• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.13-24
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• 2022

Construction projects are exposed to various types of risks, which tend to increase. The increasing risks call for contractors' more attentions to forecasting and dealing with these risks. One of the measures to deal with contractors' risks is to forecast or estimate risk cost and include it in the construction budget. Although various researches in relation to risk cost have been observed, little attention has been paid to general contractors' perceptions and current practices in estimating risk cost of construction budget. The objective of the study is to identify and discuss key characteristics and implications based on the survey and analysis of general contractors' perceptions and current practices in estimating risk cost of construction budget. The study shows that there is a gap between the perception and the practice of estimating risk cost, that is, high perception of the importance of risk cost and a relatively low level of practice. It suggests that historical cost data, guidelines and corporate-level standard procedures are required to improve the current practice in addition to sufficient time allocations for risk cost estimating. It discusses that there is a need for using sophisticated estimating techniques including bid data analytics despite a low level of the current adoption, and also proposes that research and development in the field of the sophisticated estimating techniques should be further implemented in order to increase their practicality.