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It is necessary and useful to differentiate destructive from constructive conflict and avoidable from necessary claims; and also to minimize disputes arising from unresolved conflict and claims in construction projects. This paper analyses such needs and proposes means of meeting them through an appropriate classification of construction claims; an estimation of their relative significance in terms of magnitude and frequency; and an identification of the proximate and root causes of the significant claims. A hierarchy of such claims, proximate and root causes is presented, based mainly on data collected from 61 projects and on 46 responses to questionnaires in Hong Kong. Measures of the relative significance of the claims categories are also presented. The results are reinforced by observations from parallel studies in Hong Kong and elsewhere, as well as from the literature. Strategies are suggested to avoid the avoidable and mitigate the unavoidable or unavoided claims, through controlling the controllable causes. Management focus is also recommended on controlling the causes of those categories of claims and disputes that are seen to be significant in terms of higher impact and/or probability of occurrence.

One pertinent dynamic phenomenon in supply chains is the amplification of order variance, i.e. the bullwhip effect. Its continued significance is underscored in contemporary empirical research. While numerous publications have pinpointed various causes of the bullwhip effect, there remains a gap in their systematic consolidation. The purpose of this paper is to compile a comprehensive list of the causes of the bullwhip effect from existing literature and categorize them appropriately.

This study conducts a systematic literature review to offer a comprehensive overview of bullwhip effect causes addressed in the existing literature. The identified causes are categorized using a qualitative content analysis approach.

The study shows the diversity of the causes of the bullwhip effect and their interdependencies. In addition, this study demonstrates that, at the highest level of aggregation, causes of the bullwhip effect can be classified into four main categories: causes inherent in the system structure, causes related to uncertainty, causes related to misaligned incentives and causes related to inadequate cognition of the situation.

The work provides an extensive overview and categorization of bullwhip effect causes, offering valuable insights for both researchers and practitioners seeking a deeper understanding of this phenomenon. In addition, it underscores managerial implications and highlights future research opportunities.

This experimental study aims to examine the effectiveness of cause-related marketing messages that incorporate both text and visuals, as compared to messages comprised solely of text, on the attitudes and behavioral intentions of restaurant customers, and to see if the impact varies across four categories of social causes (health, animal welfare, human services and the environment).

This experimental study uses a 2 (type of message) × 4 (cause category) between-subjects design.

Restaurant messages that combine text and visuals are more effective than restaurant messages with only text in engendering positive attitudinal and behavioral responses. This paper also found interaction effects between advertisement type and cause category on individuals’ responses (i.e. attitudes and behavioral intentions).

The messaging strategies suggested by this research will allow the restaurant industry to capitalize on the value of cause-related marketing initiatives.

This research contributes to the hospitality literature by expanding the realm of research on effective cause-related marketing initiatives.

Construction contractors in Palestine, as in many other developing countries, suffer from many problems. One of their main problems is their inability to meet contractual requirements, such as completing projects within time, at the agreed cost and to the desired quality. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the causes of the non-fulfillment of contractual requirements in three different types of projects: building, road and electro-mechanical projects.

Two methods were adopted to collect the data – qualitative and quantitative. In total, 65 causes were identified from the literature and qualitative semi-structured interviews with professional experts. These causes were classified into five categories: managerial, financial, contractor capabilities, regulations and laws and political. In the quantitative approach, a questionnaire was developed and then distributed to 50 professional experts: 20 building experts, 15 road experts and 15 experts in electro-mechanical projects. A five-point Likert scale was used to assess the importance, from the perspective of the subject matter experts, of the causes that had been identified. About 35 responses, which represent a combined response rate of 70%, were received. The quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, with the mean, standard deviation and degree of importance for each of the identified causes being determined, and the SPSS software platform used to rank them.

The results reveal that the most important reasons why contractors did not fulfill their contractual requirements in building projects were that contracts were awarded to the contractor offering the lowest price, and the profit margin was low because of intense competition among contractors. In road projects, the most important causes were the poor estimation of the equipment required and a lack of standardized conditions in the construction sector, while in electro-mechanical projects, the most important causes were the inability of the contractor to estimate the cost of the project accurately because of unclear bid documents and a lack of contractor capital.

The results of this study will be useful to stakeholders and Palestinian contractor unions. They can be disseminated to give guidance so that contractors can avoid these problems in future construction projects and enhance their compliance with contractual requirements. Moreover, knowing about these causes may lead to the reduction of conflicts and disputes between contractual parties (owners and contractors), which in turn will be reflected in the work quality and reputation of contractors.

The international energy agency states that the world’s primary energy needs are expected to grow to 55 per cent until 2030. Therefore, oil and gas industry as the main energy source will be more crucial where building or advancing new capacities is required. Because the reports highlight the delay as a recurring problem, thereby, more in-depth investigation to find out the main contributing causes is needed.

Root cause analysis (RCA) was applied to identify, rank, analysis and categorize the main sources of this problem.

Based on RCA procedure; Pareto analysis showed that 84.7 per cent of the delay is because: the radar chart indicated no difference in perception of the participants regarding the importance of the root causes, correlation analysis suggested strong relationship among the participants and the cause-and-effect diagram emphasized more on operational, human and equipment categories, which in total account for 51.86 per cent of the delay.

The risk planners of large-scale projects can consider these root causes as the main items to analysis, monitor and control, as they are vitally important for project success.

Design documents’ deficiencies (DDDs) are a major issue that plagues the construction industry in many countries. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the major causes of DDDs in a fast expanding economy, where errors can translate to an adverse impact on the economy. This paper aims to identify and assess the causes of DDDs for large construction projects from the consultants’ perspective.

In total, 20 causes of DDDs were shortlisted through an extensive literature survey. In total, 37 consultants based in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia participated in the study. The respondents were requested to provide their opinion with respect to the relative importance of the identified causes. The result of their responses was then used to rank the causes.

Based on their significance indices, the most significant causes of DDDs were “assigning design tasks to designers who lack work experience,” “team members’ communication skills,” “the level and quality of the design professional’s education,” “cross-disciplinary coordination,” “effective design team,” and “lack of knowledge transfer mechanism.”

Recommendations were provided to mitigate the issues of DDDs. It is envisioned that through a better understanding of the major causes of DDDs, design firms will be better positioned to recognize DDDs’ causes and establish appropriate measures for reducing their occurrence. The findings of this paper are beneficial to all project stakeholders, including design firms, clients, contractors, and end users.

This paper contributes to the literature by providing an assessment of the various causes of DDDs in the context of a rapidly expanding economy, where any inefficiency can lead to massive losses to the economy.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the dual nature of social cause‐brand fit by studying the influence of two cause‐brand fit categories, functional fit and image fit, on the formation of brand corporate social responsibility consumer perception (CSR perception) in a cause‐brand alliance (CBA) context.

A theoretical model is proposed, based on previous research, which explains the effect of functional fit and image fit on altruistic attributions, brand credibility and CSR image; these relationships were assessed through structural equation modelling. The model was estimated with a sample of 299 Spanish consumers of toiletries and cosmetics products, randomly selected. Two newly created, printed CBA advertisements served as the basic stimulus of the study.

This research shows that consumers perceive functional and image fit differently, and each has its own mechanism for influencing brand CSR perception. While functional fit has a direct, although gentle influence on CSR perception, image fit has an indirect influence, as it is used as a cue to evaluate altruistic brand motivations and brand credibility.

The chosen research approach may reduce the generalisability of the results. Further empirical testing using alternative brands and outcome measures is encouraged.

Both types of fit influence the formation of CSR perception, and should therefore be postulated as decision criteria to brand managers for choosing the CBA partner. Specifically, brands which are likely of being perceived as not credible or egoistic when associating with the cause, must pay special attention to image fit.

This work analyses and compares simultaneously the influence of functional fit and image fit on CSR brand perception formation in the context of a CBA strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to reveal the main causes of delays in the projects are from the client (relative importance index (RII)=0.716), labor and equipment (RII=0.701) and contractor (RII=0.698). Hence determining the contractual responsibility of delay is the most likely source of dispute in construction projects and many techniques have been used in the courts to demonstrate the criticalities of a delay event on the project schedule. Therefore, authors try to investigate all process-based techniques of delay claims and evaluated and conformed them with principles by Society of Construction Law (SCL) protocol and Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering International (AACEI) in order to choose the best techniques based on the specific circumstances of each project.

This section is divided into two distinct parts: refers to the methods used to assess the perceptions of clients, consultants, and contractors on the relative importance of causes of delay in construction industry; and refers to advantages and disadvantages of various techniques used to analyze delays and their conform with SCL protocol. A questionnaire was developed to assess the perceptions of clients, consultants, and contractors on the relative importance of causes of delay in Iranian construction industry. The respondents were asked to indicate their response category on 78 well-recognized construction delay factors identified by authors.

In total, 78 causes of delay were identified through research. The identified causes are combined into seven groups. The field survey included 58 contractors, 55 consultants, and 62 client. Data collected were analyzed by RII and Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The authors identified main causes of delay and ten most important causes, according to Table AII, from the perspective of three major groups of participants (clients, consultants and contractors). The ranking of categories of causes of delay, according to Table I, were: client-related causes (RII=0.716); labor and equipment category causes (RII=0.701); contractor-related causes (RII=0.698); material-related causes (RII=0.690); design-related causes (RII=0.666); external causes (RII=0.662); and consultant-related causes (RII=0.662). But according to the discussions and given that determining the contractual responsibility of delay is the most likely source of dispute in construction industry and many techniques have been used in the courts to demonstrate the criticalities of a delay event on the project schedule.

All process-based techniques of delay analysis have been present in this paper and categorized in 11 groups. In order to understand the advantages and disadvantages of them by clients, contractor and consultant, a thorough review conducted to reveal the nature of techniques. In the next step, given that selecting the most appropriate technique based on constraints and specific conditions of each project is one of the most important steps to carry out a successful delay analysis. The authors conformed, all process-based techniques of delay analysis, by SCL protocol and AACEI principles. Finally, the result of this match was brought in order to choose the best technique based on the specific circumstances of each project.

Despite the advent of sophisticated control methods, there are still significant issues regarding late delivery of information technology projects. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the common causes of scheduling problems specifically in the information technology projects context.

Through a quantitative research, the importance of those causes, as well as the underpinning factors driving them, is explored. The causes are ranked according to their relative important index, and exploratory factor analysis is employed to reveal underlying dimensions (factors) of these causes.

From the analysis, four factors were extracted, namely, “Dataless Newbie,” “Technical Newbie,” “Pragmatic Futurist” and “Optimistic Politician.” These factors explain the different latent conditions that lead to scheduling problems in information technology projects.

The key contribution of this research is that it enlightens the latent conditions underpinning scheduling problems. Also, the evidence provides that schedule development for information technology projects is impacted by the same causes that impact engineering projects, and that applying a number of mitigation techniques widely used within the engineering area, such as reference class, would, no doubt, not only improve information technology schedules but also reduce the political pressures on the project manager.

This research provides a valuable insight into understanding the underlying factors for poor project estimation.

Taking both an event-centered and a process approach to cause lawyering, the chapter asks: (1) if, when, and how working with movements can lead to one being functionally seen as a cause lawyer and (2) whether researchers should include “hired gun” and state attorneys in the cause lawyering conversation. These questions are addressed by seeing how various cause lawyer qualities are exhibited by a range of attorneys involved in anti-abortion protest regulation cases. The research suggests that reasons exist to view previously excluded attorneys through the cause lawyering lens, and to continue pursuing the cause lawyer qualities discussed here.