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Malaysia has been facing a shortage of construction craftworkers since the late 1980s. This is despite the fact that various public vocational training institutes have been established by the government ever since independence. This study aims to determine whether ex‐trainees of National Youth Skills Institutes (NYSIs) in the One Phase Electrical Wiring course had joined the construction industry to determine whether the shortage is in any way contributed by them. The reasons why they took up the course and why they chose to work as electricians were among the specific matters that were looked into to help in understanding their industry choice.

Data were collected through postal questionnaire survey.

The study found that half of the respondents joined the construction industry, the other half in other economic sectors.

The sample was confined to those who had undertaken the One Phase Electrical Wiring course. It was also limited to one training institution. Other stakeholders were excluded from the study.

The paper makes recommendations as to what the NYSI administration might want to consider doing in terms of promoting the course.

The paper adds to the knowledge of electrical course ex‐trainees about what they thought about their course, in which economic sectors they chose to work and the reasons behind their selection.

Seymour's application of the eclectic paradigm to the international construction industry is examined. As with other theories on multinational enterprise, the paradigm was conceived by Dunning to explain the phenomenon of foreign direct investment in the manufacturing sector. In retaining it to explain international involvement of construction companies, certain conventional economic reasoning was modified. It is the contention of this paper that Seymour's conceptualization is incongruent with the peculiarities of international contracting. Neither does it reflect the extensive debate on the suitability of well‐grounded economic thoughts to international services. In the course of preparing this paper, it was found that a few government and international agencies have had to confront the difficulties of applying the existing theoretical framework to the services sector. Refinements are proposed here to make Seymour's theoretical construct more robust as a tool for future research, simply by referring to direct observations and materials which were at his disposal.

On 15 December 1993, the most ambitious trade liberalisation package in history was concluded, marking the end of multilateral trade negotiations under the aegis of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Among the landmark achievements of that round was the addressing of the services sector for the first time in such a setting. This paper analyses the key provisions of the General Agreement of Trade in Services (GATS) in the context of the construction industry. Despite the fact that GATS is presently a framework which requires further negotiation, there are already certain matters that corporate strategists should be conversant with in preparation for the time when full trade surveillance is imposed on the industry. Specific reference is also made to the Government Procurement Agreement towards the end of this paper because of its galvanising force on future GATS negotiations.

The nature and characteristics of critical success factors (CSFs) that influence success on public private partnership (PPP) arrangements on different project typologies vary between countries and regions. Studies confirm the lack of success on PPP approach on public housing project (PHP). The main challenge to PPP-PHP success has been identifying, analysing, categorizing and matching CSFs that are likely to influence the PPP-PHP outcome. The purpose of this paper is to identify the CSFs that influence PPP-PHP delivery in Ghana. This is premised on the theoretical implications that understanding the factors that influence the success on PPP-PHP projects is critical.

By adopting a 16 CSFs from literature and using a questionnaire survey, the factors that are critical to success on PPP-PHP approach in Ghana were identified. The questionnaires were administered on participants that have been involved in PPP-PHPs in Ghana.

The results revealed six CSFs that are critical towards success on PPP-PHPs in Ghana. The results also do not show significant variability in the agreement by the public and private stakeholder.

The findings present useful lessons for parties in PPP-PHPs in Ghana to focus their attention to engender the needed atmosphere towards successful delivery in Ghana in the formulation of policies, decision frameworks and delivery strategies.

The study presents a critical success model that is applicable to PPP-PHP delivery in Ghana and potentially to other developing countries with similar socio-economic, political and organizational characteristics especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. It also affirms the fact that CSFs are contextual to project typologies and that different project types will reveal CSFs with varying significance in ranking. The findings should help in the development of efficient frameworks and policies for successes on PPP-PHPs in Ghana.

Malaysia's open registration system (ORS) scheme, which began in 1997, was established as part of prevention mechanism by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government to plug the leakage in the low-cost housing (LCH) allocation process. After two decades, ineligible persons still secure LCH to the detriment of the Malaysian low-income earners (LIEs) house-buyers/rentals. This paper explored the LCH computerised ORS for LIEs and proffered policy solutions to improve the scheme.

The data were collected via unexplored exploratory sequential mixed methods approach that engaged 25 well-informed participants and the ‘quantilised findings’, validated by the Malaysian LCH policymakers.

This paper found that there is weak compliance to computerised ORS, which is pronounced in states with relaxed eligibility clearance. Also, it was found that under-declaration of income evident in states where there is relaxed verification and lack of data sharing between states and with federal governments, among others, are the root cause of weak compliance to computerised ORS.

This paper is limited to unravelling the encumbrances in the low-cost housing computerised open registration system in Malaysia's major cities. Future research is needed to use relevant information to access the level of enforcement of the computerised open registration system across the states of Malaysia.

This paper recommended that LCH computerised ORS should be devoid of party favouritism, state government should establish functional LCH computerised ORS, and the state and federal governments, should embrace cooperative federalism. Also, applicants should be subjected to the Central Credit Reference Information System check, and culprits should be referred to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission. This paper provides salutary lessons on how to improve the scheme with a view to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals regarding housing in 2030.

This paper demonstrates that the low-cost housing computerised open registration system in Malaysia is yet to be implemented across the states.

Using the resource‐based view, a study was conducted to identify resources required to successfully compete in the Malaysian housing development industry. Data was collected using postal questionnaires and interviews. From the statistical tests done on the data, it was found that variation in certain firm characteristics influenced the value the respondents attached to certain resources. In addition, the more housing segments the developers operated, the more emphasis are given to organisational strategy and policies. There is an inverted‐U relationship between product diversification and trade secrets and innovation, with the maximum value at four housing segments. The housing developers that practise strategic management emphasised significantly more on management expertise and experience than those that did not. No variation in the value attached to resources was found when the other two firm characteristics, i.e. legal status and geographical diversification, were examined. Given the small number of companies that participated in the study, the results should be treated with circumspect. What the study provided though are grounds for more in‐depth study to be conducted.

Studies showed that policy influences housing provision. The review of these policies in the Southeast Asia's is possibly not yet adequate because of recent gap in housing demand-supply across the region. This review evaluates the state policy in low-cost housing (LCH) provision in Southeast Asian developing countries reported in published studies.

An electronic search (ScienceDirect, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar) was conducted using the following search terms: “Low-Cost Housing policy in Southeast Asia.” Reference list of identified studies was scanned to identify more studies. Studies published between 1991 and 2020 that focused either on the region or country within the region were selected. An independent reviewer extracted data from the studies using a standardised form and 27 studies were included in this review.

LCH developing countries experience, encumbrances and measures to mitigate LCH demand-supply gap in Southeast Asia were the issues addressed from the reviewed. Findings from the studies indicate that the level of lax state policy and enforcement of LCH varies across nations.

Findings and recommendations of this paper were based on systematically reviewed literature but does not compromise the robustness regarding state policy in low-cost housing provision in Southeast Asian developing countries. Thus, exploratory sequential mixed methods approach has been recommended as part of the implications for future research.

As part of the practical implications, this paper highlights the mechanism behind the success of Singapore LCH policy and transferability of the model to the developing countries within and outside the region, and open up the possibility to adopt these policies.

This study is probably the first systematic review on low-cost housing in Southeast Asia.

Governments throughout the world are being forced to review how to fund the increasing demand and rising expectations of their citizens. This is especially relevant for developing countries, which often have limited capital resources to meet the soaring needs for essential infrastructure. This has consequently led to increased involvement of the private sector in the provision of public services, using various forms of Public‐Private Partnerships (PPPs). It is, however, important for both the public and private sectors to understand the various risks associated with PPPs throughout the whole life cycle of the projects in order to guarantee long‐term success. This is especially true in Nigeria and other countries where the use of PPPs are still in the early stages of development. Sixty‐one PPP risk factors were identified from literature and classified into exogenous and endogenous risks. This paper presents the results of the questionnaire survey that investigated the perception of Nigerian construction professionals on the relative importance of the identified risks and their preferences of allocation between the public and private sectors. The results show that the three most important PPP risk factors in Nigeria are “unstable government”, “inadequate experience in PPP” and “availability of finnance”. The respondents’ risk allocation preferences show that while most of the endogenous risk factors could be assigned to the private sector partner, the public sector should retain political and site acquisition risks, while relation‐ship‐based risks should be shared between the private and public sector partners

Various demands and requirements of foreign home-buyers from different background are yet unclear to most of the residential developers. The aim of this study is to blueprint a fuzzy mapping of psychological phenomena reflected in consumer behavior, and to develop a Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (Fuzzy-AHP) decision making model to assist residential developers in dealing with potential foreign customers. Through a questionnaire survey in the form of pair wise comparison matrix among 126 expatriates, this study introduces a new approach to assist residential developers dealing with expatriates' preference on house purchase in Malaysia in a simple and efficient way. With this fuzzy mapping, residential developers could utilize psychological phenomena to manipulate expatriates' preference on housing purchase rather than to merely comply passively.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of land banking strategy and market analysis towards the performance of Malaysian housing developers.

Through in-depth interviews, participants shared their opinions on success factors of housing development firms with a focus on land banking and market study. Content analysis was performed on the data, identifying the connection between both strategies and their superior performance.

The study presents interesting findings in that it lends support to the existing literature as such land banking and market analysis do affect the business competitiveness of housing developers. Albeit subjective in nature, the comments received from respondents are revelatory and have implications for the level of performance perceived by the organisations, as well as the experience of housing entrepreneurs in assembling the land bank and gauging the housing market.

Though not a substitute for quantitative problem solving, this piece of work serves as a corroborative evidence to improve the satisfaction of homebuyers, industry players and policymakers. The paper ends by recommending that the study be repeated in Malaysia, this time with the involvement of other stakeholders, to enrich the findings.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first research performed in the Malaysian context in which the strategies of private housing developers comprising land banking and market analysis were explored in relation to business success. Hence, the present study not only contributes to the existing property literature, but also makes an important contribution to the business performance and firm competitiveness in the lens of Malaysian entrepreneurs.