Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues is a peer-reviewed journal which publishes original research papers and case studies

Irrigation and hydropower are among the most important sectors in the construction industry that propel the economic needs of a developing country like Vietnam. The construction of these projects often suffers from severe delays, leading to financial losses and other negative impacts on the economy. This paper aims to determine delay factors in the construction of these projects. Among many, 39 most important candidates of delay causes were identified from the literature review. Further surveys on project participants were conducted for the severity of these causes. An exploratory factor analysis was utilized to identify latent factors that cause delays in construction projects. The analysis result categorized a few groups of factors such as abnormal factors on the construction site (e.g., labor accidents, hydrology, water flow, extreme weather) and technical factors related to the construction contractor (e.g., unsuitable schedule, outdated construction technology, unprofessional workers) that have the greatest impact on the delay in construction of irrigation and hydropower projects in Vietnam. These findings contribute to the body of knowledge of project management and risk management, hence an improvement in the efficiency of the project sectors' performance.

Vietnam is a country that experiences extreme climate conditions and annual accumulated damage due to typhoons and floods, which seriously destroy houses and cause many deaths. Approximately half a million people currently living within 200 m from the coastline live in unsafe houses. Therefore, the Coastal Resilience Project (the project) was implemented to build 4000 storm- and flood-resistant houses for five coastal provinces in Central Vietnam. The paper is carried out to review existing policies and practices related to the maintenance of resilient houses, as well as to propose feasible maintenance solutions for houses to ensure the sustainability of the project. The result shows that currently, there are no technical instructions or manuals on the maintenance and repair of individual houses in general, or the project houses in particular. Most of the households in the project also have very low and unstable incomes. In addition, as they lack knowledge of how construction works, they know little to nothing about the maintenance of a house. From these findings, the authors recommend several solutions for better maintenance policies and practices on the resilient houses of the project in Vietnam. The project provides several lessons in terms of the maintenance of the resilient houses of future projects in Vietnam and elsewhere, by reviewing existing policies and current practices, as well as proposing feasible measures to ensure the sustainability of the project. The findings in this paper provide valuable information for better maintenance policies and practices of resilient houses for other vulnerable coastal provinces in Vietnam and similar contexts elsewhere.