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Corporate social responsibility (CSR) practice and research regarding construction contractors are comparatively limited. The purpose of this research is to identify a series of CSR issues that reflect the major components of CSR, and to determine the perceived importance of these factors in the context of construction contractors.

A CSR indicator framework was developed based on stakeholder theory. CSR stakeholders and their corresponding CSR performance issues in construction contractors are classified into two levels, i.e. project level and organizational level. This is followed by a questionnaire survey to investigate the perceptions on relative importance of CSR issues of four key stakeholders in typical construction projects in China, i.e. construction contractors, clients, design and engineering consultancy and supervision firms.

The study highlighted a number of factors, e.g. “quality and safety of construction”, “occupational health and safety” and “supplier/partner relationship” were highly regarded; however, their relative importance varied according to the type of responding organization.

The findings indicated the major concerns of the different parties in construction projects, thereby providing a pathway for construction contractors to improve their CSR practice.

The priorities of various stakeholders described in this paper provide a useful reference for construction contractors in the selection and adoption of criteria for CSR performance. A better understanding of perceived priorities of CSR factors from different participating parties also serves useful inputs to construction contractors in their stakeholder management process.

This study aims to reduce the construction safety accidents of prefabricated building (PB) projects, improve the efficiency and effectiveness of safety supervision by government departments, and provide theoretical reference for improving the safety supervision system of PB construction.

Considering the information asymmetry between government supervision departments and construction contractors and the interactive relationship between the two parties under bounded rationality, we propose an evolutionary game model for the construction safety dynamic supervision of PBs and analyze the evolutionary strategy of the game. The system dynamics (SD) method is used to simulate and analyze the evolutionary game process under a dynamic supervision strategy and the adjustment of external variables.

The cost difference between the government's strong and weak supervision, the construction contractor's additional expenditure for strengthening safety management, and other factors affect system stability. The government can dynamically adjust the penalties based on the construction contractor's subjective willingness to ignore safety management and further adjust their rate of change based on the completion of the supervision goals to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of construction safety supervision.

This study makes contributions in two areas. Through a combination of SD and an evolutionary game, it provides new insights into the strategic choice of the main body related to PB construction safety. Additionally, considering the nonlinear characteristics of construction safety supervision, it provides useful universal suggestions for PB construction safety.

The purpose of this paper is to identify, explore, rank the relative importance and determine the prevalent allocation response trends of the major construction risk factors considered by general contractors operating in the State of Qatar.

A structured questionnaire survey comprising 37 potential risk factors was distributed to a statistically representative sample of contractors. The influence ranks of the factors explored were determined using the “Relative Importance Index (RII)” technique, whereas the prevalent trend of contractors’ attitudes toward risk allocation of each factor investigated was quantified and expressed as a percentage, based on the number of respondents who selected a specific option, in relation to the total number of respondents.

The results obtained indicate that risks related to the “client” group are perceived as most critical, followed by the “consultant”, “contractor” and “exogenous” group-related factors, respectively. The outcomes further show that the “transfer” option is the contractors’ prevalent response to “client” and “consultant”-related risks, while the “retention” decision is the principal pattern linked to “contractor” and “exogenous” group-related risk factors.

The dominant respondents’ perception that the crucial construction risks are related to clients and consultants suggests that these two parties have an essential role in controlling the negative ramifications of the associated factors.

The findings suggest that increasing designers’ awareness of the significant effect of applying the constructability concept can considerably help reducing the risks concomitant of the construction operation. Policy makers may contribute, moreover, in alleviating the risk of incompetent technical staff and operatives’ employment by controlling the migration of inexperienced and unskilled construction workforce into the State.

Given the knowledge gap for the major construction risk factors considered by general contractors in Qatar, the results reported in this study can provide clients, industry practitioners and policy makers with guidance to effectively manage the significant risks determined, which can further assist in achieving a reasonable level of competitiveness and cost-effective operation.

In this work, a framework for assessing construction contractors' performance in Saudi Arabia is developed. Usually, a contractor's assessment is based on financial aspects, which are lagging indicators in nature, and can ignore other nonfinancial aspects. Hence, a more detailed contractors' assessment framework is needed for the construction industry in Saudi Arabia. A framework that integrates financial and nonfinancial aspects in one model will enable contractors to better benchmark their performance to the rest of Saudi Arabia's construction industry.

Initially, the literature is reviewed and the most commonly used key performance indicators (KPIs) are identified and surveyed through contractors’ feedback to ensure their proper alignment with Saudi Arabia’s construction industry. The adopted set of KPIs will be further prioritized through the relative importance index (RII) method based on the surveyed contractors’ perceptions. Furthermore, the important set of KPIs will be factored into various groups using principle component analysis (PCA). Finally, the findings are validated through expert judgment.

All key performance indicators (KPIs) have proven to be significant, except for the environmental factor, which happens to be nonsignificant and hence has been omitted from further consideration. The remaining KPIs have been factored through the principle component analysis method. Five generic dimensions were identified: Performance, Satisfaction, Actual Metrics, Estimated Metrics and Compliance. The model has been validated by expert feedback, and it was found to be reliable.

The proposed model establishes an assessment framework to aid building construction contractors in assessing their performance in real time, in addition to postconstruction assessment for business development and retrofitting purposes.

Claims and disputes are often unavoidable in the construction industry due to its unique and complex characteristics involving the massive investment of capital, lengthy project duration, and multiple project stakeholders. This chapter intends to identify the critical construction claims attributes, compare the perceptions of major stakeholders on different claim attributes, and investigate the contrast of the top five claim attributes between this study and previous ones. The literature review resulted in 48 claim attributes responsible for the construction project schedule delays. These attributes were then presented to Vietnam construction industry (VCI) practitioners in the form of a questionnaire survey. Data analysis was done based on the collected 113 qualified samples. Relative importance index (RII) was applied to determine the ranking of claim attributes. The results were that the top five causes of claims, that is, payment delays, mistakes by contractor during construction stage, delays in work progress by the contractor, financial failure of the contractor, and frequently changing requirements by the owner, lead to the schedule delays in VCI. These findings can assist the local industry practitioners and foreign companies seeking a share in the VCI market in understanding the causes of construction claims comprehensively and formulating the countermeasures to minimise their impacts and hence reduce the unnecessary losses and raise the likelihood of success as well as maintain sustainable relationships among stakeholders.

There is relatively low implementation of formal project risk management methods in practice, leading to the construction industry consistently suffering from poor project performance. This study aims to ascertain the extent to which current project risk management practices are used by construction contractors in one of the countries of the sub‐Saharan region – Malawi.

A management process tool with statement indicators linked to numerical scores was conceived that characterised a series of steps of project risk management process. To ascertain the degree to which project risk management processes were used, a questionnaire survey was employed. Data were elicited from registered Malawian construction contractors on the elements underlining a series of steps of project risk management process as espoused by the literature. Out of 84 sampled construction contractors, 51 completed questionnaires were received.

Apart from large‐sized and more experienced construction contractors, all the small and medium‐sized construction contractors – which constitute the largest proportion of the construction industry – were characterised by a low implementation of the various required steps for the project risk management process. The application of project risk management processes was significantly influenced by the various categories of size and experience of the surveyed construction contractors at p<0.01. Furthermore, contingence planning within the series of steps of project risk management process featured highly among the surveyed construction contractors. The majority of the variables under the series of steps of project risk management process were positively and significantly linked to progression in size and experience of construction contractors at p<0.01.

The study forms the basis for further research; replication of this study to other parts of world about how the actual implementation of the series of steps of project risk management process is undertaken could yield rich lessons for the construction industry.

The intentional move by industry towards measuring management processes as a precursor to uncovering the root causes that underlie project success or failure to provide quick feedback for remedial action is supported by an approach such as this.

The originality of this paper lies in its uniqueness for a systematic approach to quantifying the project risk management processes with the view to understanding the implementation behaviours of construction contractors in one country in the sub‐Saharan region.

International comparisons of contractor performance can provide robust benchmarks for contractors in different countries and help to identify ways towards performance improvement. Based on a hypothetical construction project, overall contractor performance (OCP) in Japan, the UK and the USA is compared. Overall contractor performance is defined to embrace construction cost, construction time, construction quality and sustainable development, the philosophy being that the achievement of one aspect of performance should not be at the expense of another. Multiple regression analysis reveals that overall contractor performance is dependent on: their past performance on previous similar projects; their commitment towards lifetime employment; their perceived importance of time performance; their relationship with subcontractors; and the number of design variations during construction. To improve their overall performance, contractors are advised to focus on construction time, reduce delays, maintain a stable workforce and establish partnerships with their subcontractors. Clients should attempt to reduce design variations during construction.

The call for more engagement of local contractors has been gaining support by construction stakeholders especially as a result of the recent economy recession in Nigeria. However, due to the increasing complexity of the construction industry and technological advancement, the influx and engagement of foreign contractors has been on the increase and their contribution is also germane to the economy development of the country. In view of this, the purpose of this paper is to examine the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of indigenous and foreign contractors in the country with a view to understanding their differences in the quest of improving their service delivery.

A case study research was carried out through the use of interview and questionnaire administered on management staff and professionals in selected construction firms, respectively. In order to obtain a balance view of the subject, professionals from construction consultancy firms selected through Delphi method were also included in the study and sampled accordingly. Appropriate statistical tools were employed in analysing the data gathered and result was presented with the aid of a SWOT template.

Findings of the research show that foreign contractors have better strengths than their indigenous counterparts, and this has made them gain better expertise. Also, they enjoyed more opportunities than the threats they are faced with, but the reverse is the case for indigenous contractors.

There is a need for the two categories of contractors to identify their SWOT as indicated in this study and leverage their strengths, correct their weaknesses, capitalise on golden opportunities and avoid potentially devastating threats to enhance their effectiveness and success in the industry.

Client satisfaction is a key element of repeat business and for securing future work in the construction industry. There are areas still in need of improvement for contractors; these areas include the handover process to clients and the subsequent aftercare and organisational learning. Post‐occupancy evaluation (POE) offers an opportunity for a holistic perspective towards continual improvement in construction. While the challenges of POE have been well documented in the design phase, the role of the principal contractor in this area has been under‐researched. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of the contractor in the POE process and to identify good practice in improving the building environment for the end users.

The research comprised a comprehensive review of current literature with a focus on existing practices. The review highlighted a need for further research into contractor involvement in POE in the UK construction industry. An electronic questionnaire survey was produced and distributed to the United Kingdom Contractors Group. Subsequent semi‐structured interviews were conducted with willing participants from the survey, to further investigate the responses to the survey.

The key findings from the research highlighted the lack of contractor involvement in POE and insufficient knowledge on how or when to conduct POE on a project. Many of the barriers to POE identified by previous research are not applicable to contractor involvement in POE. The majority of construction professionals believe that POE is time intensive and that there is difficulty in interpreting the information collected from POE. Dissemination of information internally and externally has the potential to offer significant value to organisational and individual development of all stakeholders involved in the process.

The findings are likely to be of interest to designer's facilities management professionals and those involved in construction. Contractors should view POE as a business opportunity to improve the end output for the client and end‐users and not as another expensive problem.

This paper addresses the perceptions of POE within the major UK contractor group. It identifies relevant barriers to POE in the construction process and highlights the lack of POE penetration into the wider construction industry. The research has highlighted that POE has the potential to improve contractor performance and add value to end users of new projects. It has identified that previous research has focused on consultant‐led research as opposed to contractor‐led.

Cultural differences cause conflicts amongst construction project participants, deterring the success of projects. Understanding such different cultural manifestations could help the removal of the misunderstandings amongst sub-cultural groups and removal of formal irrationalities deterring the progress of construction projects. The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of project cultures in the public sector construction projects.

An exploratory case study was selected as the research strategy to achieve the research aim. Three public sector building construction projects were used as case studies. Nine semi-structured interviews and observation of two progress review meetings per case were used for data collection.

As per the research findings, contractors believed that construction project culture emerged and transferred through continuous interactions and socialisations with time. Consultants believed that culture was emerged focusing on clearly defined project objectives. In addition, all members assumed that project members at high authority levels were contributing more for the emergence and transfer of cultural aspects. Levels of culture and power existed within the public sector project culture as clients with the highest power, consultants the next and contractors with the least power. Public sector project culture was not leader centred. Shared behavioural norms were not much popular in project culture. Highly differentiated behavioural norms, demonstrating clear professional sub-cultures for the client, contractor and consultant, were available.

The research findings are helpful to construction project managers to enhance the level of motivation, productivity, commitment, continuous interactions and socialisations of project participants and to avoid any negative outcomes in behaviours.