THE PRACTICE OF COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT OF CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS: THE CASE OF ETHIOPIAN TOLL ROADS ENTRPRISE

Abstract

At the time where project management becomes as a norm for many organizations, research suggests that communication management is one of the key areas in project management. This research, therefore, examines the current practice of communication management in construction projects in the case of the Ethiopian toll roads enterprise. In this descriptive study, questionnaire(survey) through physically distributed for all the six departments with a total of 41 samples by census survey which directly and indirectly involve in construction projects with experts/engineers, team leaders and managers and descriptive research design is adopted. The finding of the study indicates that the current practice of communication management in the study areas shows a gap with respect to the benchmark practice of Project communication principles outlined by PMI. In addition, the communication skills of team leaders and managers have been found as satisfactory and a few levels conflict, has been observed between the study organization and its stakeholders such as vendors and consultants. The communication channel, commonly used by the organization, was a telephone and verbal communication that has limitations in project management processes. Finally, the level of intention /focus given to communication management by the study organization was also enough with respect to what it should have been. Accordingly, this result the study organization is recommended to use more formal communication instead of informal, enhance the communication management process to follow communication processes outlined by PMI.