Title: Factors affecting quality of construction projects in Lebanon after its economic crisis, and their impact on the project cost overrun

Authors: Sawsan Sleiman; Nabil Semaan; Claudette El Hajj

Addresses: Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, Notre Dame University, Zouk Mosbeh, Lebanon ' Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, University of Balamand, Kelhat, Lebanon ' Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, Notre Dame University, Zouk Mosbeh, Lebanon

Abstract: Since 2019, Lebanon has been facing the most devastating crisis in its modern history. This study aims to identify and rank the most relevant construction quality factors and their impact on the project cost, after the economic crisis. The most relevant factors to the current situation in Lebanon were selected and used to structure the survey of the study distributed to engineers working in the construction field in Lebanon. A quantitative statistical analysis was conducted to evaluate the occurrence, importance, and impact of each quality factor on the project cost. This study is the first one to examine the construction quality factors in Lebanon after the crisis. Results showed that: 1) shortage of construction materials in the market; 2) shortage of manpower; 3) politics in the country; 4) low income and wages of labour; 5) unavailability of highly qualified personnel are the critical quality factors ranked in this study.

Keywords: construction quality factors; construction industry; economic crisis; project cost overrun; Cronbach's alpha; independent T-tests; principal components analysis; PCA; Lebanon.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPQM.2026.154371

International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management, 2026 Vol.48 No.2, pp.271 - 295

Received: 07 Mar 2024
Accepted: 19 Apr 2024
Published online: 25 Jun 2026 *

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