Construction Management Literature Research Articles

Beyond bricks and mortar: Work-life balance and project performance of Ghana's construction professionals – Does co-worker relationship quality matter?

Beyond bricks and mortar: Work-life balance and project performance of Ghana's construction professionals – Does co-worker relationship quality matter?

Challenges to business ecosystem alignment when implementing solar photovoltaic systems in the Swedish built environment

ABSTRACT Implementing solar photovoltaic systems in the built environment (BEPV) is critical for the construction sector’s contribution to mitigating climate change. While previous studies give various insights into innovation implementation, the challenges to value co-creation by construction actors remain underexplored. By studying the alignment of business ecosystems implementing BEPV in the Swedish built environment, we address this need. Drawing on the cumulative experience of construction actors, this study demonstrates how knowledge mislocation, knowledge deficits, cultural discrepancies, insufficient building codes, frequently changing regulations, and implementing a highly embedded innovation can disturb ecosystem alignment. The study contributes to the ecosystem literature, scholarly discussions of innovation implementation in complex construction projects, and the PV diffusion literature by offering insights into the realignment of ecosystems involving value co-creation by actors from previously unconnected industries. The study links PV diffusion research to the construction management literature by exploring the cumulative experience of implementation at the micro level. We highlight the significant industry reconfigurations required to accommodate a deeply embedded technological innovation, reconfigurations going beyond the challenges of implementing systemic innovations encumbered by fewer material dependencies. We also emphasize the critical importance of industrial interaction, coordination, and learning to accelerate the sustainability transition.

A Study of Risk Management Approaches in Construction Projects in Bihar

Abstract: The goal of the study is aimed to obtain an overall comprehension of risk, its influence on the construction sector, and the procedures that are needed to manage it. This study aims to identify the risk variables that have an overall negative impact on construction project performance, analyze them using the right tools and techniques, and provide a framework for risk management. Along with discussing the instruments and techniques used to handle risk in construction projects, the impact of risk on project assessment is also looked into. The main approach of the study is based in large part on the survey questionnaire that will be distributed by mail or in person to the various construction project managers and construction contractors of varying sizes. The survey's questionnaire was developed after looking over pertinent construction management literature. Leveraging the SPSS software, the replies were analysed using bar charts

A Performance Quality Index to Assess Professional Conduct of Contractors at Sustainable Construction Projects in Saudi Arabia

The quality performance of contractors in sustainable construction projects is a major concern for the industry. Over the past decade, studies on measurements, factors, and indicators for assessment of the professional conduct of construction companies are to be found in the sustainable construction management literature. There is adequate evidence over the last decade that an increasing number of construction professionals have adopted the measurement of the professional conduct of contractors as a tool to support their future decisions. The method of the Analytical Hierarchy (AHP) process has been deployed to identify the major factors and sub-factors involved in sustainable construction in Saudi Arabia. Using several governing factors, including quality of document submittals (QDS), quality system implementation (QSI), and quality of construction works (QCW), a working framework was developed by using the pair-wise comparison method. The results show that proper accountability and keen consideration of factors that could hinder sustainable construction by contractors contribute to the development of a better perspective on quality issues. After a critical analysis, a Performance Quality Index was developed, and a benchmark value was obtained. The benchmark value of PQI will assist project managers and owners in the sustainable construction sector as a reference for future improvement in the quality performance of contractors.

Analysis of Theoretical Viewpoints Explaining the Performance Differentials of Construction Firms

ABSTRACT Much research has been carried out in the field of business management to understand why some organizations perform better than others, while others fail. Strategic management field has a strong focus on exploring how firms operate and the performance differentials among them. In strategic management, predominantly, three theories are applied to assess firm performance. These theories are Resource-Based View (RBV), Dynamic Capabilities theory (DC), and Contingency Theory (CT). Through a systematic literature review, this paper explores how these three theories have been applied to construction management literature to review and examine the performance of the construction firms. Review of 46 articles was carried out to identify the factors that affect the performance of the construction firms in line with the frameworks presented by the aforementioned theories. The findings of the study hold significance for future researches on performance determinants of construction firms by evidencing the application of RBV, DC, and CT in construction management literature, which paves the way to future research aiming at combining the underlying principles of these theories to explore construction firm’s performance.

Contrasting Perceptions of Construction Managers and Project Managers Around Failure in Light of Morris and Geraldi’s Institutional Context

In their 2011 paper titled “Managing the Institutional Context for Projects” Morris and Geraldi raised the importance of the institutional context in the management of projects. Building on that, this study proposes the conceptualisation and understanding of project-related failure and success through an institutional perspective. This is based on an understanding that projects are distinctive, time-constrained, undertakings meant to generate benefits for all associated stakeholders whose perception of failure varies. Yet, little attention has been given to explaining how such perception is influenced by underlying institutional contexts. Therefore, the aim of the study was to examine the knowledge base for contrasting perspectives of project managers and construction managers around project-related failure in light of the institutional perspectives. To do this, a systematic literature review (SLR) approach was adopted. The first finding of note from this SLR is the dominance of interest in and from the UK Construction Industry (UKCI). This may be attributed to the culture and structure of the UKCI driven by the autonomy and authority of organisations such as the National Audit Office (NAO). The findings further reveal that in the general Project Management (PM) literature, considerations of failure are more introspective and discussed more in terms of project outputs with the causes associated with project management limitations. Considering the three levels discussed by Morris and Geraldi (2011) the PM perspective of failure and success can be associated with the technical level of analysis of project outputs. In contrast, the Construction Management (CM) literature focuses predominantly on specific failures, and on external failures. Causes are more attributed to profitability and the wider supply chain and this can be associated with Morris’s strategic level focus on effectiveness and value. The results from this study call for a systemic approach by heeding the call of Prof. Peter Morris to consider the institutional context level in the perception and analysis of failure instead of solely focusing on output or technical level parameters of time cost and quality.

A conceptual construction management curriculum model grounded in scientometric analysis

PurposeThis research aims to present a conceptual model for construction management programme curriculum development from the perspective of higher education institutes (HEIs) and aims to engender wider polemic debate and stimulate new insight into current higher education practice.Design/methodology/approachThe overarching epistemology adopts both interpretivist and pragmatist philosophical stances, couched within grounded theory, to critically analyse extant literature on construction management curriculum development. Inductive reasoning forms the basis of new emergent theory that maps curriculum development and highlights the external and internal factors impacting upon such.FindingsResearch findings illustrate that the prevailing body of knowledge lacks a cohesive nucleus of research on construction management curriculum development. Rather, bespoke curriculum development research predominates in uncommunicative silos. Premised upon these findings, the conceptual curriculum model developed defines and delineates the universal internal factors (e.g. student marketplace, course leadership and academic precedents) and external factors (e.g. accreditation, construction industry and professional bodies) that impact upon curriculum development. Identification of these factors provides a sound basis upon which further research can be propagated to enhance curriculum development and unify the current disparate approaches adopted.Originality/valueThis novel research highlights the lack of a cohesive agenda for curriculum development within mainstream construction management literature and based upon this, a conceptual model for future empirical analysis and testing is presented.

Factors Influencing BIM Integration with Emerging Technologies: Knowledge Coupling Perspective

In recent years, construction organizations have tended to use building information modeling (BIM) in combination with emerging technologies. Yet, although previous scholarship has explored a number of antecedents of BIM adoption, little is known about factors influencing such a burgeoning phenomenon—BIM integration. Against this background, this study employs knowledge coupling theory to investigate antecedents of BIM integration intention (BII). This study surveys 167 managers in the Chinese construction industry and analyzes the data using the structural equation modeling technique. The results indicate that three types of knowledge inertia (i.e., routine problem-solving strategy) exert different effects on BII. Specifically, experience inertia positively affects BII, learning inertia negatively affects BII, and procedural inertia has no effect on BII. Moreover, both formal and informal knowledge governance are positively related to BII. Further, formal knowledge governance is found to weaken the negative link between learning inertia and BII but strengthen the positive link between experience inertia and BII. These findings contribute to the construction management literature by deepening our understanding of BIM integration. Implications on BIM integration for practitioners are also discussed.

The gold standard: developing a maturity model to assess collaborative scheduling

PurposeThe overall contribution of this work is to provide a usable maturity model for collaborative scheduling (CS) that extends the literature, identifies inconsistencies in schedule development, and improves collaboration in the construction industry.Design/methodology/approachVia subject matter expert elicitation and focus groups, the maturity model establishes five pillars of collaboration—scheduling significance, planners and schedulers, scheduling representation, goal alignment with owner, and communication. The maturity model is then validated through iterative feedback and chi-squared statistical analysis of data obtained from a survey. The five pillars are tied to the literature and previous work in CS.FindingsThe analysis shows that current industry projects are not consistent in collaboration practice implementation, and the maturity model identifies areas for collaboration improvement. The study's contributions to the body of knowledge are (1) developing a maturity model-based approach to define and measure the current level of collaboration and (2) discovering the level of consistency in scheduling collaboration practice implementation.Practical implicationsThe findings provide a benchmark for self-evaluation and peer-to-peer comparison for project managers. The model is also useful for project managers to develop effective strategies for improvement on targeted dimensions and metrics.Originality/valueThe construction engineering and management (CEM) literature does not contain targeted models for scheduling collaboration in the context of maturity and, broadly speaking, neither does the literature at large. The literature also lacks actionable items as presented for the maturity model for collaborative scheduling (MMCS).

Construction Labour Measurement in Reinforced Concrete Floating Caissons in Maritime Ports

This research work attempts to approach the measuring of the working equipment necessary to make floating caissons for maritime work and their performances. With this objective, an empirical study has been carried out based on the construction of five floating caissons with a rectangular layout of 34.00 meters in length, 17.00 meters in width, and 19.00 meters in depth, lightened with 32 vertical cells. This work was carried out in the port of Granadilla, Tenerife (Spain). The updated scientific literature related to the execution of this type of floating structure refers to the importance of the calculation hypotheses, the actions to be taken into account, the service states or the importance of the choice of materials (concrete and steel). However, scientific research does not seem to face the problem of how to size the working team necessary to execute this type of structure. The work force is approached from the point of view of the adequate sizing of working groups. The important contribution of the article to the project and construction management literature is the development and capability of an easy-to-use optimization model for planning the labour and labour days required in floating caisson construction. The optimization model proposed in this research allows the project managers of a construction company to estimate the labour costs and teams necessary in the execution of the construction. This gives it a competitive advantage both in the construction phase and in the bidding phase for the award of the work. Doi: 10.28991/CEJ-2022-08-02-01 Full Text: PDF

Success criteria-based impacts of risk factors on education building projects in southwestern Nigeria

PurposeDespite the huge capital outlay in tertiary education building projects (TEBP), these projects undoubtedly failed in meeting the set objectives of cost, time and quality, among others. Therefore, rather than the impacts of risks on the overall project performance, which is common in the construction management literature, the purpose of this study is to assess the impacts of risk factors on the criteria for measuring the success of public TEBP.Design/methodology/approachThe paper adopted a quantitative research method where the data collection was via a questionnaire survey. The researcher administered 452 questionnaires to the client representatives, consultants and contractors involved in building projects across five public tertiary education institutions in Ondo State, Nigeria. Of 452 questionnaires, 279 were retrieved and suitable for the analysis, translating to a 61.73% response rate. The reliability analysis of the research instrument showed 0.965 and 0.807, via Cronbach’s alpha test, indicating high reliability of the instrument used for data collection.FindingsThe study found different risk factors affecting the criteria for measuring the success of TEBP. For instance, the environmental risk factor significantly impacted completion to cost, while financial and political risk factors significantly impacted completion to time. In addition, while environmental, legal and management risks significantly impacted end-user satisfaction, safety performance was significantly impacted by logistic, legal, design, construction, political and management risks. Besides, the logistic, legal, design, construction, financial, political and management risk factors impacted profit. However, despite profit being one of the criteria for measuring the success of building projects, it recorded the highest risk impacts amounting to 41% variance.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings are limited to the public tertiary education building projects procured via competitive tendering; therefore, the results might differ when considering other procurement methods.Practical implicationsThe practical implication is that rather than focusing on all risk factors, the project stakeholders could give adequate attention to the significant risk factors impacting each of the parameters for measuring the success of education building projects.Originality/valueThe study revealed specific risk factors impacting the criteria for measuring the success of TEBP, which extend beyond the use of the overall project performance approach.

Circular Public Procurement through Integrated Contracts in the Infrastructure Sector

Public clients’ procurement strategies are central in facilitating innovation towards sustainability. In the infrastructure sector, the three main project activities—design, production, and maintenance—are traditionally not procured in an integrated way, which results in sub-optimizations and a lack of life cycle perspective. As project actors are accustomed to traditional, non-integrated forms of contract, implementing integrated contracts imposes fundamental changes to the interdependencies among actors, resources, and activities. This study analyzes the interfaces among key project actors and the related interdependencies across design, production, and maintenance in Design–Build–Maintain contracts, and initiates a discussion on how to manage these interdependencies when implementing integrated contracts. This study of circular public procurement (CPP) focused on three infrastructure projects using integrated contracting and applied the industrial network approach (INA) to analyze interdependencies in how they may influence innovation and sustainable development. The study found significant obstacles to clients obtaining the benefits of integrated contracting and concludes that understanding interdependencies is necessary to implement integrated contracts successfully. The study contributes to the construction management literature by adapting the INA to contracting, and to the CPP literature by providing empirical evidence of sustainability and circularity in infrastructure projects.

A Programmed Algorithm for Resource Scheduling in Construction.(Dept.C)

If the critical path determined completion time of the construction project is constrained by the lack of resources, which are needed to carry out some of the activities, then the analysis required for scheduling the activities is much more involved. There are two major categories of procedures for solving this problem. The first involves the use of some heuristic rules in determining priorities among activities competing for available resources. The second involves some form of mathematical programming to produce the optimal schedule. Heuristic scheduling rules. computer programmed to give good feasible schedules have been the basis for all practical systems to date. In the same time, the optimal solution of the problem has not been paid enough attention in the construction management literature. The increasing availability of more powerful computer systems should see more emphasis on the development of procedures to give the optimal solution for large complex projects which occur in construction practice. In this paper a Computer program is developed for implementing an implicit enumeration algorithm to give the optimal solution of the problem for construction projects. The algorithm has been chosen to satisfy large projects and its efficiency has been established by specifying a lower bound on the length of the schedule and by sorting project activities and resources in a way such that the computation time is greatly reduced. Experience in applying the algorithm to an actual project is reported.

Facility management information taxonomy framework for queries in healthcare buildings

Healthcare facilities need to ensure providing safer services to patients without interruptions since disease diagnosis and treatments highly depend on medical equipment and spaces. Therefore, facility management (FM) of healthcare facilities requires a clear and rapid information flow for decision making processes to impede possible interruptions. Non-availability of information, accuracy problems and incomplete information induce more severe problems such as cost overruns, reduced productivity and decrease in customer satisfaction. Thus, this paper aims to develop a strategic information taxonomy framework for FM inquiries in healthcare facilities to address the research problem. Design Science Research methodology cycles such as relevance, rigor and design are adopted during the flow of the research. In the relevance cycle, research requirements and the importance of FMITs were firstly observed with two scenarios, then in the rigor cycle, 64 FM information types (FMITs) were determined, classified and refined under three categories such as; managerial, technical, and financial as a result of literature review and pilot study. Determined FMITs were analyzed with newly developed MonteCarlo Simulation and TOPSIS Techniques on healthcare facilities. As a result of analysis, 62 FMITs were found important for healthcare facilities. The most important FM Informations Types were found as “identification of hazardous or other risks to people or property” (0,985), “real-time operation parameters/post occupancy data integration” (0,939), and “predicted lifetime of assets” (0,818) in managerial, technical and financial information types respectively. Finally, in design cycle, facility management information taxonomy, which was created from determined FMITs, and importance levels of determined FMITs were evaluated with two case studies. Results showed that while maintenance contracts have a positive impact to prevent negative impact of costs, they can cause interruption in information management in facility management. Additionally, there are some view difference in professions. For example, construction management literature focuses wastes that are incurred at the end of building lifecycle or construction process. However, there aren't much attention to manage wastes that occurred during operation and maintenance stage. Beside this, regulations and standards have importance to store, use and manage FMITs. The analysis results acknowledged that the use of information taxonomy framework can increase the effectiveness of the healthcare FM.

Development of an impact-on-performance index (IPI) for construction projects in Malaysia: a Delphi study

Over the past decade, studies on measurements, factors, and indicators of construction companies’ performance have been spread in the construction management literature. There is adequate evidence that an increasing number of construction professionals have adopted, during the last decade, the impact-on-performance (IP) as a tool to support their decisions. Due to numerous benefits of evaluating the IP in construction, it becomes essential to conduct research in the area of key performance indicators (KPIs). Nevertheless, no comprehensive and systematic research studies in this area have been conducted, as indicated by this systematic research review. This paper reports an empirical study to formulate a model to assess the IP for construction companies in Malaysia. Real-time Delphi survey questionnaires were distributed to 15 respondents from Malaysian construction experts. The survey identified eight KPIs to evaluate the IP. These KPIs included: (1) cost, (2) time, (3) quality, (4) productivity, (5) safety, (6) environment, (7) satisfaction, and (8) communication indicators, respectively, ranked by their importance. A formula for calculating the IP index (IPI) for construction companies in Malaysia has been derived. Construction senior executives and project managers can use the index to measure, monitor, and improve the performance of their companies.

Investigating the managerial ‘‘nuts and bolts’’ for the construction industry

PurposeManagerial shortfalls can considerably undermine the delivery performance of construction projects. This paper appraises the project management essentials (PMEs) for successful construction project delivery.Design/methodology/approachFollowing a detailed literature review, a questionnaire survey was developed encompassing 20 PMEs that were identified. An opinion questionnaire survey was used to facilitate data collection from key construction stakeholders in the Malaysian construction industry. The survey data were subjected to descriptive statistics and exploratory factor analysis.FindingsFindings indicated that the leading PMEs are competency of the project team, competency of project manager, good leadership, effective planning and control and realistic cost and time estimate. Spearman’s rank correlation tests affirmed a good agreement on the ranking of PMEs across stakeholder groups. The present study found that PMEs for construction have a total of four dimensions, namely: scope, communication and competence management; stakeholder commitment and collaborative engagement; construction time–cost planning and control; and environment, health, safety and quality management.Practical implicationsThe findings could potentially contribute to the development of appropriate project management best practices to address managerial shortfalls in Malaysia and other developing countries.Originality/valueThis paper bridges the identified knowledge gap about critical managerial dimensions for successful project management in construction. The present study adds to the existing body of knowledge around this under-explored area in the construction management literature.

Capitalising teamwork for enhancing project delivery and management in construction: empirical study in Malaysia

PurposeTeamwork in the construction industry has attracted much attention from both academic and industrial circles. Most importantly, improving team effectiveness will increase the likelihood of successful project delivery. Recognising the factors influencing team dynamics is important for enhanced team performance.Design/methodology/approachBased on a detailed literature review, a survey questionnaire containing 10 aspects and 25 attributes of teamwork relevant to construction is used to collect feedback from Malaysian construction practitioners from client, consultant and contractor organisations to prioritise these hypothesised variables. The data are then subjected to reliability analysis, descriptive statistics (means, standard deviations, and frequencies), a one-sample t-test, the Kruskal–Wallis ANOVA and exploratory factor analysis.FindingsThe significance of these aspects and attributes is then presented. The three most crucial aspects are “project performance”, “decision-making capability” and “problem-solving ability”. The most influential attributes are “effective communication between project team members”, “efficient team leadership”, “well-defined team responsibilities and roles”, “clear team goals and objectives” and “good collaboration between all project leaders”. The Kruskal–Wallis ANOVA reveals five attributes having statistically significant differences with respect to company size, namely “clear team goals and objectives”, “commitment to the project”, “adequate resources”, “team or task processes” and “creativity and innovation”. Six underlying dimensions are found, comprising (1) participative engagement and task commitment; (2) team responsibility structure and accountability; (3) culture of trust and respect; (4) leader's skills and abilities; (5) top management support; and (6) synergic working environment.Practical implicationsThe identification of these dimensions for team effectiveness provides rigorous basis for formulating useful team-building strategies for integrating a collaborative environment among project stakeholders and consequently improving project performance.Originality/valueThis paper bridges the identified knowledge gap concerning the dimensionality of teamwork attributes in construction-based setting and adds to existing knowledge of how team effectiveness can be leveraged to improve project performance in the construction management literature.

Few Ways to Succeed, Many Ways toFail: Asymmetrical Performance of Indian Highway PPP Projects

We study the performance of public-private partnership (PPP) recognizing that it is associated with causal complexity, equi-finality, and vagueness of both the outcome and predictor conditions. fs/QCA, a set-theoretic configurational approach, is deployed to carry out within-case analysis and a formalized cross-case comparison of 29 large highway PPP projects. Surveys, interviews and archival data collected over seven years were employed to develop a deep contextual understanding, enabling a qualitative comparison. The projects that we study cost over $ 4 billion. They are located in India which is one of the largest PPP markets in the world, with the maximum number of highway PPPs.In contrast to prior studies that look at performance as unidirectional, we identify asymmetrical conditions and recipes for PPP success and failure. Further, guided by detailed contextual knowledge, the study conditions founded in different disciplines, and make an effort to integrate the diverse literature. A projects timely completion / failing in timely completion is found to be asymmetrically caused by project preparation, resource availability, and contractual maturity (key attributes identified in policy and economics literature); construction experience of private sector (key aspects identified in construction and project management literature); and emphasis on social relationships (located in management and trust literature).

Calculation of risk costs in construction projects

AbstractAs early as 1971, Schubert made a first contribution to the consideration of risks during the execution of construction projects. In addition to that, he was first to introduce elements of the risk management process to the construction management literature in Germany. By the use of an empirical study of the probability of risk occurrence and the cost amount by risk occurrence, Schubert made among others a statement about the importance of the risks depending on the amount of the risk costs. In an updated study for building construction projects with construction costs ≤2.5 million € and unit price contracts applying the VOB/B primarily the altered risk evaluations are shown; it needs to be emphasized that the sum of the determined risk costs corresponds to Schubert's results. Furthermore, with a variation of the characteristic attributes (response options) of the probability of risk occurrence and the cost amount by risk occurrence, it can be displayed that the risk costs during the execution of building construction projects are even considerably higher. Additionally, a probabilistic risk cost calculation — applying the Monte Carlo method — is used to reveal the bandwidth of risk costs. It can be pointed out that the risk costs range between 2.71% and 8.67% of the construction costs. The results could serve as a benchmark for contractors during the tender calculation to determine the amount of risk costs depending for example, on the market situation, the company‐specific risk disposition as well as strategic considerations.

Relationship Between Organisational Effectiveness and Project Performance of SME Contractors: a Developing Country Perspective

Organisational effectiveness (OE) theory provides a veritable framework for examining organisational performance. This theory has, however, made a very little inroad into construction management literature, and there are limited discussions on the domains within which construction firms can measure their OE. Besides this, the extent to which corporate OE determines a contractor's project performance is not fully understood, primarily, in the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) contractor context. Based on data from 53 projects in higher institutions in Nigeria, this study evaluated the measures of corporate OE of SME contractors and examined the contributions of the corporate OE of the firms to their project performance. By factor analysis, it was discovered that the SME contractors' corporate OE can be measured using corporate advantage, firm experience, firm certification and firm owner background. Using canonical correlation, a significant relationship was found between the OE of the firms and the measures of project performance. The analysis further revealed that project cost and quality performances are bettered by increases in firm certification and experience, although time performance tends to worsen as a result. In addition to identifying the domains for measuring an SME contractor's OE, this study shows that better firm experience does not necessarily improve a contractors' project time performance. Construction stakeholders and the public should beware of firms that only boast of an excellent corporate advantage and ownership by prominent persons in the society, but without adequate experience and certification.
 
 Keywords: Corporate Advantage, Firm Experience, Project Performance