Response rate

This study targeted 800 ECFs in the Free State Province of South Africa. Of the 800 administered questionnaires 18 were not correctly filled out and some were partially completed and could, therefore, not be used. A total of 516, amounting to a 64.5%

response rate, fully completed and correctly answered questionnaires were counted and subjected to analysis. According to Bryman and Bell (2011:236), a response rate below 50% is not acceptable, meaning that a response rate of 64.5% secured in this study is adequate for data analysis. Extant literature (OECD, 2004; Arko-Achemfuor, 2013) on SMMEs usually indicates low response rate and the 64.5% response rate is therefore considered high.

6.2.1 2. Characteristics of respondents

The results presented in Table 6.1 below show that 41.1% of the participants of the study were company owners, 37.8% were company managers and 21.1% were managing owners. Males made up the majority of the participants, with a percentage of 57.3 and females were fairly presented with a percentage of 42.7. The domination of firm owner/managers (78.9%) points to the size and survivalist orientation of most ECFs in South Africa, which necessitate the compression of the organisational structure through the infusion of multiple roles and responsibilities. This arrangement results in one or few nuclear functional units/portfolios and compression of hierarchical layers in organisational structures or reporting structure to cut on excessive overhead or company costs. A report on the equality, diversity and good practice for the construction sector commissioned by the Equality and Human Rights Commission in the UK affirms that ensuring good management practice in the small construction sector (e.g., through developing the appropriate organogram) for such is critical to realizing cost savings for such businesses (Peters, Allison & Katalytik, 2011).

Table 6-1: Characteristics of respondents

Personal details Category Frequency Percentage

1. Role

Owner 212 41.1%

Manager 195 37.8%

Owner/managers 109 21.1%

2. Gender Male 280 57.3%

Female 209 42.7%

3. Age in years

16-25 years 98 19.3%

26-35 years 163 32.1%

36-45 years 174 34.3%

46-55 years 63 12.4%

Above 55 years 9 1.8%

4. Ethnic origin/race

Afrikaner 24 4.6%

Coloured 30 5.8%

Black (RSA) 392 75.8%

Indian 46 8.9%

Other (African) 15 2.9%

Other (European) 9 1.7%

Other (Asian) 1 0.2%

5. Educational status

No formal education 4 0.8%

Primary school 38 7.3%

Middle school 115 22.2%

High school 237 45.8%

Undergraduate 94 18.1%

Postgraduate 30 5.8%

Table 6.1 above also shows that in terms of age the 36-45 age group was the most represented (34.3%), while the least represented age group was those above 55 years (1.8%). Combined, the most economically active population (i.e., 26-45 years) constitutes the majority (66.4%) of the owner/managers of ECFs. The implication of this is that there is a clear consistency between the economically active population and dominant ECFs. This finding is consistent with the finding that younger females tended to be less concerned about males’ negative gender-defined attitudes towards them than were older women (English & Bowen, 2011), allowing the former to survive in a male-dominated profession.

In terms of race, blacks were the majority of the respondents (75.8%), followed by Indians (8.9%). ECFs are dominated by previously disadvantaged groups, who are intended/supposed to benefit from Broad Based-Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) policy. This finding supports Ntuli and Allopi’s (2013) research on the capacity constraints facing civil engineering contractors in Kwazulu-Natal, South

secondary education. For example, Jahn’s (2009) study into the discrimination against women in the construction industry in South Africa revealed that this industry is still male-dominated, with women contributing to only ten percent of the total workforce.

The reasons include their negative perceptions by their male counterparts, the industry being considered a misfit for women by men and the pressure to prove their competencies in a male-dominated field (Jahn, 2009; English & Bowen, 2011).

Such a fairly balanced gender representation should also encourage South African Women in Construction (SAWIC) to do more in terms of their mandate. SAWIC strives to create a positive image of the industry and the role of women in the non-traditional field of construction. Overall, however, males were more represented than females, suggesting their greater involvement in the construction industry than females and perhaps pointing to a conservative and paternalistic orientation of the industry (Jahn, 2009; Sangweni, 2015), negative male gender attitudes, sexual harassment generally experienced at construction sites (English & Bowen, 2011) and the generally wider informal social networks of males in the industry.

This relative imbalance, however, does not cohere with the call to increase the employment of women in technical areas such as construction and infrastructure development, in which a blanket target of 50% women has presented difficulties for these sectors where two-thirds of workers are considered to be technical (Malan, 2014). Other factors that affect the participation and professional working life of female engineers in construction include discrimination, inhospitable construction culture, work-conflicts, glass ceiling, under-representation of women and untransformed cultural beliefs (Sangweni, 2015).

The normal distribution of the age distribution in Figure 6.3 below suggests the dominance of the middle age (26-45%) in the construction sector. The dominance of this middle age group, which constitutes about 66.4%, suggests that the economically active population is more susceptible to work in this sector due to the labour-intensive nature of the construction industry.

South African construction companies namely Murray and Roberts, Aveng, WBHO, Group 5 and Basil Read, with a regional presence on the African continent (Eskom, 2012; Construction Industry Development Board, 2015) comprise a workforce with higher education and more sophisticated training than that of the majority of ECFs.

The fact that the majority of participants in this sector have low levels of education and training supports Cottle’s (2015) findings that the estimated composition of an onsite construction workforce is normally 50 per-cent unskilled, 26 per-cent semi-skilled, 19 per-cent skilled and 5 per-cent supervisory. This suggests their limited participation in more sophisticated, professional domains in this industry such as engineering, quantity surveying and project planning.

National Engineering Skills Survey conducted by Edu-Surveys and Media Positioning Solutions in 2014 reported a disproportionate racial representation of engineers registered on the Engineering Council of South Africa and university alumni: white (6585=65.4%) and black (2361=23.4%) in South Africa. Only 18.1% of owner/managers had attained undergraduate education, perhaps implying that tertiary education is not an option for a majority of the predominantly black emerging contractors.