175 research outputs found
Mapping of Sustainability Education to Construction Related Curricula: A Case Study of Quantity Surveying (QS) Degree Programme
No full textAn effective response is required to climate change and the steady diminution of resources of our natural world. We are all situated within and dependent upon the Built Environment for our survival. We all benefit from buildings and infrastructure. The creation, refurbishment and maintenance of this environment is a £100 Billion industry. Each new build operation, every refurbishment and the operation of existing systems all consume resources, in many cases scarce and non-renewable. What is vital is awareness in those actually responsible for the creation and renewal of the facilities referred to above? There can only be a concerted effort at sustainable building when there is genuine, informed, concern on the part of all members of the construction team. Perhaps we should look to our providers of construction-related education to instil students with increasing awareness of the issues. The current study examines the extent to which there is appreciation of issues of sustainability amongst educators and the extent of their inclusion within the curricula of (in this case) Quantity Surveying students at a northern university chosen for the study. The literature review findings and results from the content analysis of the series of interviews conducted suggest the level of inclusion appears to be low. This supports findings from the recent RICS research, which suggested that sustainability may be evident across only 3-5% of the curricula of most Quantity Surveying programmes, and incorporated at a basic level only
A discussion of the research performance evaluation in building and construction management discipline : the journal impact factors and SCI-index journals
No full textThe trend of diminished funding, demands for greater efficiency and higher public accountability have led to a rapid expansion of interest in the bibliometric assessment of research performance of universities. A pilot research is conducted to provide a preliminary overview of the research performance of the building and construction schools or departments through the analysis of bibliometric indicators including the journal impact factor (JIF) published by Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). The suitability of bibliometric evaluation approaches as a measure of research quality in building and construction management research field is discussed
Knowledge management in construction
No full textReview of Knowledge Management in Construction, Edited by Chimay J. Anumba, Charles Egbu and Patricia Carrillo</p
Modelling in ranking procedures; a case study: infrastructure failures in Nigeria
No full textThe lack of a scientific approach as to which factors are considered or chosen in a decision-making process can seriously influence the effectiveness of that process. Using the example of infrastructure failures in Nigeria, this paper presents a severity
index in matrix order (SIMO) model that unambiguously ranks factors and also defines a threshold that demarcates between major variable factors that should not be compromised in policy and less important ones. Infrastructures failures in Nigeria have
hindered economic processes which were meant to alleviate poverty. Constraints responsible for this situation are identified from a carefully conducted survey in Nigeria. Severity of these constraints is empirically ranked using a developed severity
index in matrix order (SIMO) model. However, the investigation reveals that corruption, misallocation of investments, inadequate maintenance, lack of transparency and accountability, insufficient funding for infrastructure, lack of supportive institutions, inconsistent political, social and economic policies and the lack of suitable technical and managerial skill are the major variable factors responsible for infrastructure failures in Nigeria
Strategy and business development practices in Danish constrution industry SMEs.
No full textThe paper presents a qualitative study of strategy and business development practices in Small and Medium Sizes Enterprises (SME) in the Danish construction industry. Theoretically the paper draws upon theories on how strategy is developed and practiced as in integrated part of everyday management practices. 19 qualitative interviews have been conducted in total representing architects, engineering companies, contractors and subcontractors. Based on an in-depth analysis of this empirical material, the study finds: (1) he market is characterized by a typical “red ocean” environment, where the companies compete on their overhead rather than their ability to reduce production cost and create value. (2) the companies have a reactive practice towards development, where they try to follow the development in the market rather than shaping their own market. (3) their approach towards strategy development is characterized by being unstructured, undocumented and nonreflexive. This is interpreted as a sign of unprofessional management practices in the businesses, which reproduces the existing institutionalized division of labour in the construction industry. The paper concludes that business development represents an important but unacknowledged practice for innovation of the building industry and suggests that strategy processes should be facilitated and subject to more detailed research in order to escape the present unhealthy market practices in the construction industry
Conceptual model linking knowledge management with organisational performance
No full textGriffith Sciences, Griffith School of EngineeringNo Full Tex
Ethical Predisposition of Project Managers in the Delivery of Construction Projects in the NHS
No full textThe National Health Service (NHS) is a major client of the construction industry with cost of the healthcare estate estimated to be over £8 billion and capital investment of £2 billion in 2015/16. The aim is to investigate if project team members are ethically predisposed to make decisions based on rules or outcome and to examine its relationship with governance and project outcome. A two-stage approach was used based on survey and interviews with senior project managers. Out of 51 participants, formalism predominated regardless of age or gender with 45 formalists (‘rules followers’), and 4 utilitarians (‘outcome driven’ or ‘ends focused’). The NHS culture is rules and protocol-driven for patient safety and for its duty of accountability to the tax payer. Project governance was more effective as the corporate governance layer did not have sufficient knowledge about construction projects, risk mitigation, and are often perceived to be uninterested in project details. The findings suggest that NHS projects are managed by people with high ethical standards and the governance process whilst acknowledged to be important was sometimes perceived to be ineffective due to difficulties at the interface between corporate and project governance which needs to be addressed for project ‘success’.
Keywords: ethical predisposition, governance structure, NHS, project outcome
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