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This study aims to develop an interrelation model between critical parameters for assessing the construction readiness (CR) of abandoned housing projects, using Malaysia as a case study. To achieve that aim, the study objectives are to (1) identify critical parameters for assessing the CR of abandoned housing projects; (2) develop underlying constructs to categorize interrelated critical parameters and (3) assess the influence of the underlying constructs on the CR of abandoned housing projects.

This study identifies potential parameters for assessing the CR of abandoned housing projects by reviewing existing literature and interviewing industry professionals. Then, the list was used to develop a questionnaire survey. The collected survey data were analyzed using normalized mean analysis to identify the critical parameters. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used to develop underlying constructs to categorize interrelated critical parameters. Finally, the influence of the underlying constructs on the CR of abandoned housing projects was examined through partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The analyses suggest that 21 critical parameters are affecting the CR of abandoned housing projects. The critical parameters can be categorized into four underlying constructs: construction site evaluation, management verification, uncertainties mitigation and document approval. Finally, the analyses confirmed that all four constructs affect the CR of abandoned housing projects.

This study is a pioneering effort to quantitatively analyze the parameters for assessing the CR of abandoned housing projects. The findings significantly benefit researchers and industry professionals by providing a list of critical parameters associated with the CR of abandoned housing projects.

Innovation projects are often risky and costly. But not all innovation projects lead to commercialisation; some are abandoned, and these abandoned innovation projects can be classified as a waste of resources. Therefore, this paper studies the influence of different external sources and a firm’s decision to abandon an innovation project. The purpose of this paper is to provide a broader understanding of abandoned projects.

The data applied are quantitative data and the empirical background is the Danish Innovation Survey 2009. The sample consists of Danish manufacturing firms with ten employees or more (n=840). The results are based on logistic regression analysis.

Results reveal that firms should consider that the involvement of customers can lead them to abandon innovation projects. However, if firms combine customers with universities, it will decrease the likelihood of innovation projects being abandoned. A more in-depth analysis shows that the involvement of customers from “Europe” (countries in Europe excluding Denmark) and the “US” leads to innovation projects being abandoned while customers from “other countries” (the rest of the world, including China and India) have the opposite effect.

The contribution is to the limited literature on abandoned innovation projects by suggesting that the type of external sources is a significant factor in firms’ decisions to abandon innovation projects. The paper identifies that the involvement of certain external sources leads firms to decide to abandon innovation projects, and that the country of origin of the external sources is an important criterion to consider in relation to a firm’s decision to abandon innovation projects.

Abandoned acquisitions represent a significant aspect of acquisition activity. Despite this, little analysis of aggregate abandoned acquisition activity has been conducted. This paper aims to address this gap by analysing trends in aggregate abandoned acquisitions.

This paper represents preliminary research on this topic, using descriptive statistics and correlation to identify trends in the data and propose tentative explanations for the changing patterns in abandoned acquisitions observed.

There has been a stepped decline in the number and rate of abandonment between the 1970s/1980s and the 2000s. Analysis of the trends suggests several reasons for this. Firstly, target management resistance has a major influence on abandonment. Changes in the Takeover Code relating to Put‐up or Shut‐up (PUSU) provisions have produced a decline in hostile bids since the 1990s, reducing the rate of abandonment. Secondly, the increasing proportion of cross‐border transactions in total UK activity may also contribute to the falling rate of abandonment.

The preliminary methods used to analyse the data are limited. However, the work has identified relationships between regulatory changes which make speculative bidding more costly, the decline in hostile bidding and a decline in the rate of abandonment. These explanations need to be analysed further with more rigorous testing of the proposed relationships.

This paper is the first to analyse aggregate abandoned acquisitions in the UK, proposing explanations for the trends in abandoned acquisitions since 1969.

Completion of abandoned public facility projects is one of the major concerns of governments struggling with budget issues. Various research studies have shown that this can only be solved with the help of the private sector. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the capacity of the private sector to complete abandoned public facility projects through the study of the Water and Wastewater Company in Iran.

The Delphi survey questionnaires, which were distributed to and responded by a panel of experts – i.e. three groups of employers of the Iranian Water and Wastewater Company, consulting agents and private sector stakeholders engaging with Water and Wastewater Company projects – identified 50 critical factors allowing the private sector to carry out abandoned facility projects. These have been categorized into four components: financial capacities, management competency, knowledge and expertise and resources and facilities. A descriptive survey method was used to determine and prioritize these factors.

The survey findings indicate that knowledge and expertise are the main important clusters of factors influencing the completion of abandoned public facility projects. The value of these results is essential in providing the sound basis for mutual trust between the private sector and the public sector for greater participation, thereby helping to complete abandoned public facility projects.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study attempting to investigate the capacity of the private sector to complete abandoned public facility projects through an empirical analysis of factors influencing their completion.

Safe haven laws arose as a compassionate response to the perceived increase in the number of mothers who killed their infants or abandoned them in unsafe places, such a dumpsters, toilets, outdoors, etc. (Appell, 2002b; Sanger, 2006). The policy problem of infant abandonment arrived on the local policy agenda in Mobile, Alabama in 1997 and early 1998. During that time, 20 infants were reported abandoned. In one case, a mother and grandmother drowned an hour-old infant in a toilet, and each received a 25-year prison sentence (Sanger, 2006). In response to this case, the program called “A Secret Safe Place for Newborns” was established. Prosecutors promised anonymity and immunity if the infant was relinquished unharmed. In 1999 Texas also experienced a surge in abandoned babies – 13 were abandoned in a 10-month period, 3 of whom died. Texas' Baby Moses Law was the nation's first safe haven law passed in 1999. Within two years, dozens of states passed safe haven laws with little debate, analysis, or opposition (Baran, 2003; Sanger, 2006). In order to reduce the occurrences of neonaticide and infanticide in which infants were left to die, all 50 states in the United States have passed safe haven laws.

Abandonment poses a range of effects detrimental to the development of a country such as Nigeria. Restoring such infrastructure in a sustainable manner is a challenge identified in the literature. The aim of this study is to evaluate a novel approach – the technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS) to identify the sustainability criteria for the redevelopment of abandoned infrastructure in Nigeria. The literature evidences use of TOPSIS in various development contexts, but not in the context of redevelopment of abandoned infrastructure.

This study explores the potential of TOPSIS in the sustainable redevelopment of abandoned infrastructure in Nigeria through a combination of a quantitative method of data collection – questionnaire – and a case study. The case study focuses on the abandoned Federal Government Secretariat in Lagos. One hundred and sixty-one (161) participants responded to the questionnaire. Data collected were analyzed using TOPSIS analytical technique.

Refurbishment is considered as the most sustainable alternative for the redevelopment of abandoned infrastructure. For criteria consideration, structural integrity and foundation categorized under the technological attributes ranked highest for refurbishment and conversion alternatives. Waste generation and prevention and profitability top the list for demolition and procurement respectively.

The social benefit of this study is to bring building considered to be an eyesore back into use.

The findings from the analysis orchestrates the importance of the built environment research concentrating on innovative frameworks for sustainable redevelopment of abandoned structures in the construction industry.

In response to the housing needs of its people, Malaysia has allowed private housing developer companies to build houses on a sell-then-build basis. Despite having legislation designed to protect the interests of purchasers, insolvent housing developers have left behind many uncompleted housing projects with their land charged to financial institutions. Consequently, the affected purchasers will lose their houses when those financial institutions foreclose on the land in the housing projects. In addition, those purchasers remain legally obligated to repay loans taken to finance their house purchase. The housing development laws lack provisions to rehabilitate abandoned housing projects. The purpose of this paper is to explore the viability of rescue mechanisms in the Companies Act 2016, being corporate voluntary arrangement (CVA), judicial management (JM) and schemes of arrangement (SOA), to aid in the rehabilitation of abandoned housing projects in Peninsular Malaysia.

Doctrinal research is adopted in this paper.

This research highlights the flexibility of the SOA as a tool to rehabilitate abandoned housing projects. This research also reveals the potential of CVA and in particular, JM with its “public interest” feature, as useful rehabilitation mechanisms once the proposed reforms are adopted.

The authors are hopeful that the suggested reforms will enhance the value of all three rescue mechanisms as rehabilitation tools for abandoned housing projects so as to alleviate the plight of house purchasers.

In geopolitical conflict zones, the phenomenon of abandonment often correlates with challenges of legal definitions and ownership status. The abandoned properties in conflict zones share similar characteristics with what is commonly known as a brownfield site. However, due to the nature of geopolitical conflict zones, which is mixed with people and sentiments other than technical challenges, the usual solutions to the brownfield question, cannot provide enough tools to deal with the land management of areas engulfed in conflicts. This paper, therefore, aims to discuss and propose a land-use typology that describes abandoned properties in a geopolitical context.

The proposed land-use typology serves as the main conceptual framework that integrates the sustainable brownfield regeneration approach with social theories of space and place. As an inductive research approach, this conceptual framework brought the fundamental and comparative literature on brownfield regeneration to support the main argument related to the similarities and challenges of the regeneration of abandoned properties in conflict zones. The approach used in this paper addresses the broader consideration of land management in geopolitical contexts and urban conflict zones that considers the relationship of exercise of extreme power over space.

The findings highlight an insufficient understanding of the origin of the property problems in geopolitical conflict zones, especially after a power struggle, producing significant land management issues. In a geopolitical context, urban planners and economists' perspective on definitions of space and place defined by maps, GIS data sets, Excel and other similar tools may not bring any practical or long-term solution to the land management challenges. The study suggests that dealing with abandoned properties and regeneration plans in conflict zones requires identifying and evaluating geo-political, geo-social, geo-economic characteristics of the area before any further action.

This paper's findings are of particular interest to decision-makers and conflict stakeholders in geopolitical conflict zones, such as local governments, policymakers and peacekeeping agencies. The findings of this research can clarify and help them have an alternative understanding of the space engulfed in the conflict, other than a technocratic, mapping, GIS, statistical way of understanding and approaches to the complex aspect of a space.

This paper's conceptual framework provides a value-added contribution to the literature on land management in conflict zones by taking the reader's attention to the origin of the problems and their associated real estate issues in geopolitical contexts. For the first time, this inductive research proposes a land-use typology that considers the complexity of the interrelationship between land policies, land-use theory, social theories of space and place and the exercise of extreme power over space. This paper produced a concept that is not easily measurable by quantitative nor qualitative approaches.

Abandoned buildings which are exposed to weather and human threat may lead to deterioration in building quality. Indirectly, the buyer is not satisfied when the abandoned buildings is completed and occupied. This study seeks to assess residents' satisfaction towards residential building quality which was abandoned. This research combined quantitative and qualitative methods. Respondents are randomly selected based on reports and information obtained through the Ministry Housing and Local Government (MHLG) and Local Authority (LA). Subsequently thirty (30) housing projects were selected to answer the questionnaires. Based on thirty (30) housing projects which have been completed, only three (3) housing projects ranged between six (6) months to two (2) years and have been occupied by the buyers. A total of ten (10) developers were interviewed with respect to rehabilitation of abandoned projects. Thus 194 respondents were randomly selected to achieve the objective of the study. The data was analysed through descriptive statistical analysis and inferential statistics. This research demonstrated that abandoned housing project can lead to residents' satisfaction towards building quality. In order to rehabilitate abandoned housing, the study subsequently suggested build then sell approach towards achieving better housing quality.

This paper aims to determine the effect of the period of abandonment on the final cost and duration of resuscitated tertiary educational building projects as a basis for enhancing the performance metrics of the projects and improving the availability of facilities in tertiary institutions in Nigeria.

A structured questionnaire was administered on 47 professionals involved in the physical development of construction projects in Osun State public tertiary educational institutions to provide primary data for the study. Secondary data relating to initial and final costs, initial and final completion dates, dates of abandonment, period of abandonment, date of re-award, etc. were obtained from selected resuscitated projects. Data were analyzed using relative significance index and regression analysis.

The most significant effects of project abandonment were found to be disappointment of populace and over-stretching of existing facilities. The study showed a directly proportional and an exponential effect of period of abandonment on percentage cost overrun of resuscitated projects, which were represented by y_c = −329.755 + 19.545x and y_c = 6.1662e_0.0506x, respectively. A linear relationship between period of abandonment and percentage time overrun was represented by y_t = 0.467 + 0.816x.

The fact that the regression equations could not be validated because of paucity of data was identified as a limitation of this study.

This study adds to the body of knowledge on abandonment of building projects from a quantitative perspective. Findings have implications for guiding long-term infrastructure development plans in public tertiary educational institutions.

Maximum threshold at which abandoned projects may be resuscitated at an economic cost was established as 16 months. Findings further suggest that the economy of new construction would outweigh resuscitation of abandoned projects beyond this period.