Severity of Ethical Issues in Virtual Teams on Construction Projects

The outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic has brought a new dynamic into team decision-making on construction projects in which face-to-face meetings largely metamorphosised into virtual. Online decision-making process and virtual environment have been challenged by some ethical issues, especially in developing countries. The severity of these ethical issues confronting virtual construction team decision-making process were purposely investigated via online survey among construction professionals in Lagos State, Nigeria. The data collected were analysed with various descriptive and inferential analyses namely mean score, normality test, Kruskal-Wallis H test, and modified relative severity value (mRSV). Based on the results of mRSV computed on the severity of the ethical issues inhibiting virtual team decision-making, the high ranked factors are technical uncertainties, unpredictable communication, lack of follow-through on ideas, and unequally distributed information, among others. Several recommendations such as collective appraisal of potential technical glitch before proposing a virtual collaboration, amongst others was suggested.