Data collection postal questionnaire survey

This section provides background information of the participants in terms of: current job title/position numbers of full-time employees work in organisation, years of experience working/involved in Malaysian construction industry, and years of experience working in the current employment.

a) Current job title/position

Table 4.13 presents the spread of responses between three different levels of managers. Respondents were categorised into three position groups, these were; group 1 (senior level manager); Group 2 (mid level manager); Group 3 (junior level manager). In term of responses received by level of management, the highest proportions of the respondents fall in group 2 (mid level of managers) followed by group 3 (junior level of managers), and group 1 (senior level managers). Table 4.13 and Figure 4.5 shows that 68 (18%) of the respondents who participated in this study were senior level of managers, 202 (52%) were mid managers, and 114 (30%) were junior managers. Thus, this sample showed a fairly good mixed of respondents between top, mid and junior managers in different size of organisations which indicates a non-biased sample.

Table 4.13 : Current job title/position of the participants

Frequency Percent Cumulative Percent

Valid Senior level manager 68 17.7 17.7

Mid-level manager 202 52.6 70.3

Junior-level manager 114 29.7 100.0

Figure 4.5: Participants position involved in the study

Figure 4.5 shows the low response from senior manager level participates in the survey. This could indicate that a majority of the senior level managers sample population truly do not keen to participate in the survey due to the commitment in work and time constraint. b) Number of full-time employees work in organisation

Table 4.14 presents the distribution of survey respondents by size of organisations based on number of employees. Participants were categorised into six group size of organisation, these were; group 1 (1-10 employees); Group 2 (11-20); Group 3 (21-50 employees); Group 4 (51-100 employees); Group 5 (101-250 employees); and Group 6 (More than 250 employees). The number of full-time employees in Table 4.15 can be further regroup to the size of organisation based on the European Commission definition. Table 4.15 shows that the organisations were divided into three groups, small, medium and large organisations. From the Figure 4.5, we can observed that 7% of the respondents were part of organisation having more than 250 employees and can be considered as large organisation, 93 % were part of organisation having less than 250 employees (SMEs). From the result it is shows that many of the participants were from SMEs. It gives a true picture of the contractor’s in Malaysia and the relevance of including such SMEs in this study. Since the data was gathered from different sizes of organisations (small, medium and large), there seems to be no bias favour of any specific size of the contractor.

Table 4.14 : Size of organisation according to numbers full-time employees work in organisation Number of

employees Frequency Percent Cumulative Percent

Valid 1-10 84 21.9 21.9 11-20 105 27.3 49.2 21-50 105 27.3 76.6 51-100 41 10.7 87.2 101-250 24 6.3 93.5 More than 250 25 6.5 100.0 Total 384 100.0

Table 4.15 : Different size of organisations involved in the study categorised based on European Commission definition

Number of

employees Frequency Percent Cumulative Percent

Valid _{Small (Less than 50) 294 76.6 76.6}

Medium (51-250) 65 16.9 93.5

Large (More than 250) 25 6.5 100.0

Total 384 100.0

In term of size of organisation, the majority of the contractor companies (as shown in Table 4.15 and Figure 4.6) are small. One of the main reasons is because the small construction companies might be a subsidiary of a large corporation or those which have already established good relationship with corporate clients or other large international contractors.

c) Years of experience involved/worked in Malaysian construction industry

The range of personal experience of the respondents in terms of number of years involved or worked in the Malaysian construction industry is between 1 to more than 20 years as indicated in Table 4.16. In terms of work experience in Malaysian construction industry, more than half (83%) of respondents have experience between 1-10 years. Whilst, 17% of the respondents have more than 10 years working experience and are all familiar with the main issues surrounding knowledge sharing. 7% of them are senior level manager, 8% represents mid level manager and 2% represent junior level manager (Figure 4.7).

As can be seen from the Table 4.16 and Figure 4.7, it can be conclude that the respondents who answered the questionnaires are those have enough knowledge about the organisational structure, culture and strategies of organisations; with extensive working experiences and those holding responsible positions in the various sizes of organisations. Their answers to the questionnaires give a high level of credibility in terms of their opinions regarding the issues raised in the questionnaires.

Table 4.16 : Length of time involved/worked in the Malaysian construction industry and position cross tabulation

Length of time involved / worked in the Malaysian

construction industry

Position Total Percent

Senior manager Mid manager Junior manager Percent Cumulative Percent

Less than 1 year 3 33 23 59 15.4 15.4

2-5 years 16 93 61 170 44.3 59.6

6-10 years 24 46 21 91 23.7 83.3

11-15 years 19 24 4 47 12.2 95.6

16-20 years 5 4 3 12 3.1 98.7

More than 20 years 1 2 2 5 1.3 100.0

Figure 4.7: Years of experience in Malaysia construction industry

d) Years of experience in the current employment.

More than half (53%) of the respondents had been employed for 5 years or less with their organisation. Almost half (47%) of the respondents had been employed for six or more years, with one third (20%) having been employed in their organisation for more than 10 years (Table 4.17). This shows that respondents have been with their organisation long enough to make reasonable insights into how knowledge sharing works in their work environment. It is therefore is believed that the responses are highly reliable and that the opinions show the companies’ general situations in knowledge sharing.

The nature of the construction industry is different to other industries, such as the manufacturing or retail sector, where processes and the working environment are well defined and controlled (Gann, 1996). Generally all employment in the construction industry is of a casual, temporary nature, employees often work remotely, which work security is unknown. The breakdown for responses according to years of experience in the current employer is shown in Tables 4.17 and 4.18 below.

Table 4.17 : Length of time worked with the current employer

Length of time Frequency Percent Cumulative Percent

Valid Less than 1 year _{82 21.4 21.4}

2-5 years 122 31.8 53.1

6-10 years 102 26.6 79.7

11-15 years 43 11.2 90.9

16-20 years 35 9.1 100.0

Total _{384 100.0}

Table 4.18 : Cross tabulation size of organisation and length of time worked with the current employer

Size of organisation

Number of employees

Length of time worked with the current employer (years)

Total ≥1 2-5 6-10 11-15 16-20

Smal Less than 50 56 89 76 40 33 294

Medium 51-250 14 25 22 2 2 65

Large More than 250 12 8 4 1 0 25

Total 82 122 102 43 35 384

This section has analysed of survey questionnaire response data gathering the general information which includes: current job title/position, full-time employees work in organisation, years of experience in Malaysian construction industry and years of experience in the current employment. Additionally, based on the respondents’ job position and years of experience, the information provided by the respondent, is considered reasonable, trustworthy and representing the opinions of the population in the Malaysian construction organisations. Overall, the sample of respondents appeared to be quite diverse, representing people from various demographic groups, management hierarchical levels, and experiences.

In summary, 40 organisations and 49 managers participated in the interviews while 350 organisations and 384 managers participated in the postal questionnaires, giving an overall total of 390 participating organisations and 433 participants (Table 4.19).

Table 4.19 : Total number of participants in this study Techniques of data