Enhancing the performance of architectural design firms through addressing the gap of workforce skills in developing countries: a good-to-great approach

The aim of this research is to investigate the role of the good-to-great concept as an approach for enhanc­ing the performance of architectural design firms (ADFs) through addressing the gap of workforce skills in develop­ing countries. To achieve this aim, a research methodology was designed to accomplish four objectives: (1) building a comprehensive background about the topic through cov­ering the nature of the construction industry, gap of work­force skills, previous approaches used to address this issue and the good-to-great concept; (2) presenting and analyz­ing two case studies to investigate the role of the good-to-great concept as an approach to fill the gap of workforce skills in organizations; (3) investigating the perception and application of the good-to-great concept for addressing the gap of workforce skills to enhance the performance of ADFs and (4) developing a framework to enhance the per­formance of ADFs through bridging the gap of workforce skills in ADFs using the good-to-great concept. Findings of this research showed that the issue of gap of workforce skills threatens all types of industries including construc­tion industry. The demand of ADFs became greater than the supply of skilled employees which indicates a critical issue encountered by these firms. Thus, the good-to-great concept that has never been adopted in ADFs before is pro­posed as a novel approach to tackle this issue.