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In this study, the authors investigate a pressing concern: how auditors react to their clients facing repercussions due to environmental violations. More specifically, this study aims to examine how environmental engagements, which carry potential risks and liabilities, influence auditors’ decision-making and fee structure.

This study uses unique, reliable and actual violation data from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA) from 2000 to 2015, focusing on clients involved in environmental violations that led to legal prosecution and penalties and those who subsequently engaged in voluntary supplemental environmental projects (SEPs). The authors use the ordinary least squares method to test the authors’ main research question and later use propensity score matching and alternate data source (ASSET4) to check the robustness of the authors’ results.

The authors find that firms with environmental violations are more susceptible to auditor resignation. Moreover, the environmental violator firms that maintain their engagement with auditors pay significantly higher audit fees compared to non-environmental violator firms. Furthermore, these environmental violator firms also face extended audit report delays and take longer to appoint a new auditor.

This study provides an additional consequence of environmental violations, namely, increased chances of auditor resignation and higher audit fees, alongside the penalties imposed by the US-EPA. Moreover, the authors’ findings position environmental violations and participation in SEPs as important factors in auditors’ business risk assessment.

The construction industry remains one of the most hazardous industries worldwide, with a higher number of fatalities and injuries each year. The safety and well-being of workers at a job site are paramount as they face both immediate and long-term risks such as falls and musculoskeletal disorders. To mitigate these dangers, sensor-based technologies have emerged as a crucial tool to promote the safety and well-being of workers on site. The implementation of real-time sensor data-driven monitoring tools can greatly benefit the construction industry by enabling the early identification and prevention of potential construction accidents. This study aims to explore the innovative method of prototype development regarding a safety monitoring system in the form of smart personal protective equipment (PPE) by taking advantage of the recent advances in wearable technology and cloud computing.

The proposed smart construction safety system has been meticulously crafted to seamlessly integrate with conventional safety gear, such as gloves and vests, to continuously monitor construction sites for potential hazards. This state-of-the-art system is primarily geared towards mitigating musculoskeletal disorders and preventing workers from inadvertently entering high-risk zones where falls or exposure to extreme temperatures could occur. The wearables were introduced through the proposed system in a non-intrusive manner where the safety vest and gloves were chosen as the base for the PPE as almost every construction worker would be required to wear them on site. Sensors were integrated into the PPE, and a smartphone application which is called SOTER was developed to view and interact with collected data. This study discusses the method and process of smart PPE system design and development process in software and hardware aspects.

This research study posits a smart system for PPE that utilises real-time sensor data collection to improve worksite safety and promote worker well-being. The study outlines the development process of a prototype that records crucial real-time data such as worker location, altitude, temperature and hand pressure while handling various construction objects. The collected data are automatically uploaded to a cloud service, allowing supervisors to monitor it through a user-friendly smartphone application. The worker tracking ability with the smart PPE can help to alleviate the identified issues by functioning as an active warning system to the construction safety management team. It is steadily evident that the proposed smart PPE system can be utilised by the respective industry practitioners to ensure the workers' safety and well-being at construction sites through monitoring of the workers with real-time sensor data.

The proposed smart PPE system assists in reducing the safety risks posed by hazardous environments as well as preventing a certain degree of musculoskeletal problems for workers. Ultimately, the current study unveils that the construction industry can utilise cloud computing services in conjunction with smart PPE to take advantage of the recent advances in novel technological avenues and bring construction safety management to a new level. The study significantly contributes to the prevailing knowledge of construction safety management in terms of applying sensor-based technologies in upskilling construction workers' safety in terms of real-time safety monitoring and safety knowledge sharing.

This study aims to identify the most significant barriers and the stationary barrier to modular construction (MC) implementation and promote MC widespread use. By doing so, the construction industry can leverage the benefits of MC, such as faster construction times, improved quality control, reduced waste and increased sustainability.

This study uses a Gini’s mean analysis approach to identify the stationary barriers hindering the MC adoption in residential projects. The research focuses on the Egyptian context and uses a questionnaire survey to gather data from professionals in the construction industry.

According to the survey findings, the top five significant MC barriers are inability to modify the design; contractors asking for high bidding prices (higher initial cost); scepticism, conservation and resistance of clients to innovation and change; transportation restrictions; and lack of a one-size-fits-all tool for the design. In addition, Gini’s mean of dispersion demonstrated that the stationary barrier that faces MC adoption is the apprehension that architectural creativity will suffer because of MC.

The identified obstacles could be useful for decision makers in countries that have not yet adopted MC and may aid in the planning process to manage the risks associated with MC projects. The paper stresses the significance of devising techniques to overcome these barriers and proposes several methods to tackle these challenges.

This study fills the knowledge gap by identifying the stationary barrier and emphasising the potential risks associated with MC barriers. Furthermore, it suggests several strategies for overcoming and reducing these barriers in developing countries residential projects.

This study aims to explore the critical application areas of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology for sustainable buildings.

The quantitative research approach was adopted through a structured questionnaire administered to relevant stakeholders of construction projects. The data collected were analysed with the exploratory factor analysis, relative importance index (RII) and fuzzy synthetic evaluation (FSE).

The study’s results have categorised the crucial areas of application where construction industry stakeholders should focus their attention. These areas are divided into four categories: management technologies, production technologies, sensing technologies and monitoring technologies. The findings from the FSE indicate that monitoring technologies represent the most significant category, whereas management technologies rank as the least significant. Moreover, the RII analysis highlights that tools management stands out as the most important application of RFID, while dispute resolution emerges as the least significant RFID application.

The study establishes the core areas of RFID application and their benefits to sustainable buildings. Consequently, it helps stakeholders (consultants, clients and contractors) to examine the RFID application areas and make informed decision on sustainable construction. Furthermore, it provides systematic proof that can aid the implementation of RFID in developing countries.

The study provides an insight into the possible application areas and benefits of RFID technology in the construction industry of developing countries. It also developed a conceptual frame for the critical application areas of RFID technology in the construction industry of developing countries.

The construction industry is facing an enormous number of challenges due to continuous advancements in construction technologies and techniques. Hence, construction management theories have to confront critical newly issues concerning market globalization and construction innovations. The key factor to address these challenges is to ameliorate the competitive abilities of the competing construction firms. In this context, measuring competitiveness of construction firms is an efficacious approach to amplify their competitive growth and profitability. To this end, the purpose of this research paper is to design a three-tier multi-criteria decision making model for competitiveness assessment and benchmarking of construction companies, meanwhile tackling a wide range of essential factors and attributes that covers broad aspects of the present competitive market.

In the first tier, four new pillars (4P) of competitiveness assessment are introduced for construction firms, namely, organization performance, project performance, environment and client and innovation and development. These pillars are able to aid in construction firms’ management on both long and short term basis. Hence, 21 key competitive factors and eighty key competitive criteria are identified, incorporated and analyzed in this research study. The second tier encapsulates carrying out a questionnaire survey in the Canadian and Vietnamese market to garner two main sets of information. The first set of information incorporates responses of the pairwise comparisons between competitiveness factors and criteria. The second set involves gathering utility scores pertinent to each competitiveness criteria. The developed model then leverages the use of analytical hierarchy process to scrutinize the relative importance priorities of competitiveness factors and criteria. The third tier of the developed model encompasses the use of multi-attribute utility theory to compute competitiveness scores for construction companies through blending criteria’ relative importance weights alongside their respective utility functions. In addition, the third tier comprises conducting a sensitivity analysis to derive the most important criteria influencing the overall competitiveness of construction companies. The developed model is tested and validated using three case studies; one construction company from Canada and two construction companies from Vietnam.

Results demonstrated that the developed model has a potential to render a synthesized and methodical performance evaluation for the competitive ability of a given construction company. Furthermore, it was found that Vietnamese companies are more considerate towards pillars pertaining to environment and client while Canadian companies are more attentive towards innovation and development. The outcome of sensitivity analysis revealed that effectiveness of cost management highly affects the competitive ability of Vietnamese companies while effectiveness of cost management exhibits the most significant influence on the competitive of Canadian companies.

The developed model can benefit construction companies to understand their competitiveness in their market and diagnose their strengths and weaknesses. It is also can be useful in efficient utilization of their limited resources and development of sustainable and long-term strategic plans strategic plans, which consequently leads to maintaining better position in their dynamic business markets.

Literature review manifests that reported competitiveness assessment models and practices are not able to address present challenges, technologies and developments in construction market.

This paper aims to identify the unidimensionality and reliability of 84 factors that influence the performance of construction projects and develop a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) model.

The study adopted a deductive research approach and started by identifying the positive factors that influence construction project performance. This was followed by the modification of the identified factors. After that, a questionnaire was developed out of the factors for data collection. Exploratory factor analysis was used to establish the factor structure of the positive factors, and this was verified using CFA afterwards. A model fit analysis was performed to determine the goodness of fit of the hypothesised model, followed by the development of the confirmatory model.

The study demonstrated substantial correlation in the data, sufficient unidimensionality and internal reliability. In addition, the estimated fit indices suggested that the postulated model adequately described the sample data.

The paper revealed that performance can be enhanced if stakeholders identify and leverage the positive factors influencing performance. The paper suggests that project stakeholders, particularly government, project owners, consultants and construction firms, can improve project performance by critically examining economic and financial systems (EFS), regulation and policy-making systems (RPS), effective management practices (EMP) and project implementation strategies (PIS).

The contribution of this paper to the present literature is identifying the positive factors and developing the confirmatory factor model. The model comprised 42 positive variables under four indicators: EMP, RPS, PIS and EFS.

This paper aims to present the development of a holistic campus facility management (CFM) performance assessment framework that incorporates a fuzzy logic approach and integrates a comprehensive set of key factors for successful management of campus facilities. The devised framework aims to cater to the needs of campus facilities management firms and departments for the purpose of gauging and assessing their performance across different management domains. Through this approach, facility management organizations can detect potential areas of enhancement and adopt preemptive steps to evade issues, foster progress and ensure success.

After a comprehensive analysis of the literature, conducting in-depth interviews with industry experts and employing the Delphi technique in two rounds, a total of 45 indicators critical to CFM success were identified and subsequently sorted into seven distinct groups. Through an online questionnaire, 402 subject-matter experts proficiently assessed the significance of the critical success indicators and their groups. A fuzzy logic framework was developed to evaluate and quantify a firm's compliance with the critical success indicators and groups of indicators. The framework was subsequently weighted using computations of the relative importance index (RII) based on the responses received from the questionnaire participants. The initial section of the framework involved a comprehensive analysis of the firm's performance vis-à-vis the indicators, while the latter part sought to evaluate the impact of the indicators groups on the overall firm's performance.

The utilization of fuzzy logic has uncovered the significant effects each effective CFM key indicator on indicators groups, as well as the distinct effects of each CFM indicators group on the overall performance of CFM. The results reveal that financial management, communications management, sustainability and environment management and workforce management are the most impactful indicators groups on the CFM performance. This suggests that it is imperative for management to allocate increased attention to these specific areas.

This study contributes to the advancement of current knowledge by revealing vital indicators of effective CFM and utilizing them to construct a thorough fuzzy logic framework that can assist in evaluating the effectiveness of CFM firms worldwide. This has the potential to provide crucial assistance to facility management organizations, facility managers and policymakers in their quest for informed decision-making.