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The paper discusses the potential impact of videoconferencing on practices and processes within the construction industry, based on analyses carried out on its use and impact in the healthcare sector – which like construction involves technology‐intensive processes which are dependent upon cross‐professional and cross‐disciplinary relationships and communications, operate within an increasingly regulatory and litigious climate, and involve organizationally fluid, virtual, teams spanning several subindustries. Recently published research evidence from the healthcare sector suggests that whilst videoconferencing and other advanced information and communication technologies (ICTs) have pervasive capabilities, successes in their application may be shortlived and modest in achievement. In use, their actual uptake and application have been found to be fundamentally affected by a range of social and operational issues, such as fears over a new formalization and trackability of previously informal conversations; a rebalancing of power relationships (between professionals using the ICTs as well as between doctor and patient); pressures on social/cultural and procedural alignment between participants; and personal and corporate attitudes to the technologies (including simply disliking the ICT). There is also evidence from the healthcare sector to suggest that ICTs increase the complexity of the delivering healthcare, and that the limitations of the technologies emphasise an existing dependency of communications and processes on tacit knowledge which is not readily formalized for communication via ICTs. However, the paper also notes an increasing pressure on the construction industry to respond to the globalizing potential that ICTs offer for the supply and delivery of knowledge‐based services, and discusses the implications of the issues found in the healthcare sector for the use and potential abuse of ICTs in the construction industry that will have to be successfully addressed in order to avoid ICTs being perceived as threatening and to allow their use to help organizations address the globalising marketplace.

HARROGATE will be notable as the venue of the Conference in one or two ways that distinctive. The Association Year is now to begin on January 1st and not in September as heretofore; and, in consequence, there will be no election of president or of new council until the end of the year. The Association's annual election is to take place in November, and the advantages of this arrangement must be apparent to everyone who considers the matter. Until now the nominations have been sent out at a time when members have been scattered to all parts of the country on holiday, and committees of the Council have been elected often without the full consideration that could be given in the more suitable winter time. In the circumstances, at Harrogate the Chair will still be occupied by Sir Henry Miers, who has won from all librarians and those interested in libraries a fuller measure of admiration, if that were possible, than he possessed before he undertook the presidency. There will be no presidential address in the ordinary sense, although Sir Henry Miers will make a speech in the nature of an address from the Chair at one of the meetings. What is usually understood by the presidential address will be an inaugural address which it is hoped will be given by Lord Irwin. The new arrangement must bring about a new state of affairs in regard to the inaugural addresses. We take it that in future there will be what will be called a presidential address at the Annual Meeting nine months after the President takes office. He will certainly then be in the position to review the facts of his year with some knowledge of events; he may chronicle as well as prophesy.

A well‐known librarian said recently that a good staff was a happy staff. Presumably in such a case the administration and staff organisation would be running smoothly, and everybody concerned would naturally find happiness in that. But there is more to it than organisation and administration. If the personal element is considered, as it should be, the relationship on a social level would also naturally make for pleasant conditions. How can the general ideal be reached? It seems obvious that there is a social side to it, but there's no doubt that one senior of ill‐conditioned temperament can spoil things for everybody. It is suggested that every effort should be made by librarians to cement happy relationships in every way possible. Successful library service does not depend merely on the circulation; there is also the aspect of happy fellowship in the service. These notes are intended to be suggestive to that end.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate value management (VM) practice by professional architects in South Africa. A primary aim is to test the assertion of Kelly et al. that VM has “evolved to become an established service with commonly understood tools, techniques and styles.”

A web‐based, online questionnaire survey was employed to establish VM practice by South African registered architects. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the survey response data.

The results suggest that awareness of VM is not widespread among South African architects, and that its actual practice is minimal. Where VM was used on projects, it was invariably cost‐minimization driven in terms of both the project and the VM process itself. These findings are in direct conflict with the assertion of Kelly et al. There is also a mismatch between clients' value system key performance variables and objectives defined for VM studies. Use of VM for project brief facilitation is not widespread, and the integration of VM with risk and quality management systems is not pervasive. Where VM was undertaken, no attempt is made to benchmark VM activities against international standards.

Professional architectural associations in South Africa should adopt a proactive role in promoting the use of VM by architects; facilitated by continuing professional development programmes.

The originality of the research lies in determining the nature of, and extent to which, architects in South Africa practice VM.

The link between relationship typologies and effectiveness of conflict resolution approaches remains to be tested despite its significance in conflict management in construction project delivery. By using the four relationships attributes based on the group attachment theory, the purpose of the study was to explore the cluster of relationships among project teams and organisations and the performance of conflict management strategies across these clusters in the Ghanaian construction industry.

Using a deductive questionnaire survey in the Ghanaian construction industry, a total of 137 responses were gathered and analyzed using cluster analysis, mean scores and ANOVA to reveal the relationship clusters and performance of conflict management strategies across these clusters.

The results revealed eight relationship clusters that exist among project teams and organisations with distinct influence of roles & tasks function, cognition, emotions and behavior attributes across the relationship clusters. In the aspect of the effectiveness of conflict management strategies, it was noted that the performance of these strategies were significantly different across the groups. For instance, integrating as a conflict management strategy was deemed to be effective in resolving conflict in unitary, adversarial, pluralist, mutuality, collaborative and partnering relationship clusters. In the case of coopetitive and coercive relationships, the performance of integrating as a conflict management strategy was less effective. This study thus has empirically proved that, different relationship clusters of teams and organizations exist within the Ghanaian construction industry, and that they perform different roles & tasks functions, cognition, emotions and behavioural attributes in their formation. Additionally, the performance effectiveness of conflict management strategies differed across the relationship clusters.

By aligning the relationship attributes to the dynamics of relationship clusters experienced in project teams and organisations, relationship quality, suitability and effectiveness of conflict management strategies can be optimized. The findings can inform project teams and stakeholders to develop fit-for-purpose relationship attributes among teams and organisations to enhance team effectiveness, relationship quality and conflict management in the industry.

Construction is a project‐oriented industry that benefits from both the technical and interpersonal skills that a project manager has to offer. Increasingly, project management is viewed as being an integrated process relevant throughout the project lifecycle, which necessarily draws upon a broad range of knowledge and abilities. It is imperative that project managers, therefore, have ready access to education and training programmes that enable them to update their skills. This paper compares a new distance learning project management educational software application with a traditional multiple‐media resource and a well‐established postgraduate module delivered in part‐time mode to establish the pedagogic effectiveness of distributed interactive multimedia. An analysis of quantitative data generated over a two‐year period finds that whilst learning and confidence gains occur in all delivery modes, there is no significant difference in the academic performance of students between the traditional control and distance learning experimental groups.

The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of research into the principles and procedures associated with value management (VM) and assess its use and effectiveness within the construction industry in Northern Ireland. It provides a brief review of the principles, various procedures and methods associated with VM, investigates the positive and negative factors relating to its use whilst analysing the extent of its usage and determining its effectiveness.

Using a mixed method approach, the authors present the results of a survey of construction professionals operating in Northern Ireland and provide an examination of three case studies exploring the use of VM within the Northern Ireland construction industry.

In an industry where the client's needs and demands are of paramount importance, VM has emerged as a tool which can help satisfy these needs. This study shows that VM is frequently used within the Northern Ireland construction industry and on the whole is quite effective. However, the research exposed a general consensus that the VM process is frequently not implemented at the most appropriate stage of a project, which suggests that if it was, it could perhaps be more effective than it is at present. There is an apparent lack of formal methods used to carry out the VM process. Instead, rather loose and informal methods are used.

In the absence of a similar study that analyses the factors that influence the VM process highlighting and documenting the views and opinions expressed by the professionals within today's industry and reviewing the effectiveness of its usage, this paper documents a snapshot of practice of VM within the Northern Ireland construction industry.

The purpose of this paper is to present the challenges encountered when conducting qualitative research in foodservice operations and to discuss the strategies to overcome the identified challenges.

The researchers conducted food safety observations, interviews, and focus groups with more than 600 foodservice employees and managers. The researchers encountered multiple challenges including institutional review board approvals, managements' willingness to participate, and organizational and cultural barriers.

Obtaining in‐depth, credible information through observations, interviews, and focus groups adds depth and breadth to hospitality studies. However, given high industry turnover, recruitment and retention throughout a study is problematic. Moreover, researchers encounter many barriers as they obtain data, such as establishing authenticity and overcoming Hawthorne and halo effects.

Strategies to increase participation and thereby improve qualitative research have not been previously addressed in the hospitality literature

This paper seeks to investigate the nature and extent of value management (VM) practice in the South African manufacturing industry. It aims to explore engineers' and designers' awareness and understanding of VM and the nature and extent of the use of VM techniques within their companies.

A web‐based, online questionnaire survey is employed to establish value management practice within the manufacturing sector. Descriptive statistics are used to analyse the survey response data.

The results suggest that, while VM (and more particularly its value engineering antecedent) is generally known among engineers and designers in the manufacturing sector in South Africa, it is less widely practised. VM is seen predominantly as a cost reduction tool. This misperception, and the lack of awareness of the potential benefits of VM, must be remedied if the South African manufacturing industry is to remain competitive. The industry needs to adopt best practice VM techniques and standards.

It has proved extremely difficult to obtain survey data from manufacturing organizations, resulting in a low response rate. While this is a limitation, the information sourced provides useful direction for future case study investigation.

Refresher courses in contemporary VM theory and practice are recommended, as well as exploration of the impacts on VM of other techniques such as risk, quality and environmental management.

Against a background of increasing globalization, the findings are important if the South African manufacturing sector is to remain competitive. The results provide pointers for future research using a case study method.

The Singapore construction sector is promoting performance improvement by implementing collaborative contracting (CC). For CC's successful implementation, there is a need to sieve out the critical success factors (CSFs). Hence, this paper aims to explore factors influencing the adoption of CC and investigate the potential performance improvement by implementing CC.

Based on the literature review, 23 CSFs were identified and packaged to a questionnaire to evaluate the CSF's priority as well as CC's potential impact on the project performance. After prior validation, 165 potential respondents were drawn from survey list by using simple random sampling. Finally, 31 valid responses were received.

The survey result showed that the top five CSFs are mutual trust, all parties to commit fully, openness between parties, commitment to a win–win attitude and resource availability. The majority of respondents hold that CC implementation would improve overall project performance, decision effectiveness, cost, time, quality and risk performance.

Directors, project managers, contractor managers and site engineers have different perceptions of CSFs. Also rather than meeting the same requirements in the implementation of CC, there are differences among projects with different values.

This study provides an in-depth understanding of the CSFs for industry practitioners adopting CC and CC's potential impact on project performance. This study is also helpful for authorities to formulate effective policies to push the implementation of CC.