| The construction managers in Saudi Arabia, due to the country's demographics, level of technology and development, face a problem that is rare in most developed countries: the source of the skilled labor. Aside from the logistical problems associated with labor importation, the construction contractor faces a question of choice of not only the sources of materials and equipments but also the source of skilled labor; specifically the nationality of the skilled labor. The characteristics of the Saudi construction industry provided the opportunity for analyzing the productivity of multi-national labor force at the micro level in a uniform environment. This dissertation is an attempt to shed some light and explore in an area that has been ignored by an industry so huge and complex that it defies analysis.;Based on a survey questionnaire of forty construction contractor operating in Saudi Arabia, directed at the contractors' estimators, the productivity of four nationalities of labor (Korean, Pakistani, Filipino, and Thai) on 106 project were compared. Multivariate analysis of covariance proved the four nationalities were statistically different on four crafts productivities jointly and formed two clusters, Korean-Thai and Pakistani-Filipino on two discriminant functions. The four nationalities did not maintain the same relative rank order across trades suggesting that the difference could be due to cultural variables. Motivation theories were not advanced as an explanatory tool for the difference because of the transient nature of employment, strength of the migration-for-work motive, and the unbroken circle of motivation, satisfaction, performance. Canonical correlational analysis of craft productivities and a set of demographic variables extracted a single discriminant function loaded on country latitude and per capita gross national product that helped rank order the four nationalities on a discriminant function of craft productivities in the following order: Korean, Thai, Filipino, and Pakistani.;The external validity of these findings should be viewed with caution due to the selection inherent in the migratory process and the non-random selection of contractors to participate in this effort. |
