Construction project delays impose substantial organizational consequences on contractors. However, the specific pathways through which individual delay factors translate into organizational consequences remain inadequately modeled in the construction management literature, particularly in the context of Madinah, Saudi Arabia. This study employs path analysis with Maximum Likelihood estimation to model the relationships between key delay factors and three organizational consequence dimensions including reputation and credibility damage, reduced capacity to secure new contracts, and schedule disruption of concurrent projects using data from N = 125 construction professionals. The final path model achieved an acceptable fit (CFI = 0.914, RMSEA = 0.066). Six of the eight hypothesized direct paths were supported. Inadequate funding emerged as the dominant delay factor, having the strongest effect on reduced contract capacity (b = 0.349, p < 0.001) and generating client-contractor disputes that significantly damage organizational reputation through a confirmed indirect pathway (bootstrapped 95% CI: [0.005, 0.088]). Material shortages independently reduced contract-securing capacity (b = 0.231, p = 0.002), whereas client-contractor disputes (b = 0.259, p = 0.001) and scope changes (b = 0.174, p = 0.028) directly predicted reputation damage. Foreign labor dependence was the only significant predictor of schedule disruption (b = 0.172, p = 0.039). The findings highlight financial constraint as the primary strategic vulnerability in the construction delay consequence chain in Madinah.

Keywords

Construction delays, organizational consequences, path analysis, Madinah, Saudi Arabia.