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For many decades the architectural profession has been accused of resisting change whilst defending an archaic system, and in doing so, neglecting client needs; in turn, this situation has created opportunities which others are now exploiting. Despite this resistance, change has occurred and is continuing in the profession. Several new procurement systems have evolved which pose a threat to the traditional structure and organization of the industry because these are not controlled by the architect. All of this must have repercussions on the way in which architectural students are prepared for the future. Much of the current curriculum content at architecture schools is probably essential, but it is the development of this syllabus in isolation and what is not taught in it that is the problem. The present paper is concerned with those aspects of change which have impacted upon the global construction environment, and describes their potential effect on the architectural profession, and the vocational education and training of its recruits.

Global commerce demands flexibility in when and how work gets done, as modern businesses increasingly require real‐time responses to partners and customers. With low costs, companies look to mobility as a way to speed responsiveness and increase the personalization of customer service offerings. Mobility is a key element of networking allowing enterprises to unlock their business process from fixed points. A unified approach to enterprise mobility delivers integrated wired/wireless networking, mobile extensions to unified communications, geographic, and end‐point independent network access and location services as major architectural components. As a consequence, this paper aims to focus on a converged architecture that spans wired and wireless networks to enable a seamless delivery of integrated services across the enterprise.

This paper builds a framework to facilitate a continuous delivery of voice services. It also examines an architecture that traverses wireless local area network and local area network. And, proposes a mathematical model of the services delivery in order to analyze network behavior as a response to the new services introducing.

The authors constructed a service scenario framework and also put forward an analytical model of the services delivery for analyzing network behavior response for the inclusion of new services. They also evaluated a network infrastructure, services, and applications, including the prospective converged services, as well as the technology for the transition to future services.

This paper contributes to the development of seamless services delivery model for providing enhanced business services to the enterprise customers along with the ability to migrate more tightly.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and explain an empirically validated scale to measure service quality for architects in India.

This study applies a systematic procedure for development of a psychometric scale in three phases. Phase 1 includes item generation and selection through review of literature and expert opinion. Phase 2 comprises scale refinement using item analysis and exploratory factor analysis. Phase 3 applies confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) for establishing convergent, discriminant and nomological validity. This study has involved 15 expert participants in Phase 1 and sought participation from 250 respondents using an online questionnaire in two other independent phases.

The findings of the empirical study resulted in the development of a 22-item scale that measures the constructs such as design quality, project administration quality, communication quality, relationship quality and dependability quality.

This study has developed a context-specific psychometric scale of service quality for architects in India using snowball sampling. Although this study identified five valid service quality factors, the classified information relating to the formation of expectations was not collected.

This reliable and valid scale would be helpful for architects to measure the level of service quality in enhancing business performance. This study has established that service quality for architects is achieved only when the perceived benefits are available from the aspects like design, project administration, communication, relationship and dependability.

This study can facilitate an architect interested in opportunities relating to contracting, consulting and engineering to explore possibilities of higher fees from clients.

This study is an original attempt in developing a validated tool to measure service quality of architects in India.

The article presents empirical evidence which indicates the immense diversity in entry mode choice patterns among various service industries. It attempts to explain this variation in terms of certain service attributes and motives for foreign market entry, using the transaction cost analysis as its theoretical basis. While entry mode choice associated with “hard” services (those that do not require the providers to be physically proximate to the receivers) resembles that in manufacturing firms, organisations providing “soft” services (characterised by inseparable production and consumption) enter world markets almost exclusively via foreign direct investment and contractual transfers. This diversity poses challenges to practitioners, policy makers and researchers in this field.

The diversity of the service sector makes it difficult to come up with managerially useful generalizations concerning marketing practice in service industry, but IT and the Internet are causing fundamental changes in the economics of service industry. The Internets influence in creating e‐services has been revolutionary for providers and their customers. This paper argues for a focus on specific categories of services and proposes a two‐dimensional model for classifying services in ways that transcends narrow industry boundaries. This model has been developed using non‐metric discreet attributes and contains examples of services that fall under different groups.

Interpreting the meaning structure of architects' actions, behaviours and performances enacted in a building information modelling (BIM) environment is implausible by returning to the classic and ideal imagery of an architect as a natural leader. Yet, little has been empirically explored on how architects perceive their identity and most critically, how they act, behave and perform their way into it in such an environment. Consequently, architects' failing to adapt their core identity to the varying circumstances may lead to their irrelevance and being side-lined merely as aesthetic building surgeons. The current study therefore seeks a better understanding of their perceptions and experiences in manifesting their identities in the phenomenon.

Drawing upon the interpretive phenomenological approach, ten architectural trained individuals were selected for in-depth, semi-structured interviews, and written accounts exercise to disclose their lived experience. The study was conducted in a Malaysian architectural consultancy practice (ACP) setting.

The data analysis resulted in the following five performance identity themes that revolve around the core identity of a successful designer: “performing as a design strategist”, “performing as a design translator”, “performing as a design facilitator”, “reinstating the identity of a design coordinator” and “performing as a design innovator”.

The study serves as groundwork for professional institutional bodies to further reconstruct a career road map alongside the professional development framework towards elevating, developing and facilitating the hybridity of architects' performance identities in such environment.

The study serves as a groundwork for professional institutional bodies to reconstruct the existing continuing professional development (CPD) programmes, materials and framework so that they reflect the performances of future architects practicing in a BIM environment. The elicited experiences may also inform architectural curriculum designers of the appropriate approaches of teaching and learning in architecture that could promote the hybridity of architects' performance identities in such an environment.

The study contributes to the identity literature by yielding valuable new insights about the experiences and behaviour of architects practicing in a BIM environment. Understanding such complexity would not be possible merely based on the theoretical lenses of professional identity and organisational identification as adopted in previous studies.

The aim of the paper is to investigate the architectural firm's role in the briefing process on international projects and to identify the strategies of successful firms to overcome barriers.

A model is developed based on a critique of briefing models and international design management theory. The development of a reflexive capability model borrows cultural theory concepts of capital and reflexivity. The model is based on maximizing reflexive capability through the management of social, cultural and intellectual capital. Two case studies of architectural firms identify barriers during the briefing process and strategies to overcome these barriers. Data collection involved 16 interviews with senior management and design team staff.

There are various barriers and strategies used to achieve success in the briefing process. However, the management of a firm's capital is key to successful briefing on international projects and is a characteristic of reflexive practice. Reflexivity is based in a positive interpretation of change, and a continual responsiveness to change by participants in a system. The study provides useful information on management of the design and briefing stages of international projects.

The study is limited by the number of case studies used and the difficulty of generalisability of findings.

The research is that it provides useful information about how to approach constant change during briefing for the architects and clients who work on international projects.

The model is original and has value as it assists in explaining why some firms are more successful than others. The case studies provide new knowledge on international projects and the briefing process. The value of the paper is for the academic community, professionals in the built environment and clients involved in international projects.

Project business as a mode of operation is currently very prevalent on international business-to-business markets, and project-related services are an important part of most projects. However the way to market these types of services is under-researched in mainstream marketing literature. Therefore, via a multi-lingual literature review, this article scrutinizes four marketing schools for frameworks relevant to the marketing of project-related services: project, services, transaction, and interactive business-to-business marketing. The analysis shows that the project marketing concepts better capture key aspects of marketing project-related services internationally than do the mainstream service marketing concepts. However, the analysis also suggests that a pluralist approach may be useful when marketing of project-related services, as some frameworks from other marketing schools are also suitable. On this basis, suggestions for marketers of project-related services are presented, and a research agenda for academics concerning the study of project-related services both internationally and domestically is suggested.

Service quality is a major determinant of business performance. Empirical evidence from the literature indicates that, to attain a high level of customer satisfaction, a high standard of service quality should be provided by the service provider. This study aims to examine the relationship between the perceived service quality and the indicators of client satisfaction with particular reference to engineering consultancy services in building projects.

A survey research approach was adopted using a semi-structured questionnaire as an instrument of data collection. The questionnaire survey formed the basis for the descriptive and inferential (Pearson correlation and multiple regression) statistics that were used to evaluate the relationship between engineering consultants’ service quality and clients’ satisfaction indicators.

The study identified 10 key technical indicators and 10 key managerial indicators for measuring client satisfaction. Statistical analysis shows a positive significant relationship between the perceived service quality and all the indicators of client satisfaction. The positive correlation values show that as perceived service quality increases, both technical and management indicators of client satisfaction equally increase.

The results offer opportunity for professional service providers to continuously develop the technical and management indicators, embrace personnel training and key into continuous professional development for better service quality.

Outsourcing architectural and engineering services is a trend for public-sector construction projects. This study aims to examine what tender selection criteria should be considered when assessing the performance outcomes of consultants in relation to sustainable design, construction and management of buildings within the context of property and facilities management of existing building portfolios.

Combined qualitative-quantitative methods are adopted to examine the causal relationship between sustainable performance outcomes and influencing factors, using primary data collected from the estate offices of the UK universities, which form a unique public sector. The performance factors identified form the basis of selection criteria.

The qualitative multiple-case interviews identify economic, environmental, social and functional sustainability measures as the attributes of performance outcome. The quantitative hierarchical regression analysis generalises that sustainable performance outcomes can be significantly influenced by task and contextual performance factors.

The scope of the study is limited to university estates. Further research should be conducted on other property and facilities management and construction-related organisations so that the sustainable procurement approach developed by this research can become more robust and applicable to the wider public sector.

At the tender stage, estate managers should adopt a sustainable procurement approach for selection of construction consultants: focussing on the significant task performance (project staff and execution approach) and contextual performance (collaborative consultant frameworks) influencing factors to optimise the project sustainability outcomes in relation to economic, environmental, social and functional values.

The sustainable procurement approach developed by this research benefits property and facilities management, as well as construction disciplines within the wider public sector, thus contributing to the government construction policy on promoting sustainability to the built environment.