Project Management Strategies and Operational Efficiency of Construction Firms in South-South, Nigeria

The construction firms are plague with projects, cost overrun, fall in quality, and operational inefficiency. Aa a result, this study examined the relationship between project management strategies and operational efficiency of construction firms in South-South, Nigeria. The study was built on systems theory, resource-based view theory and project management theory. The study adopted the cross-sectional research design and followed the positivism approach. The population of the study stemmed from 792 employees selected from eight construction companies. Using the Taro Yemane formula, the sample size was determined as 266. The simple random sampling technique was used. Structured questionnaires were used to collect the primary data. Descriptive statistics and Spearman rank correlation coefficient were used as methods of data analysis, which was carried out with the help of SPSS version 28 at 0.05 level of significance. The results showed that operational efficiency was positively and significantly related with project planning (r = 0.346, p < 0.05), project cost management (r = 0.563, p < 0.05), project risk management (r = 0.436, p < 0.05), project time management (r = 0.355, p < 0.05), and project quality management (r = 0.720, p < 0.05). The study concluded that the effective project management strategies were very effective in the operational efficiency of construction firms in South-South, Nigeria. The study recommended for resilient planning, cost control, risk management and scheduling and institutionalization of quality assurance systems. The study contributed to knowledge as it has generated empirical evidence of the relationship between project management strategies and operational efficiency of construction firms in South-South Nigeria.