European Project Management Journal, Volume 7, Issue 1, December 2017
Corresponding author. Email: benedictamade@yahoo.com 24
ISSN 2560-4961(online)
© 2017 YUPMA
www.spmjournal.rs
THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN ACHIEVING EFFECTIVE
COMMUNICATION IN CONSTRUCTION PROJECT DELIVERY
Benedict Amade
Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Nigeria
Abstract: The role of social media in recent times has been interesting and captivating to the
extent that they are seen as some sort of disruptive technologies that are altering the basic
foundations of most firms. It is against this backdrop that thisstudy sought to investigate the
impact of social media in achieving effective communication in construction project delivery in
Owerri, Nigeria. Using a simple random sampling technique, responses from 221 site based
professionals representing 74% of the respondents were analyzed using inferential statistics via
the means of Partial Least Squares (PLS) modeling technique. Results indicate that the use of
Face book, Blogs and RSS feeds, Instant messaging, Tweeter and YouTube positively affects
effective communication in construction project delivery in Owerri. The study recommends
amongst others that the professionals within the built environment industry should make more
effort in deploying of ICTs and specifically social media tools in communicating all their
project management information and deliverables on line real time.
Key words: Communication, Construction project delivery, Owerri, Partial least squares,
Project, Project management, Social media
1. INTRODUCTION
Digital technologies have radically
transformed the ways projects are delivered of
recent (White, Stasis &Lindkvist, 2016). The
evolution of project management as opined by
White et al. (2016) is closely associated with
the developments in systems engineering,
modern management theory, and the evolution
of computers. Nowadays, cloud computing,
mobile hardware devices and other integrated
software are increasingly being used for
storage, retrieval, automated search, as well as
for prototyping and simulating functions. This
technologies according to White et al.(2016)
are being adopted in project-based industries
and their subsequent deployment is breaking
the mould of established approaches to project
management by enabling a more rapid and
agile forms of organizing in project
management. Effective communication plays
an importance role in the success of a project.
According to Remidez and Jones (2012),
studies abound on projects where it was found
that projects that spanned organizational
boundaries, as well as a good communication
between project managers and sponsors are a
necessary condition for effective
communication across project team
boundaries. They further stated that
“successful project managers communicated
in ways that promoted good relationships and
conveyed project status information while
adapting the communication style to the
project’s characteristics and organizational
context” (p.34). According to Turan and Sahin
(2012), wikis, blogs, tagging, podcasts and
other social business networking websites
such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube
and the rest have radically altered most user
interactions on the web from a static, one-
directional, consumption process to a more
dynamic, multi-directional and participatory
process.
According to APM (2014), social media is
usually adjudged as a major external platform
consisting of such tools as Facebook, Twitter
and LinkedIn. However, a handful of internal
social platforms exist within organizations
which are specifically tailored to suit some
projects. They further stated that, social media