Emotional Factors in Quality Negligence: A Study of Residential Real Estate Construction Professionals

Abstract

Quality negligence in the construction industry, a significant originator of legal crises, is predominantly attributed to technical and procedural failures. However, the pivotal role of construction professionals’ emotions as a precipitating factor remains a critically unexamined research area. This study addresses this gap by investigating the influence of specific emotions on quality negligence and its subsequent escalation into legal crises for construction firms. The research employed an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design. Initially, a comprehensive literature review and unstructured interviews with industry experts identified seven prominent emotions (anxiety, guilt, pride, shame, elevation, injustice, and gratitude). Subsequently, a quantitative phase involved distributing a self-administered questionnaire to 162 Indian construction professionals within the Indian residential construction sector to assess their emotional states and quality negligence levels. Data analysis using covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) indicated a statistically significant positive relationship between quality negligence and five emotions. The effects, in descending order of magnitude, were elevation ( β = 0.406 , p < 0.001 ), shame ( β = 0.405 , p < 0.001 ), gratitude ( β = 0.321 , p < 0.001 ), pride ( β = 0.261 , p = 0.009 ), and anxiety ( β = 0.179 , p = 0.047 ). In the final phase, consultations and brainstorming sessions with industry experts were used to identify the resulting legal crises and to establish a novel emotion-quality negligence-crises framework. This framework models the pathway from emotional antecedent to quality negligence and its culmination in a legal crisis. The study provides a critical diagnostic tool for practitioners in the real estate sector to mitigate risk and offers a new theoretical model for academics analyzing this psycho-legal connection.