Innovation in construction is a complex, collaborative effort. While inter-organizational collaboration is essential for overcoming project-based constraints, cross-industry collaboration necessitates knowledge and resources from technically proficient organizations to co-create innovative solutions tailored to construction needs. This paper explores how a collaborative innovation network evolves across industrial actors involving the construction industry and the automotive industry. Using the Industrial Network Approach (INA), this study explores the dynamics of an innovation process for co-creating a digital application called the “Efficient Load Out”, which tracks and optimizes truck loads. Data was collected through 16 semi-structured interviews with the main contractor, subcontractors, and a truck group conglomerate. The results show that the dynamic nature of network interdependencies in cross-industry innovation calls for various features of interaction among the actors in efforts of combining resources and linking activities. The interaction among actors evolve, organizational interfaces and actor roles shift across the initiation, development, pilot, and scale-up phases of the innovation process. The study contributes by showing insights into the dynamic features of context dependency in a cross-industry innovation network, including how an innovation plays out differently for the actors, both on short-term and long-term basis.

The Project Delivery System (PDS) selection process significantly influences construction project success and team performance. While extensive research has focused on improving the PDS selection, the impact of external environment criteria (EEC) such as economic constraints, political pressure, and market conditions remains largely unexplored. These dynamic elements disrupt project execution and hinder the overall sector productivity. Addressing this gap, this study evaluates the influence of EEC on the PDS selection. A mathematical model is developed to help in allocating the suitable PDS for multiple construction projects considering the project characteristics, owner’s preferences, and EEC including political and economic constraints, contractor availability, and innovation needs. A case study on Quebec’s public infrastructure projects is conducted to evaluate how these criteria shape the PDS selection process for this context. The findings demonstrate the substantial influence of external criteria in promoting alternative and collaborative PDS. Furthermore, a scenario-based analysis helped identify the most suitable PDS options for addressing severe conditions such as economic crisis and contractor shortages. This research thus provides valuable insights for improving PDS selection and enhancing project outcomes in a dynamic environment.

Owners in the construction industry face persistent challenges in aligning the incentives of designers and contractors with project objectives, often leading to suboptimal collaboration and effort allocation. While prior research has qualitatively examined these dynamics, few studies have formalized them into replicable models that reveal underlying equilibrium behaviors. This study addresses this gap by applying dynamic game-theoretic frameworks to two prevalent procurement archetypes: Lump Sum contracts typically associated with Design-Bid-Build (DBB) and Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP) contracts often linked with Construction Manager at Risk (CMR). Theoretical predictions are evaluated using survey evidence from designers and contractors on U.S. commercial construction projects. Results confirm systematic differences in effort and in perceptions of counterpart effort across contract types, consistent with model predictions: DBB structures mirror a sequential Prisoner’s Dilemma in which both agents minimize effort, whereas CMR/GMP structures elicit higher contractor effort and shift bargaining power toward designers. The study also highlights the critical but underexplored role of owners in orchestrating incentives. By linking contract type to strategic behavior, this research provides a conceptual decision-support framework for owners and expands the construction management Body of Knowledge on incentive alignment in procurement strategies.

Hospital planning and design projects are known for their complexity, partly attributed to the many stakeholders involved. This study aims to understand how a Dutch hospital project, with transformative change goals for its future healthcare delivery, dealt with their stakeholder engagement in the project’s planning and design phase. This study addresses heterogeneity in stakeholder relationships, an underexplored aspect within stakeholder engagement literature. A qualitative study was conducted on the stakeholder engagement during 10 years of hospital planning and design. We used an abductive approach by reviewing project documentation and transcripts of interviews with project stakeholders (n = 22) to reconstruct how the project leadership dealt with the challenges of heterogeneity in the project’s specific context. This study explores dynamism and pluralism within the relationships with seven distinctive stakeholder groups from the hospital’s multi-stakeholder setting, uncovering engagement strategies based on unique combinations of actor and process-specific characteristics. Wider transformative change goals added to the challenges faced in ownership and alignment of goals. Findings highlight the strategies and competencies the project’s owner (and leadership) deployed, such as adapting the project organisation’s structure, investing in an in-house community of practice with a dedicated stakeholder engagement role and fostering enduring collegial relations and commitment.

This study, grounded in the Resource-Based View (RBV) theory, investigates the mediating role of talent management in the relationship between project manager competencies and sustainable competitive advantages. The Ghana construction industry faces various challenges, including project delays, budget overruns, and compromised quality, mainly due to inadequate talent management practices and underutilization of project manager competencies. Using the convenience sampling technique, the study used a valid response of 373 from project managers in the Ghanaian construction industry. The study employed Covariance-Based Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) using AMOS 20 to analyze the relationships. The findings revealed a positive and significant relationship between project manager competencies and sustainable competitive advantages, as well as a positive and significant relationship between project manager competencies and talent management. The study revealed that talent management partially mediates the relationship between project manager competencies and sustainable competitive advantages. Project managers should balance competencies development and strategic initiatives carefully, ensuring that project manager competencies are aligned with and support long-term competitive positioning without inadvertently diminishing sustainable competitive advantages.

In hybrid market economies, the mix between government and private ownership aims to balance innovation and social stability. However, the impacts of these ownership structures and their contracting specialization on construction firm productivity remain largely unexplored. Using longitudinal datasets of 55 Malaysian construction firms over 12 years, we explore construction firm productivity differences between Government-Linked Companies (GLCs) and Private-Controlled Firms (PCFs), as well as productivity differences between General Contracting Firms (GCFs) and Specialized Trade Firms (STFs). We use Total Factor Productivity (TFP), meta-frontier frameworks, and the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) to measure firm productivity, technological gaps, and managerial efficiency while accounting for potential endogeneity issues. The findings reveal no significant impact of ownership types on construction firm productivity. However, controlling ownership shares significantly moderates construction firm productivity. Furthermore, contracting specialization significantly impacts construction firm productivity, with GCFs consistently outperforming STFs, primarily due to technological advantages. Despite this, STFs demonstrate higher managerial efficiency in applying available technologies, suggesting their productivity is hindered by external constraints such as existing policies. Our study recommends that policymakers in hybrid market economies consider reducing excessive government control among construction firms and look for ways to mitigate technological gaps between GCFs and STFs.

The high-quality services of public–private partnership (PPP) highway projects have been receiving increasing attention from the government and private sector. Performance-based subsidies and regulations incentivize the private sector to improve service quality. However, third-party regulators may collude with the private sector to report false performance information for subsidies. This study investigates the conditions for incentivizing service quality and preventing collusion in long-term, multistage games by constructing tripartite evolutionary game models. It compares different forms of performance-based subsidies to optimize incentive effects. The results present thresholds for performance-based subsidies that effectively incentivize the private sector in the long run under collusion risk. Factors such as the additional cost of improving service quality and collusive share influence these thresholds. Based on numerical analyses of highway cases, results indicate the short-term incentive effect of collusion penalties for regulators and the private sector. Through demand-based subsidies, the government can incentivize the private sector to improve their services at lower costs. This study contributes to the relevant literature by focusing on opportunistic performance regulations and multiple subsidy forms. It also helps address collusion in a long-term, multistage process and provides insights for optimizing government subsidy decisions to enhance PPP performance and promote social welfare.

This study aims to understand the extent to which public–private partnership (PPP) and traditional procured (TP) models impact the performance of hospital infrastructure projects. We conduct a case study analysis that combines both qualitative and quantitative approaches, utilising primary and secondary data sources, including interviews, contracts, and operational records, to examine the perspectives of various stakeholders on the different ways hospitals manage their contracts. The results identify six main themes that define their performance differences: service quality and operations, the impact of bureaucracy on decision-making, dispute resolution, differences in construction times, the financing and payment models, and the process of making contract modifications and renegotiations. This study suggests that, in the context of hospital projects, the PPP model tends to outperform the TP model across multiple dimensions, as the evidence broadly supports the theory of PPPs and their anticipated benefits. The findings of this research may encourage debate and reflection on public–private collaboration in the health sector, thereby contributing to the development of policies and strategies that optimise the quality and efficiency of hospital services for the benefit of society.

Unethical practices in the construction industry pose a major challenge worldwide, demanding effective strategies for prevention. This study explores preventive measures and their key determinants to strengthen efforts against unethical behaviour. Through a literature review, 22 preventive strategies were identified to mitigate unethical practices. These were evaluated using a survey among Malaysian construction professionals, providing firsthand insights from industry experts. Factor analysis revealed five key constructs influencing their effectiveness: (1) managerial, (2) regulatory, (3) probing, (4) promotional, and (5) reactive. Leadership, communication, debarment and blacklisting, checks and balances, and rigorous supervision emerged as the most influential strategies. Synthesising these findings with theoretical perspectives, the study develops the Ethics Resilience Framework for Construction Governance—a holistic, multi-level model linking theory, empirical evidence, and policy. The research offers practical recommendations for professionals and policymakers in addressing unethical practices within Malaysia’s construction sector. By tackling the challenges faced by developing countries, this study proposes actionable approaches for ethical enhancement. Ultimately, it contributes significantly to both research and practice in construction ethics.

Understanding the influence of macroeconomic factors on construction labour productivity is essential for developing strategies that mitigate the adverse effects of economic fluctuations. However, previous studies have rarely examined the dynamic lead-lag relationships between macroeconomic indicators and labour productivity in the construction industry using time-series forecasting models. This study addresses this gap by identifying key macroeconomic indicators, such as the Producer Price Index (PPI), Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and Consumer Price Index (CPI), that have a significant temporal influence on construction labour productivity (LP), and by developing a robust LP forecasting model. Time series data on labour productivity and economic indicators were sourced from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Descriptive analysis, stationarity checks, breakpoint and Granger causality tests were performed to determine the leading indicators and select an appropriate multivariate model. Granger causality results identified PPIs for timber, plumbing, and appliances as significant predictors of construction labour productivity. Vector Autoregression (VAR) model was developed and validated using diagnostic tests, including Residual Serial Correlation and Heteroskedasticity tests, confirming model reliability. The results of impulse response functions showed that a one-standard-deviation shock to LP can lead to a substantial and immediate increase in LP. Furthermore, the variance decomposition test revealed that in the initial periods, nearly all the variance in LP is explained by its own shocks; however, over time, the influence of other variables, such as the PPI of appliances and timber, grows. Out-of-sample forecasting demonstrated high predictive accuracy, with RMSE of 1.36, MAE of 1.11, and MAPE of 1.07%. These findings demonstrate the model’s robustness and practical utility. This research contributes to the existing body of knowledge by identifying key macroeconomic factors that influence construction labour productivity at the industry level and by offering a predictive tool to assist contractors, project managers, and policymakers in anticipating productivity trends.