The Impact of Change Orders Caused by Legislative Changes on Program Management in the UAE Construction Industry

Program management is an important strategy for organizing and managing multiple interdependent construction projects to achieve strategic goals. However, when change orders occur, they can have a serious impact on the quality, time, cost of projects and, ultimately, affect the construction program. Furthermore, when change orders are caused particularly by legislative changes, such as environmental laws, taxes, tolls, safety codes, transportation, design or building codes, their impacts are unavoidable, yet can be managed through mitigation strategies. The existing literature only reports the implications of change orders on the project level and reports legislative changes as one of the contributing factors to change orders, but does not consider the implications on a program level. This study aims to close this knowledge gap by assessing the implications of change orders caused by legislative changes on program management in the construction industry during the construction phase, and explore what the possible mitigation strategies to manage change orders caused by legislative changes are. The objectives of the study include identifying the implications of change orders on construction projects in the UAE through a literature review using peer-reviewed journals and reliable industry sources. Additionally, we investigate the implications of change orders caused by legislative changes on construction programs through interviewing subject matter experts, evaluating the importance of the reported impacts, with possible mitigation strategies, through a structured questionnaire and Relative Importance Index (RII) and, finally, proposing a set of recommendations for key industry stakeholders. A mixed methods approach is adopted in this qualitative study, and the participants include clients, contractors and consultants from the construction industry, with a defined scope covering the construction stage only. The outcomes of the study can guide program managers, decision-makers and practitioners in the construction industry to successfully deliver all projects by directing proper resources to accommodate legislative changes.