This study looks at the critical success factors (CSFs) affecting integration of sustainability into project management practices of construction projects in developing countries. Having innovation ...diffusion theory as the theoretical point of departure, CSFs pertaining to the triple bottom line of sustainability (environmental, social and economic) were identified through a comprehensive review of literature. These were customised for the context of developing countries by conducting 16 semi-structured interviews and were presented in form of a conceptual model. The model was validated through a survey returning 101 completed questionnaires with partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) as the method of analysis. This study contributes to the field by presenting one of the first studies in its kind focusing on CSFs for integration of sustainability into project management practices for construction projects within the context of developing countries.
•Critical Success Factors (CSFs) for integrating sustainability into construction project management practices in developing countries were identified.•A conceptual model to encapsulate the attributed CSFs through innovation diffusion theory was developed.•The model was validated using PLS-SEM with data collected from a developing country.•The validated model quantifies the associations among CSFs and their constructs and accommodation of sustainability on construction project management practices in developing countries.
Phenols are widely used as starting materials in both industrial and academic society. Dearomatization reactions of phenols provide an efficient way to construct highly functionalized ...cyclohexadienones. The main challenge to make them asymmetric by catalytic methods is to control the selectivity while overcoming the loss of aromaticity. In this tutorial review, an up to date summary of recent progress in CADA reactions of phenol and aniline derivatives is presented.
Abstract
The construction industry is plagued by poor project performance and the adoption of lean construction is seen as a way to address this issue. Therefore, this research aims to assess the ...implementation of lean construction and its relationships with project performance in the Australian construction industry. Just in time, last planner system, Six Sigma, and 5S management are the four lean construction tools investigated in the research. Data were collected using a questionnaire survey from construction practitioners in Sydney, Australia. Results show that the implementation of these four tools is adequate, although some lean activities need to be implemented at a higher level. Lean construction also has strong correlations with many project performance indicators, demonstrating its value to the construction industry that is in a dire need of improvement. Finally, this research also recommends specific areas for improvements.
•Hindrance–challenge demands provide a theoretical perspective on risk perception.•Risk perception can be a job hindrance or a challenge depending on the context.•Construction workers view perceived ...risk as a hindrance preventing safety behavior.•Supervisor’s climate worsens the negative effect of risk perception on behavior.•Workers’ climate reverses the negative effect of risk perception on behavior.
Previous studies have acknowledged the impact of risk perception on safety behavior, but were largely controversial. This study aims to clarify this conflict and the mechanism through which risk perception can have an impact on safety behavior. From the perspective of the dual attribute of the job demand concept in job demands–resources theory, we posit that risk perception can be considered as a job hindrance or a job challenge depending on the context, thereby resulting in a negative or positive impact on safety behavior, respectively. The current research context is the construction industry and the hypotheses were tested using hierarchically nested data collected from 311 workers in 35 workgroups. Risk perception was demonstrated to be a job hindrance exerting a negative impact on safety behavior and safety motivation mediated this effect. In addition, two dimensions of group-level safety climate––supervisor’s and coworkers’––were expected to alleviate or even reverse the detrimental effects of hindrance risk perception on safety motivation and on safety behavior via motivation. A moderation model and a first-stage moderated mediation model were established, respectively, for testing the moderating roles of safety climate in the relationship between risk perception and safety motivation, and in the indirect relationship of risk perception with safety behavior via motivation. Surprisingly, contrary to the hypotheses, when supervisor’s safety climate changed from a low level to a high level, the impact of risk perception on safety motivation changed from positive to negative, and the negative effect of risk perception on safety behavior via safety motivation was not alleviated but worsened. As expected, for workers in a positive coworkers’ safety climate, the negative effect of risk perception on motivation and the indirect negative effect of risk perception on behavior were both reversed to the positive. This indicates that coworkers’ safety climate helped to change perceived risk from a job hindrance to a challenge. This research contributes to workplace risk perception and safety behavior research by theoretically viewing risk perception as a dual job hindrance–challenge concept and proposing two competing hypotheses concerning the impact of risk perception on safety behavior. The empirical investigation confirmed the hindrance attribute of risk perception in the construction context. It provides a theoretical framework and empirical evidence for future research to synthesize the conflict risk perception–safety behavior relationship. We also contribute to the literature by pointing out the potential negative role of certain supervisor safety activities such as paternalistic leadership in influencing employee safety.
Occupational Health and Safety (OHS)-related injuries are vexing problems for construction projects in developing countries, mostly due to poor managerial-, governmental-, and technical ...safety-related issues. Though some studies have been conducted on OHS-associated issues in developing countries, research on this topic remains scarce. A review of the literature shows that presenting a predictive assessment framework through machine learning techniques can add much to the field. As for Malaysia, despite the ongoing growth of the construction sector, there has not been any study focused on OHS assessment of workers involved in construction activities. To fill these gaps, an Ensemble Predictive Safety Risk Assessment Model (EPSRAM) is developed in this paper as an effective tool to assess the OHS risks related to workers on construction sites. The developed EPSRAM is based on the integration of neural networks with fuzzy inference systems. To show the effectiveness of the EPSRAM developed, it is applied to several Malaysian construction case projects. This paper contributes to the field in several ways, through: (1) identifying major potential safety risks, (2) determining crucial factors that affect the safety assessment for construction workers, (3) predicting the magnitude of identified safety risks accurately, and (4) predicting the evaluation strategies applicable to the identified risks. It is demonstrated how EPSRAM can provide safety professionals and inspectors concerned with well-being of workers with valuable information, leading to improving the working environment of construction crew members.
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•Structural equation modeling showed direct and indirect effects on safety behavior.•Individual and organizational factors affect construction workers’ safety behavior.•Safety climate ...has a strongly positive direct effect on safety behavior.•Data suggests improvements to safety programs in the construction industry.
Currently, the construction industry in Korea reports the highest frequency of industrial accidents, mostly among temporary workers. Domestic and international disaster-related reports indicate that temporary workers have high risk associated with working environments as a major cause of accidents. We established relationships between the individual and organizational factors that affect temporary workers’ safety behaviors using structural equation modeling (SEM). SEM is used to estimate simultaneously the cause-and-effect relationships between many independent variables and dependent variables. A questionnaire was administered to temporary construction workers, and the following results were obtained. First, personal characteristics had a partial effect on job stress and a direct effect on safety culture. Second, personal characteristics and job stress had a direct effect on self-perceived fatigue. Third, personal characteristics and safety culture had a direct effect on safety climate, and personal characteristics also had an indirect effect. Finally, personal characteristics had no direct effect on safety behavior, but did have indirect effects. Job stress had both a direct and indirect effect. Safety culture had no direct effect, but did have an indirect effect. Also, safety climate had a significant direct effect. These findings can be used as preliminary data to develop additional safety programs for temporary construction workers.
Special attention is paid to the problem of a shortage of human resources for construction workers in this article, the specific problems are described. The author proposes to consider organizational ...staffing scheme based on outstaffing principles as a certain prospect of application in construction.
With rapid economic and population growth, construction land expansion in Yangtze River economic belt in China becomes substantial, carrying significant social and economic implications. This ...research uses Expansion Speed Index and Expansion Intensity Index to examine spatiotemporal characteristics of construction land expansion in the Yangtze River economic belt from 2000 to 2017. Based on a STIRPAT model, driving forces of construction land expansion are measured by Principal Component Analysis and Ordinary Least Square regression. The results show that: (1) there is a clear expansion pattern regarding the time sequence in provinces/cities of the Yangtze River economic belt, with rapid expansion in the initial stage, moderate expansion in the middle stage and rapid expansion in the later stage. (2) Spatial analysis demonstrates first expansion in the lower reaches in the early stage, rapid expansion of the upper reaches in the middle and later stage, and steady expansion of the middle reaches throughout the research period. (3)There are statistical significant correlations between construction land expansion and GDP, social fixed asset investments, population at the end of the year, population urbanization rate, per capita road area, and number of scientific and technological professionals as well as secondary and tertiary industry values. Of these factors, GDP, social fixed asset investments, population urbanization rate and second industry value are important common driving forces of construction land expansion in this region. The research findings have significant policy implications particularly on coordinated development of urban agglomerations and sustainable industry upgrading when construction land expansion is concerned.
The wealth of any nation is gauged by its performance in infrastructure provision through its construction industry. The construction industry is large, volatile, and requires tremendous capital ...outlays. For developing economies, road construction constitutes a major component of the construction industry. This means that much of the national budget on infrastructure development is channelled to road construction projects. The aim of the study reported in this paper was to identify causes and effects of cost escalation and schedule delays in road construction projects. Using a detailed literature review, structured interviews and questionnaire surveys, the results of the study confirmed the prevalence of cost escalation and schedule delays in road construction projects in Zambia. The study established that bad or inclement weather due to heavy rains and floods, scope changes, environmental protection and mitigation costs, schedule delay, strikes, technical challenges, inflation and local government pressures were the major causes of cost escalation in Zambia’s road construction projects. On the other hand, delayed payments, financial processes and difficulties on the part of contractors and clients, contract modification, economic problems, materials procurement, changes in drawings, staffing problems, equipment unavailability, poor supervision, construction mistakes, poor coordination on site, changes in specifications and labour disputes and strikes were found to be the major causes of schedule delays in road construction projects. Appropriate project management practices are thus required to curb the causes and effects of cost escalation and schedule delays in road construction projects.
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