Professional Codes of Conduct as a Tool to Combat Corruption in the Construction Industry

There is a growing concern that, save ethical considerations, the professional, technical, and managerial competencies of construction professionals are not in doubt. This chapter reports the first attempt at identifying professional misconduct in the construction industry, gleaned from the segmented ethical codes of construction industry professionals in Ghana. The chapter further reports measures to tailor the code of conduct for construction professionals to serve as a tool to combat corruption in the construction industry. Resultantly, ten measures to tailor the code of conduct toward addressing professional misconduct were identified from past studies. The instrument adopted for data collection was a questionnaire survey. A total of 304 construction professionals, comprising quantity surveyors, architects, and civil engineers, and members of professional bodies, participated in the survey. The study further revealed that a code of conduct cannot combat corruption in the construction industry and reported measures to tailor a code of conduct to combat corruption in the construction industry. The chapter justifies the dire need for a single industry code of conduct tailored to address prevalent professional misconduct from its root cause. Finally, from the results of the Kruskal–Wallis H test, the study reports significant statistical differences, with a significance value below 0.05, in the perceptions of the three identified professional groupings. Save for the findings in this study on the effectiveness of a single code of conduct targeted at professionals in the construction industry, the findings further support previous studies in the research area.