1,721,001 research outputs found
The impact of strategic decisions on construction client satisfaction: an assessment framework
Full text linkA thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of
the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton
for the degree of Doctor of PhilosophyFor some considerable time, client satisfaction has been a problematic issue in the UK construction industry with many projects failing to satisfy the client needs and meet or exceed the client expectations. Client satisfaction is, however, a key performance measure and a major determinant of project success. There is a common belief that strategic decisions made by clients have a significant impact on the levels of client satisfaction. Strategic decisions in the context of construction projects are often associated with project stages including pre-design, design, tender, construction, occupancy & maintenance and disposal and vary in nature. Consequently the impact of strategic decisions on client satisfaction depends as much on timing as on the subjects of the decisions. While such findings are useful to facilitate the industry’s focus on addressing the failure in achieving client satisfaction, and point to the route for improvement, they are arbitrary and do not provide a systematic basis for investigating the real impact on client satisfaction. The nature of strategic decisions and the significance of its impact on client satisfaction have not been clearly identified and client satisfaction has remained an elusive issue for a majority of construction professionals. This research was hence undertaken to seek empirical evidence of an interrelationship between strategic decisions and client satisfaction. Defining strategic decisions, often associated with project stages, as ones that are complex and made under uncertainty and have a long-term impact on project success, a quantitative research methodology combined with qualitative approaches, was adopted in investigating the interrelationship between strategic decisions and client satisfaction. Findings of a detailed literature review revealed that client satisfaction at any stage depends as much on the service quality attributes of service providers including overall service delivery, people of service providers and communications with clients as on the influence of strategic decisions and the client itself. These performance attributes and the groups of strategic decisions, referred as strategic decision cluster (SDC), were further assessed and the relationships between these measures and strategic decisions were examined using factor analysis and multiple regression modelling techniques. Analyses revealed SDCs including Design Approach, Procurement and Implementation predict better the outcomes of service quality and hence higher levels of client satisfaction. Service delivery and communications with clients have a positively significant correlation with the levels of client satisfaction. Of these two attributes, communications with clients makes the largest unique contribution to the variance and is considered the better predictor for client satisfaction. The developed models is validated via external and internal validation and the findings support the thesis that strategic decisions have a impact on client satisfaction by strongly influencing the performance of service quality although causality cannot be assumed. It is recommended that service providers including contractors and consultants devote more efforts to improve their performance on the attributes of service quality identified as having significant association with client satisfaction, particularly service delivery and communications with clients. Further research efforts focusing on providing a practical tool or expert system so as to address the practical issues for a wider range of clients and service providers are also recommended
Homeowner satisfaction and service quality in the repair of UK flood-damaged domestic property
Full text linkA thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the Award of Degree of Doctor of PhilosophyFlooding is a global challenge that has plagued mankind throughout history, affecting over 164 million people worldwide in 2007 alone. As the frequency of flooding increases in England and Wales coupled with an increase in the number of properties at risk of flooding and the attendant huge (insured) economic costs of flooding, the services received by homeowners during flood damage repair works, have not been spared criticism, Both the Welsh Consumer Council report and the Warwickshire Trading Standards report raised serious questions about the level of service in insurance claims for the repair of flood-damaged domestic property. This research project was therefore aimed at investigating the level of service quality and determinants of homeowners’ satisfaction in England and Wales with respect to flood damage repair works during insurance claims. A comprehensive literature review was conducted on customers’ needs, satisfaction and service quality, flooding and related issues, and the repair of flood damaged domestic property, in order to set the framework for the research and shape the development of the research questions/hypotheses. The study employed a two-phased sequential mixed methods approach, commencing with 20 in-depth interviews with homeowners, repairers, insurers and loss adjusters. Findings from the initial exploratory study (and from the literature review) informed the development of a questionnaire instrument, which incorporated elements of SERVQUAL, the generic service quality measurement instrument. Survey data were collected for the quantitative phase of the study from a sample of 126 homeowners, which was then analysed to test the hypotheses put forward in the study. The data did not yield a set of reliable and interpretable factors of service quality from the three service quality scales used to measure homeowners’ perceptions of the performance of insurers, loss adjusters and contractors. However, of the three key service providers, the contractor’s performance was the best predictor of homeowners’ overall satisfaction during flood damage reinstatement claims, accounting for seven times the combined unique contribution of insurance and loss adjusting firms. In addition, satisfaction levels were significantly different for homeowners whose claims for repair works were completed within six months compared to those repairs exceeded twelve months. The thesis concludes with implications of the findings for practice as well as recommendations for further research. It is argued that knowledge of the determinants of homeowners’ satisfaction with services during the repair of flood damaged property, is beneficial not only to insurers, loss adjusters and repairers but to homeowners as well
A Decision Support Tool for the Valuation of Variations on Civil Engineering Projects
Full text linkThe valuation of variations has been recognised as a prime cause of conflict and dispute in construction management. Such disputes often concern the prices and/or rates to be applied to the varied works. Previous research has identified the subjectivity of the decision-maker in interpreting the valuation rules to be the major problem, particularly with regard to defining the work conditions and/or characteristics during a variation event. Findings of a survey, conducted to elicit the views and perceptions of experienced practitioners towards interpreting the valuation rules are presented. The development of a decision-making tool based on a robust framework for valuing variations in civil engineering projects is described. The tool was developed by analysing changes in various decision attributes. The result of the changes was then mapped to relevant sets developed using fuzzy-logic principles. Various operators were used to perform the fuzzy-aggregation operation. The modelling technique was demonstrated to be reliable in replicating the decision-making process performed by experienced practitioners. As such is considered a suitable aid for decision-making involved in valuing variations on civil engineering works. The results of the analysis reported here have suggested the fuzzy-logic as an appropriate tool to model human decision-making, particularly in valuing variations on civil engineering works. This is considered an essential progress of the current study in modelling human decision-making process, particularly since there are so many unknown aspects associated with such a process. The modelling technique successfully developed here is then used as the main algorithm for decision-making in the subsequently developed Knowledge Based System (KBS) which is intended to assist practitioners minimise conflict and dispute arising from the valuation of variations
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Development of an integrated framework for satisfaction assessment of construction project teams
Full text linkA thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)With increasing competitive pressures in today‟s market, it has become critical for businesses to recognise the significance of satisfying their customers so as to ensure their economic stability. Various studies have emphasised on the need for customer focus and project satisfaction in the construction industry sector. The industry, however, has not fully embraced the practice of project satisfaction, which is grounded on meeting the needs of the customer. Though most research on project satisfaction has focussed on the client, it is essential that the satisfaction of the project delivery team and in the wider context, the stakeholders be considered. In this case, the client is the centre of gravity of the project team. In order to satisfy the project team, there are challenges in assessing their requirements. This necessitates the need to develop a unique and robust method for capturing and analysing the level of integrated project team satisfaction. In this research, the project delivery team and the stakeholders have been lumped together as an integrated project team. Therefore, integrated project team satisfaction entails recognising the client and project participants‟ requirements that guarantees project successful completion and acceptance by the team. In view of this, this research presents a framework, which has been developed to plug these needs and challenges. The framework, known as the Satisfaction Assessment Integrated Framework (SAIF) involves an integrated approach that considers the participants of a construction project as a tree structure, and each member of that tree as an intermediate or top element. Relationships and interactions of the elements, and how these affect the overall satisfaction levels of a single project, are analysed based on understanding their requirements and invoking modern satisfaction attainment theory. The framework includes a method for understanding and identifying the satisfaction attributes; multi-attribute analysis for prioritising the satisfaction attributes of the clients and project participants; fault tree analysis strategy for defining the satisfaction relationship in a particular project team; and an assessment scoring system (a combination of multi-attribute analysis, and failure mode and effects analysis methodical approach) that evaluates how much each member of the project team meets the requirements or satisfaction attributes of other participants. Hence, SAIF, a novel assessment methodology, investigates and identifies possible links and the influence of integrating the construction project team and their satisfaction attributes with the aim of improving their satisfaction levels as a team. Through the findings of this research, recommendations are made to further explore the implications of satisfying a given participant against dissatisfying the participant; and subsequently improve the satisfaction assessment process
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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