Taxonomy of The Causes of Cost Overrun in Building Construction Projects

In general, time and cost variations versus its objective represent the performance of the construction project. Most studies have spent much time finding and assessing potential causes that might overcome construction costs in the past and have linked their studies to the impact and cost overrun causes. A deeper knowledge of the factors that cause cost overrun is however necessary from the viewpoint of the parties concerned in the construction industry (client/owner, contractor and consultant), in this case in Iran and Nigeria as regions of concern. Cost overrun causation causes vary according to geography and political, economic, and cultural considerations. This study aims to check the level of agreement between the parties involved from their different point of view. Also, the level of agreement between Iran and Nigeria on the causes of cost overrun in building construction projects by applying the Mann Whitney U test, Kruskal-Wallis H test, and Post hoc test parametric tests. And finally, using the relative importance index and Pareto analysis, discover the most important factors causing cost overruns in building projects. A new parameter was introduced, Manageability, in the evaluation of risk assessment (i.e. the product of the probability of occurrence and impact) because of the capacity of people to cope with each risk factor. As a result, the goal of this study is to discover and categorize possible cost overrun causes from a new perspective by utilizing a systematic framework to extract the components from an extensive literature analysis and rating the most important cost overrun factors.