Abstract
Risk management is a relatively new field in the construction industry of Pakistan, but it is gradually gaining prominence because of increased construction activity and competitiveness. This is an empirical survey-based study of risk management in the construction industry of Pakistan. It reports the findings of the importance of risks, their current management techniques, the existing status of risk management systems of the organizations, and barriers to effective risk management from the perspective of key stakeholders. The analysis of the results reveals that financial and economic factors, followed by quality, are the most important risks, and the industry generally tries to avoid or transfer these risks. Results indicated that the risk management system and practices of most of the organizations are reactive, semipermanent, informal, and unstructured with nonexistent and limited committed resources to deal with risks. Nonetheless, the results of interviews indicate that there is awareness about risk management and a desire to learn from past mistakes. The study concludes that the major barriers to effective risk management are the lack of a formal risk management system and the lack of a mechanism for joint risk management by the parties. Insights and discussions are given in the analysis, which are valuable to planners, project managers, supervisors, and other stakeholders. Finally, this work can be used in exploring mechanisms for joint risk management by prospective stakeholders. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)ME.1943-5479.0000122. (C) 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.