The global influence of national cultural values on construction permitting

Abstract

This research discovers how national level culture shapes construction permitting across 62 nations. Hofstede’s cultural dimensions explain variability in components of World Bank’s dealing with Construction Permits index, which measures the number of required permitting procedures, the required time in days, the cost as a percentage of a standardized warehouse value, and a permitting quality index. After controlling for gross domestic product, statistically significant relationships between permitting time and Hofstede’s Uncertainty Avoidance and Masculinity-Femininity dimensions emerged. Hofstede’s Power Distance Index shared statistically significant relationships with the number of procedures required for permitting, and a limited relationship with the cost of permitting. These data provide empirical evidence that different cultural preferences lead to different construction permitting practices, and allow the construction community to better understand the culturally shaped ways in which permits govern projects. This builds the theory of social sustainability of infrastructure, which seeks to generalize ways to match construction practice to societal preferences to improve community and project outcomes. For example, policy makers may use the results presented here to shape more culturally appropriate construction permitting regulations. In another example, construction firms may use these results to navigate permitting challenges they encounter on global projects.

Keywords:

• Culture
• permitting
• global projects
• social sustainability
• regulation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.