Building and Environment 38 (2003) 583 591

www.elsevier.com/locate/buildenv

An analysis on the HVAC maintenance contractors selection process

C.K. Chau , W.L. Sing, T.M. Leung
The Department of Building Services Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong
Received 13 May 2002; accepted 12 September 2002

Abstract
The growing importance of the maintenance industry renews the interest of both practioners and academia working in the maintenance
2eld. In the past or even now, most of the maintenance work contractors are selected purely on basis of the lowest tender prices, even
though they are required to be undergone the pre-quali2cation process. However, it is increasingly admitted that the practice of awarding
tenders on a basis of low tender price eventually would lead to the ultimate quality problems. In consequence, there is a serious outcry
in the public sector demanding a revolution in the current tender awarding system. Accordingly, this study intends to test how di6erent
managers actually choose maintenance contractors. This in turn would lead us to focus on the identi2cation of the major selection attributes,
and the trade-o6 weightings among attributes during the selection process. In this study, the identi2cation and the trade-o6 weightings for
di6erent contractors selection attributes are revealed by conjoint analysis. Meanwhile, a Likert scale rating is also used to reveal whether
there are disparities between the relative perceived importance and the relative weights in actual selection in the contractors selection
attributes. Our results found that there are some consistencies in the relative perceived importance and the relative weights in actual
contractor selection. On the other hand, our results also reveal that the contractors should put more e6ort in improving their company
reputation in order to win the maintenance contracts.
? 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: maintenance; conjoint analysis; contractor selection

1. Introduction
The building maintenance industry in Hong Kong has
long been an area of neglect. Nevertheless, the situation is
now perceived to be changing as this sector now embraces
465 companies hiring up to 70 percent of employees in the
property industry in Hong Kong. The demand is also seen to
be growing, with an average annual growth rate of 7 percent
since 1990 [1].
The rapid growth of the industry may be due to a multitude of reasons. The massive phase of building construction during the past decade obviously led to a tremendous
increase in the number and variety of building stocks that
needed to be adequately maintained. The increase in complexities and advance in technology increase the demand
for good maintenance service. Meanwhile, the growing concern on the health, safety and environmental issues induces
a more stringent legislative requirement on building owners to maintain and upgrade their buildings to the required

Corresponding author. Tel.: +852-2766-7780; fax: +852-2774-6146.

E-mail address: beckchau@polyu.edu.hk (C.K. Chau).

standards. This is being in couple with the emergence of a

new breed of professionally trained maintenance and property managers further raise the level of quality demanded
for maintenance service.
Inevitably, the growing importance of the maintenance industry renews the interest of both practioners and academia
working in the maintenance 2eld. Even with growing importance of maintenance industry, research studies focusing
on the maintenance 2eld are rather limited. Most of maintenance studies only focus on three major aspects: evaluation
of owners or designers concern on the building maintenance
work [24]; development of methods for assessing quality
of maintenance service [5]; revealing the linkage between
maintenance strategies with performance and productivity
[6]. Even though there is a long held notion that selecting
the right contractors can be one of major factors in determining the success of construction projects [79], there are
not any published studies reporting on the selection criteria
for maintenance contractors.
In the past or even now, most of the maintenance and
new work contractors are selected purely on basis of the
lowest tender prices, even though they are required to be

0360-1323/03/$ - see front matter ? 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 3 6 0 - 1 3 2 3 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 1 8 6 - 5

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C.K. Chau et al. / Building and Environment 38 (2003) 583 591

undergone the pre-quali2cation process. However, it is

increasingly admitted that the practice of awarding tenders
on a basis of low tender price eventually would lead to the
ultimate quality problems. In consequence, there is a serious
outcry in the public sector demanding a revolution in the
current tender awarding system. It is increasing trend nowadays to award tenders based simultaneously on a number
of criteria believed to be associated with the contractors
favorable performance, such as 2nancial background, past
experience, and tender prices [7,10]. Some large public
corporations in Hong Kong, like the Mass Transit Railway
Corporation, has already initiated a practice of awarding
new work tenders based on a set of prede2ned weighting
assigned to both technical and 2nancial aspects of the proposed tenderers [11]. In response to the need for a robust
contractor selection system, there is increasing number of
research studies focusing on the development of a methodology for selecting contractors based on some types of
multi-criteria decision-making theories [10]. Nevertheless,
there is still a lack of consensus on the best methods in eliciting the weightings of di6erent decision-making attributes.
Furthermore, the majority of e6orts are directed towards
developing decision-making models for new work, with little relevance for maintenance work. The irrelevance may be
due to the fact that the nature of maintenance work should
be perceived as a service rather than a product [2], such that
the clients would have concern not solely on 2nal results,
but also the process of the maintenance service. Inevitably,
the set of selection criteria developed for maintenance work
would be expected to be substantially di6erent from that
for new work.
The objective of this study is to test how di6erent managers actually choose maintenance contractors, in particular
the heat ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) contractors. This in turn would lead us to focus on the identi2cation
of the major selection attributes, and the trade-o6 weightings
among attributes during the selection process. In the meantime, it is intended to explore whether a gap exists between
the relative perceived importance of maintenance contractor
criteria, and the relative weights of the attributes being identi2ed in the actual selection of the contractor. Besides, this
study also attempts to explore whether clients are satisfying
with the existing contractors in the industry with regard to
the set of selection attributes.
2. Research design
An empirical study is designed to evaluate the maintenance contractor selection process. In order to detect whether
there are any disparities between the perceived importance
and the relative weights used in actual contractor selection
process, two di6erent sets of data collection and analysis
procedures are used.
Firstly, a conjoint analysis has been used to identify the
actual contractor selection process. Past research in market-

ing has shown that conjoint analysis is an e6ective methodology for analyzing choices in a complex decision-making
process. Unlike other methods, conjoint analysis forces
respondents to make trade-o6 between products so as to
mimics consumers actual behavior when purchasing products. As a result, conjoint analysis circumvents the problem
of respondents saying one thing and doing another, thereby
generating results of greater validity and reliability [12]. The
separation of clients preferences into attributes cannot only
provide clients with valuable information on the relative
importance of various attributes of their service or products,
but also can help to place the value on di6erent levels of
individual attribute. Undeniably, the aim of conjoint analysis is to identify the attribute combination conferring the
highest utility to clients, and to establish the relative importance of attributes in terms of their contribution to total
utility.
Secondly, a survey instrument containing two sets of
Likert-type scale questions are presented to the same
groups of respondents for revealing the relative perceived
importance, and the level of satisfaction of the existing
maintenance contractors in the industry with regard to the
contractor selection attributes. A Likert scale of 1 (least
important) to 5 (most important) is used for eliciting respondents perceived importance, while a Likert scale of
1 (poor) to 5 (excellent) is used for eliciting respondents
level of satisfaction.
2.1. Identi/cation of attributes and levels
The study starts with the determination of attributes
and their corresponding levels. A focus group comprising
six persons from di6erent occupational backgrounds was
formed to help identifying the attributes and their corresponding levels. The focus group members were selected
on the basis of their previous outsourcing maintenance
experiences.
Many attributes are considered to be used by the clients
during their selection of maintenance contractors. The nature of attributes selected should not only act as signi2cant
predictors of maintenance service, but also be able to be inIuenced or manipulated by the maintenance contractor [13].
The number of selected attributes in a survey should be restricted so that respondents are not easy to become bored
before giving any meaningful results. After an intensive discussion among the members of focus group, six attributes
were identi2ed to be most signi2cant criteria in selecting the
maintenance contractor: (i) type of maintenance service provided; (ii) location network; (iii) company reputation; (iv)
quality assurance scheme; (v) past experience; and (vi) performance measurement. Most of the selection attributes are
self-explanatory, and only the performance measurement attribute is needed to be further elaborated here. A respondent
is cost-oriented if he or she concerns more on the price in
performance measurement. On the contrary, the respondent

C.K. Chau et al. / Building and Environment 38 (2003) 583 591

Table 1
Attributes and Levels included in the conjoint analysis
Attribute

Levels

Type of maintenance

Preventive
corrective
SuJcient network
not suJcient network
Good reputation
no reputation
Not assured
assured
Inexperience
experienced
Service-oriented
price-oriented

Location network
Company reputation
Quality assurance scheme
Past experience
Performance measurement

Table 2
Attributes adopted in the Likert-type scale questions
Attribute

Perceived importance
(1 = not important at all,
2 = not so important,
3 = neutral,
4 = fairly important
5 = very important)

Level of satisfaction
(1 = poor; 2 = fair,
3 = average,
4 = good,
5 = excellent)

Type of maintenance
Location network
Company reputation
Quality assurance
scheme
Past experience
Performance
measurement

1
1
1
1

5
5
5
5

12345
12345
12345

12345
12345

12345
12345

2
2
2
2

3
3
3
3

4
4
4
4

is service-oriented if he or she concerns more on the quality

of service.
Initially, three distinct levels were identi2ed for each attribute. After the initial trial run with focus group, the number of levels for each attribute was reduced to two for easy
handling. The number and the level of attributes used in this
study were in line with the heuristic use in similar studies.
Table 1 shows the attributes and the corresponding levels of
the conjoint analysis used in our study.
In order to compare the relative perceived importance of
maintenance contractor criteria with the relative weights of
the attributes identi2ed during the actual selection of the
contractor, the same set of attributes were presented to the
respondents for rating their perceived importance, and level
of satisfaction of the existing contractor on two di6erent
Likert scales as shown in Table 2.
2.2. Presentation of questions
Our survey respondents comprised property, facility, and
building maintenance managers, who have experience in
managing more than 2ve oJce buildings in the past. The sur-

Type of Maintenance
Location Network
Company Reputation
Quality Assurance
Past Experience
Orientation

585

Corrective
not su cient network
good reputation
not assured
good experience
price-oriented

(Card No. 1)
Fig. 1. Sample of pro2le card.

vey was carried out from March to April 2001. Face-to-face

interviews were used in order to avoid any misinterpretation of the questions. Initially, respondents were briefed
about the overall objectives and the methodology of the
survey.
Our survey comprised two parts, Parts A and B. Part A
aims at eliciting clients needs on the maintenance service
by conjoint analysis. Given the attributes and levels shown
in Table 1, a complete or full factorial design giving 64
combinations of pro2les would render the respondents dif2cult to administer in a meaningful way and thus impair
the accuracy of results. Accordingly, a fractional factorial
design with orthogonal array incorporating only the main
but not interaction e6ects is adopted. Twelve pro2les cards
with two levels for six attributes are presented to respondents for ranking. The number of levels and attributes has
been selected after a careful consideration of a balance between practicality and accuracy in estimating error [14]. An
example of card for presenting a particular pro2le is shown
in Fig. 1.
Respondents were then asked to sort 12 cards into three
di6erent piles, one they probably would not select, one they
might select, and one that they probably would select. They
were then asked to rank the cards in each pile into priority
order, with the card carrying the service pro2le which they
were most likely to select at the top, and the card carrying
the service pro2le which they were least likely to select at
the bottom. This was done so as to facilitate the respondents
in ranking the priority order for 12 cards. The 2nal rank
ordering of cards by respondents was recorded.
Part B contains two sets of Likert-type questions to elicit
the perceived importance, and the level of satisfaction of the
respondents on the contractor selection attributes. Besides,
Part B also contains a short questionnaire intended to elicit
the personal details, such as age and position in the company
of the respondents.
3. Data analysis procedure
3.1. Relative importance of actual choice
The data in Part A are subsequently analyzed by conjoint
analysis in order to determine the relative importance of

C.K. Chau et al. / Building and Environment 38 (2003) 583 591

the attributes, and the utility values for di6erent levels of

attributes. With the collected data checked, edited and coded,
data were entered into the computer and analyzed using
the Conjoint Analysis option in the Categories procedure
of SPSS. A utility model with a set of part-worth function
was derived for the group of respondents using the ordinary
least square (OLS) estimation procedure. Even though it
su6ers from a methodological shortcoming that OLS should
best to be used for metric rather than ordinal ranking data,
OLS is easier to use and interpret utilities and can provide
remarkably robust part worth values with respect to their
predictive power.
The utility model can be expressed as
R=

6

Improve
High Importance/
Low Satisfaction

Capitalize
High Importance/
High Satisfaction

High

5
4

High

Low

Satisfaction

586

3
1

Monitor
Low Importance/
Low Satisfaction

Maintain
Low Importance/
High Satisfaction

Low

Importance

Fig. 2. Quadrant analysis-evaluation matrix.

Ui xi + C + ;

(1)

i=1

where R is the respondents 112th rankings of the scenarios, x1 the type of maintenance strategy adopted, x2 the
performance measure, x3 the location network, x4 the reputation, x5 , the quality assurance scheme, x6 the experience,
C the constant,  the error term, Ui the coeJcients indicates the di6erence in part-worth for that level minus the
part-worth for the base level, i.e. utility. The base level is
assumed to be the level omitted from regression analysis.
3.2. Perceived importance and satisfaction
The data collected from the Likert-type scale questions in
Part B can be assumed to be on an interval scale and thus
means can be compared as a measure of relative perceived
importance, and level of satisfaction of the contractor selection attributes.
The data obtained from the Likert scales are subsequently
plotted using the quadrant analysis, which is simply a graphical technique for mapping customer perceptions of each
attribute on the two-axis grid so as to guide quality-based
marketing strategies [15]. The horizontal axis of the graph
represents how well the managers satis2ed with existing
contractors with regard to the selected attributes, while the
vertical axis represents the perceived importance of these
attributes.
The interpretation of the quadrant analysis can easily be
done with the aid of Fig. 2. The graph of rating points is divided into four quadrants: Capitalize (high importance/high
satisfaction), Maintain (low importance/high satisfaction),
Improve (high importance/low relative satisfaction), Monitor (low importance/low satisfaction). Due to limited
resources available for addressing perceived quality de2ciencies, contractor should concentrate improvement efforts on the quadrant rated as highly important, but that
rank low in satisfaction (improve). In contrast, contractors
should give a relatively low priority in their quality improvement strategy for those attributes with a low rank in
clients importance. Instead, contractors should continue
to upkeep those attributes inside the capitalize quadrant as

they have already gained a competitive strength in these

attributes.
4. Results and discussions
4.1. Respondents demographics characteristics
Among 120 survey conducted, 20 were rejected on the
basis that respondents refusal in providing information that
would impeach their company policies. Overall, a satisfactory 83% response rate was obtained.
Table 3 shows the socio-economic characteristics of the
respondents. Eighty six percent of survey respondents were
male. Over half of the respondents were between 35 and
45 years old. Over 75% of the respondents held a bachelor
degree or above quali2cation, which was likely to generate
more reliable results as their capabilities for these respondents to understand the survey method and objective were
believed to be higher. Fifty two percent of the respondents
were working in property management 2rms, with 32% and
16% of the respondents working in developer and facility management 2rms, respectively. All the respondents reported their managed oJce buildings were equipped with
central air-conditioning systems. Ninety six percent of respondents reported that their working companies were currently outsourcing the air-conditioning maintenance service.
For those outsourcing their maintenance service, a follow-up
question was asked to examine the current contractor selection procedure. The majority of clients preferred competitive tendering rather than negotiation in outsourcing their
maintenance service.
4.2. Empirical results
4.2.1. Determination of relative importance in actual
choice
Utility is a measure of desirability or satisfaction of an
attribute. A utility value is an abstract equivalent of the
attribute being considered from natural units into a series of

C.K. Chau et al. / Building and Environment 38 (2003) 583 591

Table 3
Demographic characteristics of respondents
Descriptions

Percentages (%)

Gender
Female
Male

14.0
86.0

Age (years)
1825
26 35
36 45
46 55

3.0
30.0
56.0
11.0

Employment capacity
Maintenance managers
Facility managers
Property managers

32.0
19.0
49.0

Education level
Master degree
Bachelor degree
Sub-degree

4.0
75.0
21.0

Type of working organisations

Property management
Facility management
Developer and owner

52.0
16.0
32.0

Type of maintenance method used

Outsourcing
In-house

96.0
4.0

Type of outsourcing method used

Call-in quotation
Negotiation
Competitive tendering

10.0
9.0
81.0

Maintenance frequency
Monthly
Quarterly

95.0
5.0

part-worth utility scores for various levels of individual attributes are summarized in Tables 4 and 5.
The correlation between the observed and estimated preferences was veri2ed by using Kendalls Tau and Pearsons
R test with the average sequence order of each group being used as input. The overall values of Pearsons R and
Kendalls Tau of three groups were 0.977 and 0.931 for
facility managers group, 0.984 and 0.879 for property managers groups and 0.992 and 0.939 for maintenance managers
groups, respectively. This indicates a strong correlation
between the observed and estimated preferences.
One-way ANOVA analysis with least signi2cant di6erent
(LSD) test at 0.05 signi2cance levels was also performed
to reveal whether there are signi2cant di6erences between
utility values given by di6erent professional groups. The
symbol () in Table 4 signi2es no statistical di6erence at
0.05 signi2cant level. indicates di6erence in means at
0.05 level for facility and property managers. Similarly, #
indicates di6erence for facility and building maintenance
managers.
The one-way ANOVA results can be interpreted as
follows:
(1) Service-oriented: building maintenance managers and
property managers concerned more on the quality of
service rather than the di6erential price of service under
the existing competitive tendering arrangement.
(2) Price-oriented: The facility managers distinctly considered price of services is an important factor.
(3) Good reputation: Facility managers have a stronger
preference on reputable contractor than building maintenance managers.
(4) Good experience: Compared to building maintenance
managers, facility managers preferred to use a maintenance contractor with excellent past experience.

commensurable units. In order to estimate average utilities

for all respondents, a 2nal total of 1200 pro2le rankings
were used. The average utility values at di6erent attribute
levels are shown in Table 4.
In contrast to the absolute part-worth value ui contribution
associated with a certain attribute i, the relative importance
wi are determined for easy comparison among di6erent attributes for di6erent professional groups. For each attribute
considered in our study, the associated importance are normalized using the following formula [16]:
Max ui Min ui
wi = 
:
Max ui Min ui

587

(2)

It is indisputable that the composition of respondents groups

may a6ect the obtained results. Accordingly, our results
are segmented into di6erent professional manager groups
for revealing their relative weightings. Results showing
the respondents pro2le with the relative importance and

Surprisingly, the pro2les on weighting of importance given

by property managers and maintenance managers are similar. Both property and maintenance managers assigned the
same rank order to these six selection attributes: type of
maintenance, quality assurance, past experience, reputation,
network location, and price or service orientation. They rated
the type of maintenance and quality assurance scheme provided by the contractors are the most important attributes in
selecting their maintenance contractors. In fact, these two
attributes accounted for more than 50% of weightings in
their selection process. Interestingly, they put their lowest
concern on the price. Compared with the property managers, the maintenance managers even rated type of maintenance provided by the contractor far more important than the
provision of quality assurance scheme.
Interestingly, facility managers are observed to have a different weighting pro2le than other types of managers. They
rated the quality assurance and past experience the most important attributes, followed by type of maintenance, reputation, price orientation, and location network. As compared

588

C.K. Chau et al. / Building and Environment 38 (2003) 583 591

Table 4
Utility value at di6erent attribute levels for di6erent professional groups
Level of attribute

Type of maintenance
Corrective
Preventive
Service/price orientation
Service oriented
Price oriented
Location network
Not suJcient
SuJcient
Reputation
No reputation
Reputation
Quality assurance
Not assured
Assured
Past experience
Inexperience
Good experience
Constant

Utility value of facility

managers
[A]

Utility value of property

managers
[B]

Utility value of building

maintenance managers
[C]

ANOVA test at
0.05 signi2cant
level

0.8860
0.8860

1.0884
1.0884

1.1406
1.1406

0.3421
0.3421

0.0136
0.0136

0.2292
0.2292

; #
; #

0.2456
0.4912

0.7143
1.4286

0.7292
1.4583

1.6140
3.2281

1.1973
2.3946

0.8021
1.6042

#
#

2.6842
5.3684

2.6190
5.2381

2.2917
4.5833

2.7895
5.5789
4.5000

2.2245
4.4490
3.6327

1.6146
3.2292
1.6563

#
#

Table 5
Weighting of importance given by di6erent professional groups

Type of maintenance
Service or price oriented
Location network
Reputation
Quality assurance
Past experience

Importance % score by
facility managers

Importance % score by
property managers

Importance % score by
building maintenance managers

19.35
10.09
7.25
14.79
26.12
22.41

25.85
8.55
10.01
11.16
25.67
18.76

35.97
7.53
8.98
9.32
22.86
15.34

to the other two groups, facility managers considered quality assurance and past experience far more important than
the type of maintenance service provided. This is probably consistent with our prior expectation that facility managers are focused mainly on performance results rather than
the process itself. Interestingly, they also placed the highest
score on price-oriented attribute in their decision for selecting maintenance contractor.
4.2.2. Relative perceived importance and level of
satisfaction
Tables 68 list the means, medians, and standard deviations of the perceived importance and level of satisfaction for six attributes of three managers groups. The rank
order of perceived importance for facility managers is as
follows: quality assurance, past experience, type of maintenance, price, reputation (price and reputation have the
same perceived importance) and location network. On the

other hand, the rank order for the property and maintenance
managers is type of maintenance, quality assurance, past
experience, price, reputation and location network. This is
consistent with our earlier results from the actual selection
process. Among three groups, it is observed that the rank
order of the perceived importance of 2rst three attributes is
the same as those revealed by the actual selection process,
despite there are minor discrepancies in the rank order for
the last three attributes. However, there are inconsistencies
with the earlier results that a gap exists between the perception and actual practice [17]. The observations drawn
from other studies are only based on simpli2ed pairwise
choice experiments, which cannot be used to represent the
actual selection process realistically as our selection in the
real life are based on one selection among many alternatives
available.
Intuitively, the simple Likert-scale method can be used
to replace the complicated conjoint analysis in evaluating

C.K. Chau et al. / Building and Environment 38 (2003) 583 591

589

Table 6
Comparison of descriptive statistics for Likert-type scale questions on the perceived importance and level of satisfaction of contractor attributes for the
facility managers groups
Attributes

Type of maintenance
Service or price oriented
Location network
Reputation
Quality assurance
Past experience

Perceived importance

Level of satisfaction

Mean

Median

Standard deviation

Mean

Median

Standard deviation

3.40
3.32
2.74
3.32
4.26
3.63

3.0
3
2.5
3
4
3.5

0.9
0.95
0.73
0.67
0.65
0.96

N/A
3.05
2.26
2.63
3.53
3.42

N/A
3.5
3
2.5
3.5
3.5

N/A
0.62
0.81
0.90
0.84
0.84

Table 7
Comparison of descriptive statistics for Likert-type scale questions on the perceived importance and level of satisfaction of contractor attributes for the
property managers groups
Attributes

Type of maintenance
Service or price oriented
Location network
Reputation
Quality assurance
Past experience

Perceived importance

Level of satisfaction

Mean

Median

Standard deviation

Mean

Median

Standard deviation

4.30
3.22
2.88
3.02
4.27
3.29

4
3
3
3
4
3

0.8
1.10
1.03
0.97
0.64
0.84

N/A
3.02
2.39
2.61
3.51
3.49

N/A
3
3
2.5
3
3.5

N/A
0.69
0.79
0.67
0.92
0.71

Table 8
Comparison of descriptive statistics for Likert-type scale questions on the perceived importance and level of satisfaction of contractor attributes for the
maintenance managers groups
Attributes

Type of maintenance
Service or price oriented
Location network
Reputation
Quality assurance
Past experience

Perceived importance

Level of satisfaction

Mean

Median

Standard deviation

Mean

Median

Standard deviation

4.5
3.38
2.59
3.28
3.84
3.53

4.0
3
2.5
2.5
3.5
3

0.85
1.01
0.87
0.89
0.95
0.84

N/A
3.03
2.44
2.72
3.28
3.19

N/A
3
2.5
3
3
2.5

N/A
0.82
0.76
0.96
1.08
0.82

the contractor selection process. However, it should not be

overlooked the fact that the conjoint analysis would confer
more advantage over Likert-scale method as it could help to
elicit a set of trade-o6 weightings among di6erent selection
attributes.
Unlike the perceived importance, the rank order of level of
satisfaction is the same among di6erent groups of managers.
They seem to satisfy with the quality assurance scheme provided and past experience of the existing contractors. It is
followed by price, reputation and location. The scale data
obtained are expressed in a ratio of importance to satisfaction, and plotted using the quadrant analysis in Fig. 3. It can
be seen that most of the points are falling into the upper part
of the graph, suggesting that managers perceived the major-

ity of selected attributes to be important. Interestingly, the

relationship between the perceived importance and level of
satisfaction of attributes is similar among three groups. The
quality assurance and past experience of all the groups fall
into the capitalize quadrant, which implies their high importance and good satisfaction. In contrast, location network
is having low importance and satisfaction. Accordingly, the
contractors should give the location network the lowest priority area in improving their services. Reputation is in the
improve quadrant, although property managers consider
reputation of average importance. Accordingly, contractors
should put more e6ort to improve their reputation. Interestingly, price falls into an in-between region, which shows average satisfaction and perceived importance. Accordingly,

590

C.K. Chau et al. / Building and Environment 38 (2003) 583 591

Importance

Improve

Capitalize
5
PM:4
FM:4

4
FM:3
PM:3

2
FM:2

MM:1
MM:3

PM:2
MM:2

MM:4
FM:5
MM:5
FM:1
PM:5
PM:1

5
Level of Satisfaction

Maintain

Monitor
Legend:
FM: Facility managers group PM: Property managers group
MM: Maintenance managers group
1: Performance Measurement 2: Location Network 3: Reputation
4: Quality Assurance 5: Past Experience
Fig. 3. Matrix points of quadrant analysis results.

price can be considered as a neutral factor and should be

kept at the current standard.
5. Conclusions
Our 2ndings reveal that both maintenance and property
managers have the similar rank order for selecting the
HVAC contractors: type of maintenance, quality assurance,
past experience, reputation, network location, and price or
service orientation. In contrast, facility managers have different rank order of these attributes. They consider quality
assurance and past experience the most important factors,
which are far more important than type of maintenance. The
results of priority of resource allocation should be given
to quality assurance and past experience, while the least
priority should be given for improving the location network.
The results presented in this study show that the actual
choice in the contractor selection is similar to those identi2ed using Likert-scale ratings. However, it does not imply
that the Likert-scale ratings can be used as a direct substitute for the conjoint analysis as the latter can help to provide
more information on the selection process. Conjoint analysis
can help to estimate the part-worth utility and the trade-o6
weightings of importance among di6erent attributes. If it is
intended only for ranking process, the simple Likert scale
should be adequate. In summary, these two methods can
be adopted simultaneously to check if the perceived importance agree with the importance revealed in a real selection
process.

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