Maturity model of building maintenance management for New Zealand’s state schools

ABSTRACT

In New Zealand (NZ), state school properties are owned by the Ministry of Education and operated by school managers with the assistance of external consultants. This study aims to explore relationships of key stakeholders to propose a set of improvement actions for building maintenance management (BMM) in NZ’s state schools. The research employed a sequential mixed-methods approach encompassing interviews with school managers at the exploratory stage and questionnaire surveys completed by school managers and the Ministry staff to identify the maturity level of BMM. The interviews’ findings were used to map roles and responsibilities of people involved in BMM and develop the measurement model used in this study. Based on data from the questionnaire, relationships among key stakeholders in BMM were examined using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). The research hypotheses of correlation among the stakeholders were tested and validated. The questionnaire results were also analysed to identify the maturity level of stakeholders’ responsibilities in BMM. Suggestions were made for improving BMM for NZ’s state schools focusing on training programmes, reporting system, performance evaluation, and lesson sharing. The results could assist stakeholders to review their current BMM and identify the areas in need of improvement.

KEYWORDS:

• Building maintenance
• maturity model
• school buildings
• New Zealand
• PLS-SEM

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the interviewees and respondents of the questionnaire for their contributions to this study. The authors also appreciate the reviewers for their constructive and valuable comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).