from face-to-face meetings with

experts and then using DEMATEL method, the expected criteria were clustered and then the

interviews with industry experts show that designing a reward system with a wide variety of

criteria is very difficult and inefficient, and impose a heavy cost of performance evaluation on

the organization. Therefore, the use of DEMATEL and clustering of criteria helps, in addition

to reducing the number of used criteria , due to the use of causal and vital criteria, the role of

approach that in addition to identifying and ranking reward allocation criteria and Identifying

the consequences of reward plan implementation also helps to identify the internal relationships

between criteria and consequences. In this section, it is tried to answer the research questions

in form of the description of the research findings. With a comprehensive review of the

literature on reward allocation criteria, the following 16 criteria were identified as the most

- Quantity of tasks; - Quality of tasks; - Hours of presence at work; - Cooperation and

teamwork; - Effectiveness; - Performance; - Profitability; - Efficiency; - work

experience; - working conditions; - Discipline; - creativity and innovation; - Skills and

knowledge; - Ethics; - stakeholders satisfaction; - education;

The results of conducting semi-structured interviews with experts and analyzing the

data obtained from the interviews using the theme analysis method show that the

following 8 criteria are the most important criteria in reward allocation in construction

projects:

- Project performance; - doing duties; - creativity and innovation; - team work; -

stakeholders satisfaction; - Knowledge and ability to use it;- Profitability and value

its evaluation is usually synonymous with performing the assigned tasks and in accordance

with the criteria of performance evaluation and stakeholder satisfaction. The three criteria of

length of presence in the organization, level of experience and level of education, although

used in many companies as criteria for reward allocation, but since the reward is related to non-

fixed payment, and the criteria of length of presence in the organization, the level of experience

and the level of education are usually included in the payments and fixed salaries of individuals,

were eliminated from the final criteria.

The results of the analysis of the data obtained from the interviews with the experts

show that there are other themes that need to be considered. One of the most important themes

discovered from qualitative data is the expected consequences of reward plan implementation.

In fact, the results of the interviews showed that it is not possible to prioritize the reward

for reward allocation must be prioritized and the reward plan must be implemented. According

to the research findings, the most important consequences of the implementation of the plan

(2018) in them study presents a new payment system for active team members in each project.

Performance evaluation is performed without specifying a specific criterion and based on

judgments made with the help of fuzzy linguistic variables. In this system, four models are

proposed for different project management conditions. Maslahi and Zafar Khan (2019) have

studied the factors affecting the productivity of employees in construction projects and in spite

of considering factors such as temperature, relative humidity, type of work and the method

used. They have not pointed to the factors like payment and reward and its effect on the

efficiency.

Findings of the research after examining the internal relationships between reward

allocation criteria and their clustering using the DEMATEL method show that among the final

This is done by identifying the factors that generally have the greatest impact on the system

and receive the most impact from the system. Accordingly, the results of data analysis using

the DEMATEL method show that the criteria of stakeholder satisfaction, professional ethics,

teamwork and profitability and value creation have the greatest impact on the system and the

most impact from the system.

Also, findings of the research after examining the internal relationships between the

expected consequences of the reward plan implementation and their clustering using the

DEMATEL method show that among the 9 consequences, the learning and personal growth of

of increasing employee motivation and job satisfaction, improving customer and stakeholder

satisfaction, improving effectiveness, improving efficiency and increasing profitability are

placed in the cluster of effect consequences.

The results of this research are in line with the following research. Cornellison et al.

(2020) in their research show that employee satisfaction was higher in jobs where performance-

based pay was implemented than in other jobs. They then propose a model in which employees

based pay. With the implementation of this model, employee satisfaction was assessed equally

in all jobs, but employees in jobs that were paid based on performance and had a higher risk

compensation schemes on Research and Developement Organization of Japan staff

innovations. In this research, the evaluation criterion is the criteria based on income and

innovation and the results show that monetary incentives based on the performance of

inventions, lead to increasing the motivation of innovative employees.

Likewise, the results of data analysis using DEMATEL method show that the

consequences of improving efficiency, learning and personal growth of employees and

ethics is the most important criterion for reward allocation. After this criterion, is the criterion

of teamwork. After these two criteria are the criteria of creativity - innovation and knowledge-

ability to use it, respectively. These findings show that considering the work environment of

construction projects, maintaining discipline and having organizational commitment and

helping others is very important.

Conclusion

According to the results, it can be said that the professional ethics is the most important

criterion for reward allocation to the employees in the construction projects. findings show that

considering the work environment of construction projects, maintaining discipline and having

One of the notable points in the findings of this study is the less attention paid by

construction managers to the use of labor quantity measurement indicators as a criterion for

reward allocation and more attention to quality criteria such as professional ethics, creativity,

etc., which shows the difference between the nature of the work and the end product of this

industry with manufacturing industries such as parts manufacturing.

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