Towards an integrated management system in infrastructure construction projects: a survey of practitioners in China

Quality, environment and occupational health and safety management systems have gradually become important in infrastructure construction projects, thus the integrated management system (IMS) has received increasing attention in recent years among both academics and practitioners. To investigate the current status of IMS, a structured questionnaire survey and interview on the project practitioners in China were conducted. It is found that the IMS status in infrastructure construction projects is not satisfactory, and the major problems for implementing parallel management systems include: leading to not fully identifying requirements and achieving objectives, lowering the efficiency of project management, incurring barriers to information exchange and weakening the capability of implementing project risk management. The survey also examined the internal supports and external drivers of implementing IMS. This study shows that organizations' implementation of IMS in infrastructure construction projects seems to be more influenced by external factors rather than internal ones.