Resumen
Managing the selection of a right contractor for construction projects is vital for the industry because of its complexity. Furthermore, contractors have a direct impact on project?s outcome and their selection needs to be done carefully and systematically. As a matter of fact, public construction projects in Malaysia have repeatedly agonised from time overrun, overspending and quality concerns. These issues are greatly affected by the contractors who are likely manipulating the tender price with the sole purpose of securing the contract, hence leading to various problems throughout the project life cycle. Thus, this paper intends to manage the contractor selection process via the aim of developing a set of contractor selection criteria for public construction projects in Malaysia. A total of 43 selection criteria are collected via literature review, questioned to 276 Malaysian construction practitioners and analyzed using Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS) and SmartPLS. Analysis showed that all 43 selection criteria were significant in selecting contractors in Malaysia. The findings of this paper would encourage the governing bodies and authorities to consider the use of multi-criteria assessment in selecting contractors for public construction projects, rather than being solely reliant on the tendered price.