Procurement System Influences the Size of In-house Team and Effectiveness in Infrastructure Development

Several efforts have been dedicated to studying the factors responsible for the successful execution of capital infrastructure projects. Similarly, some researchers have separately studied the influence of the procurement system, the size of in-house professional teams and the process of selecting contractors on the successful execution of capital projects. However, there is limited evidence of studies of the interaction of these three factors on the successful execution of specific capital projects. This leads to the importance of this research. The multiple-site case study method of qualitative research was adopted. The research compared the structure, operation, and success in infrastructure delivery of the capital development units in two higher education institutions in South Africa. The findings revealed that one institution uses the relationship-based procurement system, while the other adopts the traditional procurement system. The conclusions arrived at are that the procurement system influenced the size of the in-house professional team, but the quality of contractors significantly impacted on the success of infrastructure delivery. Therefore, this research recommends that contractor selection processes should be systematically implemented, irrespective of the procurement system.