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The green innovation behavior of construction enterprises is the key to reducing the construction industry's carbon emissions and realizing the green transformation of the construction industry. The purpose of this study is to reveal the evolutionary mechanism of green innovation behavior in construction enterprises.

This study is based on resource-based theory, Porter's hypothesis and signaling theory. First, a measurement model of the green innovation behavior of construction enterprises was constructed from three aspects: environmental regulation, enterprise resources and public opinion through hierarchical analysis. Then, the state values of the measurement model of green innovation behavior of construction enterprises were calculated through the time series data from 2011–2018. Finally, the Markov chain model was used to predict the evolutionary trend of green innovation behavior of construction enterprises, and the accuracy of the prediction effect of the Markov chain model was verified using the time series data of 2019.

The Markov chain model of green innovation behavior of construction enterprises constructed in this study has high accuracy. This model finds that the transition of the growth state of green innovation behavior in China's construction industry is fluid and predicts the evolution trend of the innovation behavior of construction enterprises. In the future, the green innovation behavior of construction enterprises has a probability of 70.17% to be in a continuous growth state and 40.27% to be in a rapid growth state.

Based on the Markov chain model of green innovation behavior of construction enterprises, this study finds that the transition of the growth state of green innovation behavior of construction enterprises in China has the characteristics of liquidity. In addition, it reveals the development process of the green innovation behavior of construction enterprises from 2011–2018 and predicts the evolution trend of the green innovation behavior of construction enterprises.

This paper aims to explore the key risk factors affecting the Personnel Localization Management of international construction projects under the major public emergencies represented by the novel coronavirus pneumonia pandemic (hereinafter COVID-19) and how the public emergency affected the Personnel Localization Management from three levels: staff turnover rate, the number of different personnel, the salary and performance of workers. The paper also helps to enhance the construction enterprises' response capacity of major public emergencies and provides a comprehensive framework of optimization strategies for the Personnel Localization Management of international construction projects (hereinafter projects).

The main research method of this paper is the case study, and ten representative international construction projects are selected for case study in China construction enterprises (hereinafter CCE). And this study used the failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) and comparative analysis to find out all potential risk factors under the COVID-19 and analyze how the epidemic affects the Personnel Localization Management of projects which based on the primary data from 10 projects obtained through in-depth interviews and the secondary data from China First Metallurgical Group and Central South Construction Group's Overseas Enterprise.

The findings show that the outbreak of the major public emergencies not only greatly increased eight risk factors but also directly led to an increase in staff turnover rate. Meanwhile, the numbers of Chinese and local managers and workers are all affected, and an increase in the number and the salary performance of local workers can be reduced, to a certain extent, to the cost-to-output ratio of the projects. The findings would help construction enterprises better cope with Personnel Localization Management and enhance the response capacity of major public emergencies.

This study will broaden researchers' horizons regarding “Personnel Localization Management under major public emergencies” and “risk factors of Personnel Localization Management in an international context.” Furthermore, construction enterprises looking for a better mechanism of Personnel Localization Management can benefit from research findings and lessons learned from the authors' case study during or before an outbreak of major public emergency. Lastly, the framework of optimization strategies for Personnel Localization Management can be used both for research purposes and practice issues in international construction projects.

The findings from the authors' case study offer the direction for international construction enterprises in China and other countries to formulate effective measures, strengthen overseas business and establish a crisis management mechanism for Personnel Localization Management under major public emergencies, and the findings provide emergency plans for projects to improve the public crisis handling capacity and respond to major public emergencies such as the COVID-19.

This study analyzes the impact of the COVID-19 on the Personnel Localization Management of international construction projects from the perspective of personnel. This study provides a theoretical reference for the international construction industry to actively respond to major public emergencies. Besides, the research is conducive to improving the emergency response mechanism in the construction industry, and further promoting the high-quality and globalized development of international construction.

This study provides other researchers with a comprehensive understanding of the risk factors affecting the Personnel Localization Management of projects under the COVID-19 and insight for further research on localization management, risk management, and project management.

In recent years, China is exerting effort to improve the performance effectiveness of its construction industry. This paper aims to report a preliminary study on organisational culture of five selected construction enterprises from different geographical locations in China and to discuss a framework for developing effectiveness measurement criteria for Chinese construction enterprises.

The research approach focuses on the culture profiles of the selected enterprises which have similar size, number of employees, general reputation (in terms of quality of construction), business type (building works) and tax bracket. The measuring instrument of organisational culture is adopted from previous tested research.

It is found that the hierarchy culture is dominant in four cases; Shantou in the Special Economic Zone is the exception. The Shantou enterprise has a market culture and Shantou was one of the first regions to embark on economic reform. Further analysis is required of the spread of the culture profiles in terms of geopraphcial regions and developmental stages of the construction enterprises in China.

The result of the five case studies is indicative of the presence of the dichotomy in hierarchy – market culture dominance. Evaluation of operational effectiveness of such organisations must depend on their developmental stages in line with their stated objectives, and a framework for effectiveness measurement is proposed.

In recent years, several high‐profile cross‐border acquisitions made by Chinese enterprises have attracted the world's attention. However, none of these acquisitions were related to Chinese construction enterprises despite their expanding role in the international construction market. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the objectives and impediments faced by Chinese construction enterprises in cross‐border acquisitions based on existing theories and research studies.

Based on a literature review and the analysis of the current status of cross‐border acquisitions in China, an industry‐wide questionnaire survey was conducted to investigate the objectives and impediments of cross‐border acquisitions faced by Chinese construction enterprises.

The main objective of Chinese construction enterprises towards cross‐border acquisitions is to create new markets and to optimize the industrial structure. Although a majority of the construction enterprises demonstrated an intention for cross‐border acquisitions which is driven by their past and current overseas activities, their preparation for cross‐border acquisitions is impeded by concerns over post‐acquisition issues and a lack of knowledge and experience.

The paper originally contributes to a better understanding of the current status of cross‐border acquisitions by Chinese construction enterprises based on an analysis of their objectives and impediments, which will be useful for researchers and practitioners.

The aim of this paper is to examine the effect of organizational environment on engineering project cost management.

Taking China Railway Engineering Corporation 2nd Bureau (CREC 2nd Bureau for short) as an example, the authors conduct lots of semi‐structured interviews in its group corporation, company limited, two subsidiaries and two project departments, and finally collect textual data which include 30 paragraphs and more than 120,000 words. The authors then encode those interview data step by step for further analysis under the research paradigm of grounded theory.

Based on these encoded data, the paper builds concept, basic categories, main categories, which could be the factors affecting the engineering project cost management, the evidence chain and the complete story clue among these categories. Then finally constructs a theoretical framework called “3S” for short, which is comprised of the organizational structure supporting system, the control procedure supporting system and the social relation supporting system.

Because of the insufficient importance placed on engineering project cost management by academics and few theoretical papers, this paper provides a new method for exploring the engineering project cost management and a theoretical reference for further research.

In this paper, the authors discuss the action mechanism of organizational environment in the engineering project cost management and provide for Chinese construction enterprises more explicit guidance on their cost management practice.

There is little research on determinants of engineering project cost by Chinese scholars, which is mainly shown as normative research. There is no perfect theoretical framework on the determinants of engineering project cost management, which is not beneficial to the knowledge of engineering project cost management and is not comprehensive and in depth enough for academics and practitioners. This paper conducts a field study in CREC 2nd Bureau based on grounded theory. At last, “3S” theoretical framework is established. This paper is embodied in using reality as the accordance, scientifically carding and spreading the theory and translating the practical experience into theory, so that it is beneficial for the engineering project cost management.

There is a relatively low risk management (RM) level and maturity in China’s state-owned construction enterprises (CSCEs). The purpose of this paper is to find the main factors impacting RM in practice to promote rapid, sound and sustained development in CSCEs.

There are a few state-owned CSCEs in China. Most enterprises know little about RM. Because of the limited number of RM departments in these enterprises, 200 questionnaires were sent to the enterprises to investigate the RM strategies employed by them. The research is quantitative and used a questionnaire survey to determine the important factors influencing RM practice. The collected data were analyzed with the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences to identify the most important factors affecting RM as well as the extent of influence of these factors, in order to facilitate further research.

The survey revealed the top eight factors (i.e. leaders’ support, personnel’s responsibility, comprehensiveness of identification, costs and benefits, risk appetite, understanding of language, frequency of training and performance management) that highly impact RM in CSCEs and the extent to which these factors impact RM. The data reveal that the average RM level is low. Some methods have been recommended to improve RM.

The research lays the foundation for further RM development in CSCEs. The low RM level in CSCEs should encourage researchers to find better ways to improve RM. Some factors in the research will function as valuable guides for China’s private and public-private partnership enterprises.

A quantitative analysis methodology for RM has been developed for CSCEs that can reflect their RM level. In addition, the degree of impact of key factors on RM has been shown. The results can act as a reference to improve RM quantitatively, making the RM system more explicit in dealing with risks more accurately and instructively.

Structural RM research is utilized to evaluate RM in CSCEs by following an empirical method. With the continuous improvement in RM, CSCEs can cooperate well with construction enterprises of other countries for infrastructure projects and gain more benefits.

To provide a structured and integrated framework of corporate strategy in order to help practitioners and researchers identify critical issues related to the Chinese construction industry and analyze its dynamics from a holistic viewpoint.

A brief review of the major themes of strategy mostly developed by western researchers is first presented. This is then supplemented by a review of the pertinent characteristics of the construction industry in general, and those related to China's context in specific, which affect management decision‐making. Two case studies are used to illustrate the concepts implied by the proposed framework.

The cases of Guangsha and the Shanghai Construction Group demonstrate that there is no hard and fast rule in developing a coherent strategy. This is even truer considering the fact that China's circumstances are still evolving.

The critical elements identified in the proposed framework serve as a good starting point for individual firms to further develop a more detailed execution plan.

This paper bridges a management gap that exists between mainstream management researchers, who have few precedence of studying the construction industry, and traditional construction management researchers, who tend to focus on project‐level issues rather than corporate‐level issues.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the correction mechanism of resilient safety culture on new generation of construction workers (NGCWs)' unsafe behavior and test the multiple mediation effects of job crafting and perceived work meaningfulness based on the context of Chinese construction industry in order to find a new way to effectively correct the NGCWs' unsafe behavior.

A theoretical model of correction mechanism was established based on literature research and theoretical deduction. An empirical study was employed based on confirmatory factor analysis and regression analysis with a sample of 404 NGCWs in China.

The results indicated that resilient safety culture can effectively correct NGCWs' unsafe behavior through job crafting and perceived work meaningfulness. Job crafting and perceived work meaningfulness can play independent and serial mediating roles between resilient safety culture and unsafe behavior.

Research results only represent a short-term law about the correction mechanism of NGCWs' unsafe behavior based on a questionnaire study from China's construction industry. It is necessary to continue to implement a longitudinal study to test it in a relatively long period in future research. The findings also need to be verified based on the young construction workers in other countries.

This study provides a theoretical basis and feasible management reference for construction enterprises in China to correct NGCWs' unsafe behavior from the perspective of resilient safety culture. Furthermore, the construction of resilient safety culture in construction enterprises can help NGCWs better carry out job crafting and perceive the meaning of work.

This paper clarifies the correction mechanism of resilient safety culture on unsafe behavior of NGCWs, and further tests the independent mediating roles and a serial mediating role of job crafting and perceived work meaningfulness between resilient safety culture and unsafe behavior, which fills the research gap about the influence mechanism of resilient safety culture on young construction workers' unsafe behavior and enriches the theoretical system of unsafe behavior correction of construction workers.

Service-oriented innovation economies are becoming the new trend for the construction industry. Benchmarking the quality management level of developed countries and improving quality management are also becoming necessities for promoting innovation in the economy. The purpose of this study is to analyse the internal relationships between the five enablers of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence model, based on a market-oriented strategy, to serve as a framework for managing and improving quality.

Considering the different market environment and culture, this study refines the strategy enabler based on Zebal and Goodwin's (2011) Developing Country Market Orientation Scale, and builds a market-oriented EFQM Excellence model. Structural equation modelling (SEM) is used to analyse the results of a questionnaire survey of 683 China construction industry top enterprises to explore the internal relationships between the model's five enablers.

(1) “Leadership” has a positive influence on “Market-Oriented Strategy”, “People” and “Partnerships and Resources”; (2) “Market-Oriented Strategy” has positive influence on “Partnerships and Resources”; (3) “People” has a low influence on “Processes, Products and Services”; (4) “Partnerships and Resources” has a medium influence on “Processes, Products and Services” and (5) the relationships between “Market-Oriented Strategy” and “People”, “Partnerships and Resources” are not significant.

This study refines the strategy enabler of the original EFQM Excellence model with Zebal and Goodwin's (2011) Developing Country Market Orientation Scale. It also develops a market-oriented EFQM Excellence model that is suitable for developing countries, and it tests the implicit relationships of its five new enablers in an innovation environment where cultural differences exist.

The role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) fulfillment is critical when building resilience of project-based organizations (PBOs). However, fulfilling CSR to build a highly resilient PBO remains a black box problem. This study explores the different CSR combinations that enhance PBO resilience.

This study defines CSR in terms of shareholder, employee, and social CSR, and analyzes corporate characteristics in terms of corporate scale and nature. Data are collected from Hexun.com and the China Stock Market and Accounting Research Database (CSMAR). The qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) method is used to analyze 48 listed construction and engineering companies from China to explore the CSR configurations for PBOs in enhancing organizational resilience.

A large firm size is a necessary condition for high organizational resilience. We find six paths to build high and non-high resilience in PBOs, and the driving mechanisms of high and non-high resilience exhibit an asymmetric relationship.

This study cracks the black box of CSR fulfillment and PBO resilience. It reveals the CSR configurations that enhance or inhibit the resilience of PBOs. It also provides scientific basis for PBOs in their fulfillment of CSR in response to crises, and the enhancement of organizational resilience. Future research can be expanded to other industries, as the study sample is only limited to civil engineering construction companies. Since this study uses cross-sectional data, time series can be introduced in the future to further explore the relationship between CSR and organizational resilience.

This study provides targeted suggestions that can help decision-makers of construction companies to determine how they can fulfill CSR to enhance organizational resilience. At the same time, it can provide intellectual support for PBOs to cope with systemic crises and promote the fulfillment of CSR.

In terms of theoretical value, on the one hand, this study verifies the relationship between CSR fulfillment and PBO resilience, revealing its mechanism of action and multiple paths; on the other hand, it provides a new way of thinking for management research methods and enriches the theoretical study of organizational resilience.