An analysis of the key challenges to the widespread use of mediation in the Turkish construction industry
Purpose – The Turkish Ministry of Justice submitted the Draft Law on mediation in legal disputes, which was predicated on the European Council (EC) Directive on certain aspects of mediation in civil and commercial matters, to the Turkish Parliament in June 2008. Contentious arguments have followed on the provisions of the Draft Law as well as on the overall applicability of mediation in Turkey. The purpose of this paper is to examine the context surrounding the new mediation phenomenon in order to identify the key challenges awaiting its widespread use in the Turkish construction industry.Design/methodology/approach – Two complementary approaches were adopted in this paper. First, an analysis of the most debated papers of the Draft Law is carried out to determine the potential problems associated with the legislation by making comparisons with the EC mediation directive and mediation laws in some of the member states. Second, a series of structured interviews are organized among the Turkish construction i...
Barriers to alternative dispute resolution in the construction industry: the Kuwaiti experience
Litigation as a formal way of dispute resolution is time consuming, costly, adversarial and damages,
if not destroys, relationships and reputations. There are many alternative forms to litigation and
arbitration, also in Kuwait different organisations prepared regulations for different forms of
alternative dispute resolution. These forms have been rarely used due to cultural difficulties and to
lack of awareness of these forms of dispute resolution.
In addition to exploring the advantages of using the alternative dispute resolution forms with
construction projects disputes, this paper presents the findings of what alternative dispute resolution
strategies are currently been implemented by different organisations in Kuwait. These finding are
reinforced by interviews conducted in Kuwait, with workers in the construction industry, to identify
the main reasons, in terms of culture and awareness aspects, for not adopting ADR in construction
disputes. The barriers to use mediation are found to be, mainly, lack of awareness and another six
cultural aspects. However, elimination instruments to the barriers were revealed in this study.
Application of the Kano Model for a Better Understanding of Customer Requirements in Higher Education—A Pilot Study
Various pieces of information and knowledge turn into “know-how” simply by their application in the market. This applies to all spheres of activities. It is therefore important to know and understand the requirements of customers already in the stage of making a product, and to confront these with the possibilities of a producer. In this article we are exploring the possibilities of a better understanding of the requirements of customers and stakeholders in the process of the creation of products in educational services. In particular, we examined seven general requirements: practice orientation, ethical orientation, research orientation, quality resources, innovation orientation, skills orientation, and quality staff. We use the Kano model on a pilot sample of respondents at an institution of higher education. Our results showed that “practice orientation” and “quality resources” are the most stable requirements, while “quality staff” is the least stable. The most linear requirement (the same effect on satisfaction and dissatisfaction) is “innovation orientation”. “Research orientation” belongs to attractive requirements and we also found that in the case of “ethical orientation” there are weak relations between positive and negative responses in our survey. The “skills orientation” proved to be too general, and our research shows that it could be indifferent. It is therefore advisable to specify the investigated skills when investigating requirements on educational services. The main contribution based on the proposed research procedures is an effective linking of customers and producers already from the beginning of constructing a value chain. Investing in sophisticated management approaches when modelling products and processes can thus become a significant source of the competitive advantage of an educational institution. At the same time, it is a contribution to better placing of its graduates in the labor market.