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

Abstract 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.