Identification of key liability risks of supervision engineers in China

Until the present, the supervision engineer’s liability risks in China have mostly been analysed by means of a qualitative approach by which it is difficult to identify the key liability risks of the Chinese supervision profession. Two questionnaire surveys were conducted to find out the supervision liability risks. The causes of those risks were analysed by reference to Chinese laws, regulations and questionnaire survey results. The score of the relative importance was creatively used to quantify the liability risks. Eleven key liability risks with higher scores of relative importance were identified. The risks have important influences on project quality, safety production and supervision profession development. The research results provide valuable information not only to government departments, professional associations, Chinese supervision engineers and supervision firms, but also to the foreign companies that offer services in China. The quantitative research method can be employed for other questionnaire surveys such as construction project quality and safety accidents.