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Necessary Competencies of Construction Managers in Iran as a Developing Country

One of the most significant obstacles in Iran as a developing country is related to non-productive investments or delay on productivity of construction projects. Following the development in the business world, the challenges for handling the businesses toward productivity raised as well. Construction industry plays an important role in the foundation of economy everywhere. Therefore, to undertake pushing and leading the projects through the challenges to achieve the productivity and the competitive business advantages, a proper leadership by a competent Construction Manager (CM) is essential. Necessary competencies and the importance of the competencies regarding the dominant challenges at working environment are the objectives of this study. In order to gather data, both quantitative and qualitative surveys were employed in the study. Interview for the first objective and questionnaire under Delphi method have been utilized to fulfill the objectives respectively. By the results of the survey, the projects’ authorities can recognize the essential competencies and their priority needed for a CM to be involved in the projects.


INTRODUCTION
A developing country contains many construction projects everywhere in different sizes. Since, there are many important construction projects in the country; the role of a construction manager is one of the significant factors to push the projects towards productivity. Issue of untimely completion of a project can mean not to return investment and following that appearance of inflation in economy. It has been as a problem which countries have faced. In other words, the successful progress of a project can be on the duty of a construction manager related to the main requirements considered in design such as quality, schedule, cost and safety. Therefore, the role of construction manager is as the most significant factors on the economic foundation of countries due to the huge investment on construction project. At the early of 1990s, falling of construction demands caused severe competition leading to unexpected progress in the industry (Edum-Fotwe and McCaffer, 2000).
Nowadays, given construction complexities and increasing fast productivity demands cause a construction management system to be had to compatible with progress of technology and specialized tools to achieve such goals (Tucker, 1986). Awareness about how the project must be led and what method is suitable or how to do a job, need perfect plans and different knowledge especially with the complex management of construction projects associated with labor organizations with regard to labor laws and civil engineering machinery and increasing workshop costs. Today, managing project affairs have been emerged as a technology and science. Meaning that, just worker discipline cannot meet the solutions for the problems which are being faced in the construction sites (Klein, 2001).
Following the changes in the industry, project managers have to combine their roles with the aspects of technical, engineering, accuracy, reliability of quality and cost performance that some of them had not been included in their roles previously.
The talent of obtaining the highest quality and quantity of work progress with the least expenses is one of the most highlighted targets of a construction manager. In fact, awareness of the value of time and manpower, materials and machineries are the basic necessities for a construction manager to push the projects (Cheetham and Lewis, 2001). A CM must always seek the appropriate method and principle for organizing and carrying out the jobs on the best way to achieve the better benefits for the projects. For this purpose, there must be a manager with different specialization and significant characteristics.
To launch a construction project, the following five basic principles were offered by technical experts: • Responsibility management  (Clough et al., 2000). Certainly this view requires the appropriate competency model of CM in the industry. Therefore, to identify the competencies and their prioritization are the most significant step towards employing a construction manager who are competent to achieve organizational goals.
The role of leaders has been seen as a precipitator toward the goals of the project. The most significant goals by a construction manager are timely completion, quality and cost control (Clough et al., 2000). Thus, personality and specialization characteristics of a construction manager can play the essential role to achieve such objectives. It means that the personality and specialization pattern could affect hiring successful CMs. In other words, the lack of competencies pattern to predict a successful construction manager can cause deviation in leading projects. Following that, the employers may find later that their assessment of the construction manager employed would not be extracted during construction such as the way they expected. Therefore, recognition of competencies coming along their priorities and a predictor of competency level can lead to hire a suitable construction manager.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Nowadays, business environment in the world is a competitive environment. In order to survive in such challenging environment, the best companies in the world need to be qualified and possess some capabilities. For example, they have to possess enough information that firms need to have. They also need sufficient information about work forces, duties and expertise as well as training and instructions to play their role in business environment (Pfeffer, 1996). In the modern world, as technological growth is increasing, new courses of actions and missions are imposed to organizations in business environment. In other words, technological development has exposed the organizations to very quick alterations that make them more competitive (Davenport, 1993). This situation brings them more difficulties and obstacles. As an instance, what the employees expect now is not similar to what they hoped to have or happen a hundred years ago or before that. Also, the growth of technology affects demographic elements such as change in the population of children as well as decreasing the population of old people in the community or spending more money for health insurance and using the benefits of welfare (Markus and Robey, 1988).
In order to cope with such challenges, organizations should be able to improve their leadership potentials effectively and give a global attitude to their workforces. Moreover, these organizations should promote the competencies in their employees and also recognize the necessary competencies in order to select a competent person. Hence, in such a condition HR professionals are playing a noticeably harder, more challenging and more complicated role by focusing on the competencies (Tang and Liu, 2012).

Definitions of competency:
The words of competence and competencies have been utilized by a big number of groups including management theorists, educational practitioners, HR managers and industrial psychologists (Brophy and Kiely, 2002). The term "competency" has been interpreted differently. They believed that a person who has competency is someone who is able to perform an occupational role in very various conditions in a long period of time (Koenigsfeld et al., 2012). Competencies consist of expertise, information, capabilities, motivation and other necessary elements required for doing a job efficiently (Kormanik et al., 2009). Competency is interpreted as a note and written description of personal expertise and work habits that are employed to reach the purpose of the work (Zingheim and Schuster, 2009).
The term competencies, applied in another book written by Ulrich et al. (2008), was considered as expertise, knowledge and manner that are demonstrated by people in their career. Indeed, the nature of competencies is technical and its orientation is social, whereas capabilities refer to a combination of capacities possessed by an organization (García-Barriocanal et al., 2012). Competencies include two aspects: one aspect identifies the skills that are necessary for doing a job and the second aspect identifies the functions that are essential to do the job more efficiently. A study on 292 organizations revealed that practices were the foundation of 75% of competency. Based on the various definitions suggested for the term competency, it consists of individual skill, capacities, potentials, information, manners, propensity and judgment that are utilized to carry out what is required or necessary in order to fulfill the performance objectives of an organization (Cook and Bernthal, 1998). Competency is applied to achieve the objectives of an organization, to concentrate on business challenges and to bring more success and more achievements for the organization as well as to help the workers perform more efficiently and succeed simultaneously (Zingheim and Schuster, 2009).

Approaches on the comprehension of competencies:
Competencies include two aspects: one aspect identifies the skills that are necessary for doing a job and the second aspect identifies the functions that are essential to do the job more efficiently. Three dissimilar approaches related to competencies have been proposed in studies and literature since the early of 1970 to clarify the notion of competency. These approaches can be named as functional-standard approach, behavioral or personal competence approach and situational approaches (Koenigsfeld et al., 2012). Behavioral approach refers to some competencies which are common. This approach can address this question: "What competencies are influential in enhancing the effectiveness?" There are lots of subjects and possibilities in behavioral approach on which researchers can study. In general, the foundation of behavioral approach is the earlier period and on the subject of the quick alterations happening in business environment. However, this approach is based on the past and it is regarding the fast changes in business. No one can ensure that the competencies which were essential for organizations previously will be required in future (Koenigsfeld et al., 2012).
The second approach is standard approach. This approach was first proposed in England twenty years ago. The goal of standard approach is to determine the competencies that can influence behavior and achievements as well as positive criteria and constructive standards. According to standard approach, the most important factors and functions of an occupation should be initially identified and considered as satisfactory standards and criteria. Following that, this question is addressed: "In order to do the careers perfectly and enforce the determined standards, which competencies should be exercised? Standard approach, like the previous one ignored the significance of the influence that environment can have on the modification and alteration of competencies. Managers are not able to be isolated from their work atmosphere and have to work in a place with its specific environment and atmosphere. So the ignorance of the effect of environment is a shortcoming of standard approach (Koenigsfeld et al., 2012).
Situational approach is the last approach. This approach is not similar to the two other approaches. As researchers argue, organizations are usually influenced by situational as well as environmental elements. Situational approach discusses that all managers should possess some common competencies. Yet the kind of the competencies and the degree of their significance vary due to the variety of the nature of different organizations and the dissimilarity in jobs because these differences determine situational factors. It is cultural and environmental alterations, the features of work and the era of the society that determine the necessary competencies related to situational approach. The question addressed by this approach is: "In the present situation, which competencies are required to help organizations accomplish their strategic goals?" Every one of the three above mentioned approaches will be elaborated in the following subsections (Koenigsfeld et al., 2012). In general, the competencies could be categorized into five groups including: Leadership and Management competencies, personal competencies, communication-Social competencies, Strategic competencies and lastly supplementary competencies (Rasli et al., Year). These categories could be extended for construction managers as well (Fig. 1).

Definition of the competencies categories:
Strategic competencies: Strategic competencies refers to the capabilities and proficiency needed to recognize the occasions that exist outside and also the potencies and shortcomings existing in a system to be harmonized so that the formula can be executed and the crossfunctional decisions can be assessed so as to accomplish the objectives of the organization (Harrison and John, 2009).
Individual competencies: Individual competencies include individuals' capabilities and proficiency to manage them besides the capability to be imaginative and inventive to find the best solutions for problems and make the most useful choices (Martina et al., 2012).

Social and communication competencies:
The capability and proficiency which help a person generate influential relationships and get in touch and communicate with other people (Martina et al., 2012).

Management and leadership competencies:
It is utilized to refer to identifying opportunities, preparing appropriate plans and programs, systematizing the complex and monitoring the performances, that are some features of managers, to make them more beneficial, advantageous and favorable through competition and success (Tajaddini et al., 2010).

Complementary competencies:
The competencies which make something else complete, total and perfect (Tajaddini et al., 2010).

Introduction:
In this research, two major methods using different instruments were employed. In other words, sequential mixed method including both qualitative and quantitative methods was utilized. This study aimed to determine the crucial competencies and their importance. The instruments, questionnaire and interview have an important role in data collection and answering the research question.

Sequential mixed method:
In mixed method, the data is collected and analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively in a single and multiple researches (Tashakkori and Teddlie, 2010).
In mixed method, both qualitative and quantitative methods might be utilized as parallel and, at the same time, gradually or sequentially (Driscoll et al., 2007). In a research based on Sequential Mixed Method, a single kind of data (qualitative or quantitative) is the basis for collecting a different kind of data and the analysis of both kinds of data helps the researcher with inferences (Tashakkori and Teddlie, 2010). According to the type of analysis done through Sequential Mixed Method, it can be categorized into two categories. The analysis in this method known as "two-phase sequential study" is either exploratory sequential Qual-Quan or Explanatory sequential Quan-Qual.
In the current research, the exploratory sequential (Qual-Quan) approach was employed while the Interviews (Qualitative) were used as the research instruments then the Delphi and questionnaire (Quantitative).
To determine competencies, three stages are recommended consisting of selecting highly experienced individuals and professionals with lots of knowledge about the role of their vocation and competencies that seem essential for specific jobs, determining a series of crucial competencies according to the professionals' ideas as well as organizing and prioritizing the constructs of competencies based on their significance (Moon, 2007).

Interview and the processes of Delphi:
In the initial step of this study, some data related to the managers' competencies were collected through interview so as to determine their required competencies. Then Delphi study was utilized to identify the importance level of competencies as well as to cover the findings obtained by interview. So far no specific number of participants has been determined to be sufficient for gathering understandable and acceptable qualitative data. Nine to twenty people are sufficient to participate in the qualitative part of a research and can give the best understanding of interviewees (Yang and Chan, 2008). Therefore, twenty five participants were chosen for interview and to participate in Delphi study about the competencies in construction managers working on construction projects.
A total number of 25 experienced professionals and expert informants such as site engineers, project managers, construction managers and supervisors who had over 7 years experiences in construction projects participated in the interview and Delphi study. The qualitative data were gathered through interview so as to identify the essential competencies of construction managers in five diverse groups. These groups include personal, Strategic, communication and social, Complementary and management and leadership competencies. Interviews included 5 open-ended questions, as major questions. Figure 2 indicates the outline of the questions in the interview according to  The qualitative data were collected based on the interview. Then essential competencies of construction managers were resulted from the coded data. Then, the procedure of prioritizing began. Figure 3 illustrates the combination of the procedures mentioned before.
Delphi study: Delphi study originated from wellknown Oracle by whom the future was forecasted based on Greek mythology. Delphi technique initially relied on emotions and perception that were considered as its basis. Later, it was improved as a scientific method. Late in 1950s, Delphi method was utilized for evaluating and exploring the ideas of specialists in army. Since the middle of 1960s up to now Delphi study has been known as a significant scientific technique (Savoia et al., 2009).
Delphi is a process employed for reaching a scientific judgment or making scientific choices about a certain subject. Panel members are the body of specialists partaking in Delphi study known as panelists too (Hsu and Sandford, 2007). It is essential for the participants to be anonymous and their discussions and responses might not be accessed by any individuals in the panel. Moreover, another crucial thing is to prevent individuals in higher positions from impressing others such as their subordinates (Lee, 2009). In the current research, it was attempted to keep the respondents anonymous through utilizing certain codes. The researchers selecting Classical Delphi study usually carry it out in two or four rounds. But a number of researchers lead it in three rounds (Modified Delphi). The first round of this study starts with one or some questions that the researcher designed from different resources consisting of the articles and papers written in past and discussion with chosen specialists and practitioners (Hsu and Sandford, 2007).
In the current research, following the results obtained from interview as the necessary competencies, those competencies were put together so that they could be as appropriate tools utilized in the Delphi study. Initially, the members of the panel ranked the significance of every individuals' competencies utilizing a 4-point scale whereby four is very considerable and one is least significant or through a 4point scale ranging from number 1 that signified "somehow important", number 2 signifies "least important", 3 means important and number 4 indicating "very important" (Appendix B). In the next round, statistical method was used to analyses the collected data. In the second round and its following rounds, in order to keep the harmony and consistency of analysis, Kendall's Coefficient of concordance was employed. On condition that the results obtained in the first round would not consistent, the procedure should be continued by round two of Delphi and its following rounds (Appendix C).
Following stage 1, a questionnaire would be formed based on first stage that would be circulated by the researcher to gather the experts' opinion. The members of the panel would reconsider the numerical outline of preceding stage. In other words, they would be requested to look at the grades of central tendency and mean. They were also requested to find the similarities and differences between the findings and their own answers. This way they could conclude that if their responses and the findings were within the same range. In the case that the members of panel wanted, they could change the original rating. All opinions would be gathered by the researcher one more time and the Kendall's coefficient would be measured again if there would not be an acceptable coefficient resulted from analyzing test.
Data collection: This research was done in two stages. The first stage was performed to recognize the important competencies and then determine their degree of importance. First stage was performed in two steps including Interview and Delphi study. The results of interviews were used as the foundation to perform Delphi study. In the first stage, both interview and Delphi study, respondents were experts and professionals in Construction affairs.
Gathering data from interview: In order to give a concept about the competencies, a list of competencies according to the literature review was prepared and offered. Following that the interviewees were asked about each category. In other words they were asked to determine the competencies they believe. They also were asked to suggest any items if needed. Five openended interview questions were asked based on comprehension approaches mentioned in literature review. An initial questionnaire consisting of five openended questions were designed according to the five categories of competencies shown at Fig. 1 (Appendix  A).
Following the interview process, a questionnaire based on the interview results was constructed. In fact, the competencies introduced by the respondents were the questions. The respondents were asked to rank and evaluate the competencies as the questions.

Interviewees' background:
Interviewees are the individuals who are project managers, construction managers, supervisor and construction site engineers who have more than 7 years of experience in construction projects. Six of the interviewees are project managers, six of them are construction managers, six of them are supervisors and 7 of them are construction site engineers. All of the interviewees were males.

RESULTS
In summary, 28 competencies were determined, based on the data obtained from the interview, which are significant in the organizations' success in reaching their objectives and their accomplishments. Table 1 shows a brief picture of CM competencies according to the respondents' opinions. The numbers in this table show the numbers of interviewees who pointed each competency.
According to the data obtained from interviewees, a questionnaire was designed which was completed by some specialists in order to achieve the second objective.

APPENDIX A
Interview protocol:

•
Please introduce yourself and state that how long and how many projects have you involved in construction fields.

•
What individual competencies are essential for a construction manager in projects in order to achieve organisational goals? • What strategic competencies are essential for a construction manager in order to achieve organisational goals? • What communication competencies are essential for a construction manager in order to achieve organisational goals? • What methodological competencies are essential for a construction manager in order to achieve organisational goals? • What complementary competencies can help a construction manager to be more effective in their work?

APPENDIX C
The questionnaire of Delphi (round two): We would like to thank you for taking time from your busy schedule to participate in this research. In round one of Delphi study you were asked to rank the competencies identified for construction managers in construction projects that could be effective to achieve success. In this round (round two) you are being provided the results of round one and your responses. In some of the areas your response was different from the consensus opinion. Please consider your answers and decide whether you wish to agree with the consensus or maintain your original response. If you wish to agree with the consensus please indicate by identifying the factors and your new response. If you wish to support your previous response please write your reasons. Remember your responses are voluntary and strict confidentiality will be maintained. Please rate how important the competencies identified for construction managers in construction projects that could be effective to achieve success. Remember your answer is your expert opinion as there are no right or wrong answers.