Search results

The construction industry is unique but with uncertainties. This is because of the operating environment. This intricacy gives rise to several construction risks and is compounded in developing countries’ turbulent times. If not managed, these risks enhanced in turbulent times could negatively impact the Nigerian construction projects’ cost, time, quality, and performance. Hence, this study investigated the perceived encumbrances facing construction risk management techniques and identified measures to promote sustainable-based construction risk management in turbulent times.

The researchers adopted a qualitative approach and achieved saturation with 28 participants. The participants were government policymakers, quantity surveyors in government ministries/agencies/departments, consultant engineers, consultant architects, consultant and contracting quantity surveyors, and construction contractors knowledgeable about construction risk management. The research employed a thematic analysis for the study’s data.

Findings identified turbulent times related to the industry and major techniques for managing construction project risks in the Nigerian construction industry. It revealed lax adoption and implementation of practices. Also, the study identified major encumbrances facing construction risk and proffered initiatives that would promote sustainable-based construction risk management in turbulent times.

This study investigates encumbrances and suggests measures to promote construction project risk management in turbulent times in Nigeria. Also, the study contributes to the literature’s paucity, uncovering perceived encumbrances and evolving organisations’ management styles to imbed sustainable-based risk management practices by qualitative research design method.

By adopting the “hard” and “soft” project management (PM) approaches from the PM-literature, this paper aims to problematize the expected role of client organizations in driving innovation in the transport infrastructure sector.

Addressing a large public client in Sweden, a case study design was initially applied to provide in-depth insights and perspectives of client project managers’ views and experiences of managing projects expected to drive innovation. In this paper, the concepts of “hard” and “soft” are used to discuss empirical findings on challenges associated with adopting a PM-approach for driving innovation in projects. The empirical material consists of interview data, complemented with observations and archival data.

Findings reveal challenges associated with combining hard and soft approaches, frequently demonstrating difficulties in balancing short-term project expectations with the promotion of innovation. In line with the literature, project managers note that there is a need for soft approaches to promote development and drive innovation. Yet, findings reflect a situation in which operational success criteria predominate, whereas soft approaches are not sufficiently used to create the grounds required for fostering innovation.

Insights are provided into how PM-approaches may impact construction innovation in the infrastructure sector, demonstrating a need for further research on the challenges and implications of applying and combining hard and soft PM-approaches.

Advocates of structured stakeholder management (SM) processes have emphasized the use of the appropriate strategies as the most important process in SM. Yet, research effort in this regard in developing countries has been inadequate. The purpose of the study was to examine the SM strategies used on building projects procured by private corporate organisations in south-western Nigeria to enhance project performance.

The study used a census survey to select 30 projects managers who indicated (from 106 who responded to a first stage questionnaire) that they have participated in structured SM in the study area between 2008 and 2017. A second-stage questionnaire was designed to elicit information from the respondents. Data analysis was done with the use of frequency, percentile and mean score (MS) and analysis of variance (ANOVA).

Stakeholders with high power and high interest were managed with the use of “collaborate/partner” strategy (MS = 3.86), stakeholders with high power and low interest were “kept satisfied” (MS = 4.09), stakeholders with low power and high interest were managed by using “keep them informed regularly” strategy (MS = 4.10) and stakeholders with low power and low interest were managed using “monitor and respond when necessary” strategy (M = 3.94). Further results show that static stakeholders with high power were managed by using the “monitor constantly” strategy (MS = 4.11), stakeholders with high power, high legitimacy and high urgency were managed by adopting the “keep satisfied” strategy (MS = 4.26), to manage non-supportive stakeholders, project managers adopted the “keep satisfied” strategy (MS = 4.18) and supportive stakeholders were managed by using “involved” strategy (MS = 4.02). More results showed that there is no significant difference in the opinion of project managers on SM strategies employed irrespective of procurement method.

The study provided a guide to project managers on the appropriate SM strategies to use for future projects.

The study was an attempt to appraise the SM strategies in relation to the procurement methods and their relationship with project performance.

Cost and time are two of the primary benchmarks in which construction projects are measured. A variety of factors, however, affect cost and time on construction projects, as identified in previous research. This has led to a need for better understanding how factors affecting cost and time overruns on public construction projects can be managed more efficiently. The purpose of this paper is to address these issues.

In this study 26 factors affecting cost and time overruns on construction projects were identified, through qualitative interviews with project managers from Danish governmental agencies and through a literature review. Through principal component analyses the 26 factors were subsequently narrowed down to four primary latent factors.

The identified four latent factors affecting cost and time overruns on public construction projects were lack of quality management, lack of project pre-planning, lack of user management and lack of project management.

Previous research has focussed on increasing knowledge by identifying and ranking factors affecting time and cost performance. This has led to the identification of an overwhelming number of factors to use for managing construction projects. The present research reduced the number of factors by clustering them into key latent factors responsible for most of the deviation in performance, narrowing the scope of construction cost and time management into a few tangible key focus areas. This supports and improves fast decision-making that is necessary in a changeable environment such as construction.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the areas and logic of integration of different stakeholders using different methods and to analyse their applicability and challenges in practical projects. The main aim is to describe how these different methods impact value creation.

Action design research was carried out in a large hospital construction project where the first author acted as an “involved researcher” and the second author acted as an “outside researcher”. Two workshops were organised to evaluate the direct and indirect challenges and benefits of the applied four methods and to explain how different methods enable value creation.

All the studied methods provide good results in terms of usability and commitment to the aims of the project, thus delivering the direct benefits expected. Process, people and tools logic works well in this case project when applying the methods properly. Significant evidence was provided on secondary deliverables of the methods, and all analysed methods had a significant impact in the area of leading people, clarifying what “focus on people” means and how it is enabled.

Focus on people can be achieved through different operative methods if applied in the right way. It is necessary to select the most suitable methods based on all the direct and indirect deliverables.

This case project offered a platform to analyse integration methods in a real-life project using the collaborative contract method. The authors were able to participate in the analysis by taking action from the very beginning of the project in terms of training, learning, continuous development and coaching of these methods and evaluating the applicability.

This study describes how maintenance capability should be created during the design and construction phases of construction projects. Purpose of the abstract to define the elements for creating the maintenance capability and the process to be used in construction life cycle projects for buildings.

An inductive and qualitative research method was used to construct the proposed process based on the literature and 18 interviews in two large construction companies.

The results indicate that the maintenance phase is usually overlooked during the design and construction phases, and capabilities are not systematically built. In particular, processes are lacking in data management, causing severe problems in maintenance.

This study presents a process including key requirements and activities for creating maintenance capability in conjunction with the design and construction phases, which is novel to the literature. The validated process can be adapted based on the needs of the construction company.

The factors for higher education institutions’ (HEIs) project management failure have been studied for several years. One of the issues is a lack of tools to combine their knowledge infrastructure capabilities (KIC) with project management (PM) to examine these infrastructures and monitor maturity. There are several project management maturity (PMM) models available. However, there are just a few empirical studies that support the three knowledge infrastructure capabilities and PMM integrations. As a result, the current research aims to suggest a new conceptual model, KIC-knowledge management (KM), and assess a research model that includes the three knowledge infrastructure capabilities as a prerequisite to elevate the PMM.

Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) is used to evaluate the proposed research model. The study’s hypotheses were also examined using a sample of 352 respondents from PM departments at ten Yemeni public universities.

The study found that if the three key knowledge infrastructure capabilities integrate into the PMs, then it will help HEIs to perform project tasks more effectively and efficiently. Also, it will improve the PM maturity level if all the three capabilities positively effect PMM.

The study findings cannot be generalized to other industries because the collected date were with the Yemeni public universities’ context. Also, the new proposed model can be assessed in various sectors to increase the validity of the model. One more thing, future academics can conduct qualitative research study to validate again the proposed model.

Project managers can develop and improve their organization’s effectiveness and performance by focusing on these findings and using the developed model. Also, the findings of this study can be used as a benchmark for evaluating initiatives and knowledge-based governmental entities.

It is an opportunity for knowledge-based governmental entities particularly and other organizations to elevate most of projects to achieve a supreme level of maturity. Also, this study will assist employees to understand the relationship between KICs and projects within HEIs in Yemen.

This paper is among the first to empirically study the impact of the three knowledge infrastructure capabilities toward PMM. It links between two important domains: KM and PM.

Organizational design has been suggested as a facilitator of an organization’s dynamic capabilities. This study aims to investigate the role of organizational design in the concept of dynamic capabilities and explores how it facilitates long-term dynamic capabilities in practice.

Empirical data were collected via a longitudinal case study conducted at a global company engaged in the development and manufacture of railway equipment. Specifically, this study focused on one of the organization’s sites in Sweden for a period of approximately five years.

Organizational design has a twofold impact on dynamic capabilities, functioning as both a facilitator and an impediment. It is essential for structures and processes to align with the available resources and capabilities of an organization. Moreover, managers’ beliefs and decision making significantly influence the extent to which organizational design choices effectively foster dynamic organizational performance.

This longitudinal case study contributes to the theory of dynamic capabilities by identifying key changes in an organization that is transforming to become more dynamic and the impact of organizational design on the organization’s dynamic capabilities.

There is growing recognition that effective project control systems (PCS) are critical to the success of projects. The relationship between the individual elements of PCS and successfully achieving project objectives has yet to be explored. This research investigates the enablers and barriers that influence the elements of PCS success and drive project objectives.

This study adopts a mixed approach of descriptive analysis and regression models to explore the impact of six PCS elements on project outcomes. Petroleum and chemical projects in Saudi Arabia were selected as a case study to validate the research model.

Data from a survey of 400 project managers in Saudi’s petroleum and chemical industry reveal that successful PCS are the key to achieving all project outcomes, but they are particularly critical for meeting project cost objectives. Project Governance was identified as the most important of the six PCS elements for meeting project objectives. A lack of standard processes emerged as the most significant barrier to achieving effective project governance, while having skilled and experienced project team members was the most significant enabler for implementing earned value.

The study offers a direction for implementing and developing PCS as a strategic tool and focuses on the PCS elements that can improve project outcomes.

This research contributes to project management knowledge and differs from previous attempts in two ways. Firstly, it investigates the elements of PCS that are critical to achieving project scope, schedule and cost objectives; secondly, enablers and barriers of PCS success are examined to see how they influence each element independently.

Drawing on institutional work (Lawrence and Suddaby, 2006; Lawrence et al., 2011), this study aims to explore how the concept of value for money (VFM) is understood in terms of the private finance initiative (PFI) implementation in Malaysia.

In-depth interviews with 25 actors involved in the implementation of PFI projects at two public universities in Malaysia were conducted. The interviews focused on the ways in which participants in the projects make sense of VFM in their ongoing involvement with the projects. In addition, a review of publicly available documents was conducted to understand the ways in which the notion of VFM is reflected in the policies and procedures of the government. Data from the interviews and documents were analysed using thematic analysis.

It is found that the advocacy work of macro-level actors, as well as micro-level actors, has promoted PFI implementation to achieve VFM. However, to the micro-level actors, VFM is just a concept that carries different interpretations, depending on how PFI fits their everyday functional discourses. In addition, direct negotiation and lack of commercial appreciation are disruptive not only to the achievement of VFM but also to the public sector reform agenda of the country.

The present study contributes to the discourses on the concept of VFM that is assumed to be inherent in PFI. The findings are based on micro- and macro-level actors and cover both advocacy and disruption of VFM achievement.