Construction Management and Economics (December 2009) 27, 1157–1173 Construction Management and Economics ISSN 0144-6193 print/ISSN 1466-433X online © 2009 Taylor & Francis http://www.informaworld.com DOI: 10.1080/01446190903222395 Identification of key liability risks of supervision engineers in China JIAYUAN WANG, JIAN LIU*, ZEGAO LIAO and PEI TANG College of Civil Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China Taylor and Francis Received 24 December 2008; accepted 30 July 2009 10.1080/01446190903222395 Until the present, the supervision engineer’s liability risks in China have mostly been analysed by means of a qualitative approach by which it is difficult to identify the key liability risks of the Chinese supervision profession. Two questionnaire surveys were conducted to find out the supervision liability risks. The causes of those risks were analysed by reference to Chinese laws, regulations and questionnaire survey results. The score of the relative importance was creatively used to quantify the liability risks. Eleven key liability risks with higher scores of relative importance were identified. The risks have important influences on project quality, safety production and supervision profession development. The research results provide valuable information not only to government departments, professional associations, Chinese supervision engineers and supervision firms, but also to the foreign companies that offer services in China. The quantitative research method can be employed for other questionnaire surveys such as construction project quality and safety accidents. Keywords: Liability risks, risk management, supervision, supervision engineer. Introduction In the late 1980s, a supervision system was initially introduced into hydropower and transportation projects in order to improve the quality and efficiency of construction project management in China. The past 20 years have witnessed the success achieved by the supervision system, which has played an important role in quality, cost, safety and time management. In 1996, the supervision system was extended to the entire construction industry, but it was not made mandatory. A series of laws and regulations for the construction supervision system have been legislated and imple- mented since 1997. These laws and regulations include the Construction Law issued in 1997, the Contract Law and the Safety Production Law in 2002, the Regula- tions on the Quality Management of Construction Projects in 2000 and the Regulations on Safety Produc- tion of Construction Projects in 2003 (Standing Committee, 1997, 2002a, 2002b; State Council, 2000, 2003). The Code of Construction Project Management was developed and implemented (GB50319-2000) in 2001 (CAEC, 2001). The legal status of the supervision system has been acknowledged by the above laws and regulations. The supervision industry has developed substantially in recent years. Under the Chinese super- vision system, the supervision firm provides supervision services during the construction phase according to the laws, regulations, construction project supervision contract and other documents. The supervision engi- neers are the employees of the supervision firm who carry out the supervision work on project sites accord- ing to the Chinese laws, regulations, standards and construction contracts (MOC, 2006a). According to the Yearbook of Chinese Construction Industry 2006, there are about 6000 supervision firms and over 430 000 supervision engineers in the construction industry (MOC, 2006b). The supervision firm conducts the project supervi- sion management according to (1) construction project documents approved by the relevant government departments; (2) relevant laws and regulations; (3) the construction project supervision contract; and (4) other project construction contracts in the Provisions on Construction Supervision made by the Ministry of Construction in 1996 (MOC, 1996). The supervision work mainly includes quality, cost, safety, time management and coordination with the client, the *Author for correspondence. E-mail: liujian@szu.edu.cn