Search results

The high-pressure nature of the construction industry, along with the COVID-19 pandemic, triggered abusive supervision (i.e. workplace bullying and incivility behaviour) that has diminished workers' well-being. However, despite the growing prevalence in practice and increasing concern in academia, abusive supervision remains largely unexplored by construction management scholars. This study aims to fill the gap in the current literature by analysing the effects of abusive supervision on construction workers' well-being, the mediating role of guanxi closeness and the moderating role of trust in the manager.

A questionnaire survey was completed by 258 Chinese construction workers. The data underwent mediation and moderation analyses using PROCESS macro 3.5 for SPSS.

The results revealed that managers' abusive supervision reduced construction workers' well-being at work and in life. Guanxi closeness between manager and workers mediated the relationship between managers' abusive supervision and construction workers' well-being. Additionally, trust in managers moderated the mediating effect of guanxi closeness. This study further revealed that the emotional connection between construction managers and workers, such as expressive guanxi closeness and affective-based trust, is important in handling the impact of abusive supervision on the workers.

The findings of this study provide support for recent calls to address negative manager behaviours such as abusive supervision in construction management. They aid the development of a more comprehensive internal mechanism that considers the influence of guanxi closeness on the outcomes of abusive supervision by managers at construction sites. Additionally, interventions that develop trust in managers may be particularly effective in alleviating the tension of abusive supervision. More attention should be paid to managers' emotional connections in daily construction project management.

Rather than concentrate on positive leadership, this study shifts the focus to negative leadership in construction project management by identifying abusive supervision as a negative primary antecedent of workers' well-being. While prior research has highlighted how negative manager behaviours affect workers' well-being from the conservation of resources theory (COR) perspective, this study is the first, to the authors’ knowledge, to adopt a social exchange theory perspective by introducing guanxi closeness as a mediator. It contributes to a greater understanding of how trust in the manager alleviates the negative effect of the person's abusive supervision on construction workers.

Construction managers′ perceived importance regarding their present and future skills and knowledge are presented. It is demonstrated that there is overall agreement among junior, middle and senior managers as to their skills and knowledge needs, now and for the future. Skills and knowledge in organisation, human relations, communication, personnel management and operational planning are most important in the practice of construction management. Few changes are anticipated in the 1990s which will significantly alter the role of the construction manager. As international markets deregulate post‐1992, communication and computer technology will become increasingly important. It is recommended that educationalists respond to the needs of construction managers by providing courses that reflect current and future trends.

Although social media use at work has made great impact on employee work performance, little is known about the effect of social media use at work on construction employees, especially construction managers. In this way, the purpose of this study aims to investigate the impact of social media use at work on construction managers' work performance based on the enabler-process-intermediate outcome-performance framework.

This study adopts the knowledge seeker's perspective to empirically investigate the mechanism through which social media use at work impacts construction managers' work performance. Questionnaire survey was conducted with 210 construction managers to test the research model proposed in this study. A component-based structural equation modeling technique was employed to analyze the data.

Results show that social media use at work positively influences knowledge acquisition both internally and externally, and knowledge acquisition promotes task self-efficacy and creativity, which in turn improve construction managers' work performance. In addition, the interaction of task self-efficacy and creativity is found to negatively influence work performance.

These findings contribute to a comprehensive understanding about the impact of social media use at work on construction managers' work performance. This research also provides informative insights for practitioners on how to improve work performance.

This paper aims to evaluate and present the essential factors that will enhance site managers’ efficient performance which will perpetuate optimal construction resources utilisation. The capability of controlling and monitoring construction resources and the application of production information to achieve predetermined objectives of scope, cost, time, quality and clients’ satisfaction are the primary functions of site managers. However, the effective implementation of this production information is usually hindered by some factors, often resulting in conscious, unconscious or unavoidable resource wastage.

The research is triangulated. The investigations are based on an action survey, comprising structured quantitative questionnaires and qualitative interview surveys conducted with a few project managers in the UK construction industry.

The research evaluates problems associated with the site managers’ project delivery and establishes essential factors towards efficient resources utilisation. Among the identified predicaments are the design team’ attitudes towards site managers’ corrections, modification and alterations; communication gap between the design and construction teams; and production information inadequacy. Thus, the factors identified which will enhance the efficiencies of the site managers are communication effectiveness and effective information dissemination, conducive environment, production information simplicity and explicitness, in addition to skilled workers’ participation in knowledge transfer and sharing, to mention but a few.

The facts presented in this study will significantly enhance site managers’ optimal resources utilisation, and provide the opportunity for construction resources waste minimisation. Thus, the adequate implementation of the innovative measures presented in this study will not only enhance the performance of site managers on resources utilisation, but will also augment client satisfaction.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the work-family experience of projects managers working in the construction industry, and identify how they manage their work-family interface.

Structured interviews were conducted with nine construction project managers working in the commercial sector, and data were subject to thematic analysis.

Role conditions were found to impact on participants’ work-family interface, identified as working hours, accountability, and the stress arising from accountability. Participants identified four key strategies used to manage their work-family interface: managing work-based stress, having a supportive partner, prioritising non-work time for family, and trading off activities. Despite having to limit time with family and trade off social and leisure activities, participants did not report negative work-to-family spillover. All participants shared a passion for their work. Findings can be explained using the heavy worker investment model, which proposes that job devotion is linked to psychological well-being, decreases in work-family conflict (WFC), and work satisfaction.

Contrary to previous research, findings suggest that construction project managers did not experience inter-role conflict between their work and family domains. It is recommended that further research explore these findings using the heavy work investment (HWI) framework which considers how internal and external predictors shape workers’ behaviour, and whether HWI typologies moderate the experience of WFC.

In the continuing endeavour to work towards ever better management, the project manager has a crucial role to play. This monograph assesses the requirements of project management in terms of training and experience, demonstrates what sort of person the project manager should be, and also the role that should be played by the project team. In order to illustrate the manner in which the essential qualities in both the project manager and his team are displayed in action a number of completed projects worldwide are reviewed. Both successful projects and disastrous projects are used to demonstrate the way in which the problems encountered in real life can be met and overcome. In conclusion both the prospects and the problems that the future may hold for the project manager are assessed.

An extensive search of the literature revealed a dearth of research on the demotivational factors affecting the performance and productivity level of site-based construction project managers. Following the announcement of awarding the FIFA 2022 World Cup hosting rights to the State of Qatar, the State is pledging to spend tens of Billions of Dollars on hundreds of new construction projects. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to identify, explore, and rank the relative importance of the demotivational factors influencing the productivity of the State's construction management force.

A structured questionnaire survey comprising 38 potential demotivational factors, which were shortlisted based on relevant previous studies on the impact of motivation on construction productivity, and numerous interviews with local industry professionals, was distributed to a relatively large sample of site-resident project managers. Using the “Relative Importance Index” technique, the influence ranks of the factors explored were determined.

The results obtained reveal the following as the prominent demotivational factors influencing the productivity of construction project managers: lack of financial incentive schemes; slow decision-making process by owners; remuneration scale; delay in responding to Requests For Information (RFI); shortage of skilled labour force; shortage of materials; clarity and completeness of technical specifications; frequent changing orders during execution; drawings quality level; and rework.

It is clear, based on the outcomes, that the cultural background of individuals, and the prevalent practices within the environment in which they operate, are two critical factors in determining their motivation drivers. Hence, it is prudent to explore the dominant culture and values of the management workforce, in addition to the characteristics of the working environment, before trying to apply relevant motivational theories, or even implement new management strategies.

The results demonstrate that, within the geographical setting and cultural aspects of the sample surveyed, “tributes” and “pecuniary” may be interpreted to have the largest effect on the productivity of construction project managers.

The findings not only contribute to the overall body of knowledge related to the effect of the motivation phenomenon on the productivity of the construction operation, but can also be used to provide industry practitioners with guidance for focusing, acting upon, and controlling the significant demotivational factors affecting the efficiency of the construction project management force practicing in State.

Increased construction risk due to the complexity and numerous construction performance challenges requires improved construction project managers’ competence. However, contextual interrogation of these competencies is limited. This paper aims to report on a study that sought to determine the expected competencies of construction project managers and assesses the existence of statistically significant differences due to gender, designation and educational levels of respondents.

A quantitative research design was instituted through the administration of a questionnaire survey on Project Managers, Architects, Engineers and Quantity surveyors working for consultants and contractors’ organizations. Descriptive and inferential statistics analysed significant differences due to demographic variables. Factor analysis was also used to reveal interrelated significant sets of competencies expected of construction project managers.

Factor analysis determined 11 significant components with the highest-ranked components comprising organizational savvy and experience in managing project constraints. The univariate analysis determining effective communication, leadership and good team-building skills as being the three most critical expected competencies. Significant differences due to educational levels were established, with shortcomings existing in those with Diplomas.

The higher education institutions need to establish curricula designs that align with the competency expectations. Mentorship programmes within construction organizations can also be significant in bridging the existing competence gap. However, due to the exploratory nature of the study, the insights of clients were not considered.

The study determined competencies for construction project managers and demographic-specific interventions.

This study aims to illuminate the currently poorly understood inflow of knowledge originating from project managers across the value chain of construction projects. The primary purpose is to identify the domains of knowledge that project managers’ need to share in their management activities, the skills they need to develop in their sharing practices and how these relate to each other across different phases of a construction project.

Knowledge domains, skills and the relationships between them were identified following an inductive methodology, a combination of grounded theory and case study, and through the analysis of semi-structured interviews with 21 project managers and participants within a single construction project.

The outcome is a novel framework that theorizes the dynamic interplay between knowledge domains and the skills that facilitate knowledge sharing (KS) for successful project work throughout the construction project.

The combined effects of task heterogeneity, knowledge interdependencies and temporariness require paying increased attention to how knowledge domains and KS skills impact project performance. This paper addresses gaps in developing an integrative understanding of the nature of the domains of knowledge that need to be shared in a project context, the key skills contributing to KS and more importantly, how they evolve and are interpreted and reinterpreted throughout the project and assist KS practice in projects.

Project manager’s competency is crucial in the construction sector for the successful completion of projects, particularly in the case of developing countries like Nepal. Therefore, it is very essential to select competent project managers by finding the competency factors required by them. Hence, this study aims to identify the characteristics of competent project managers by expert opinion method and to evaluate their competency level by a questionnaire survey to develop a prediction model using a supervised machine learning approach via Waikato Environment for Knowledge Analysis (WEKA), a machine learning tool which predicts Project manager’s performance as “Higher than expected,” “Expected” or “Lower than expected” for the medium complexity construction projects of Nepal (from US$200,000 up to US$10M).

The data collection procedure for this research is based on an expert opinion method and survey. Expert opinion method is conducted to find the characteristics of a competent project manager by validating the top 15 competency factors based on literature review. The survey is conducted with the top management to assess their project manager’s competency level. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches are used to collect data for classification and prediction in WEKA, a machine learning tool.

The results illustrate that the project managers in Nepal have a high score in leadership skills, personal characteristics, team development and delegation, communication skills, technical skills, problem-solving/coping with situation skills and stakeholder/relationship management skills. Furthermore, among the seven classifiers (naïve Bayes, sequential minimal optimization [SMO], multilayer perceptron, logistic, KStar, J48 and random forest), the accuracy given by the SMO algorithm is highest of all in both the percentage split and k-folds cross validation method. The model developed using SMO classifier by k-folds cross-validation (k = 10) is acknowledged as a final model.

This research focuses to develop a prediction model to predict and analyze the competency of project managers by applying a supervised machine learning approach. Seven extensively used algorithms (Naïve Bayes, SMO, multilayer perceptron, logistic, KStar, J48, random forest) are used to check the accuracy of models and an algorithm that gives the highest accuracy is adopted. Data collection for this research is carried out by expert opinion method to validate the characteristics (factors) essential for competent project managers in the first round and the description of each factor as high, medium and low is inquired with the same experts in the second round. After an expert opinion, a structured questionnaire is prepared for the survey to assess the competency level of project managers (PMs). The competency level of PMs working under government funded, foreign aided or private projects from the contractor’s side is measured. This research is limited to the medium scale construction projects of Nepal.

This model can be a huge asset in the human resource department of construction companies as it helps to know the performance level of project managers in terms of “Higher than expected,” “Expected” or “Lower than expected” for the medium complexity construction projects of Nepal. Also, the model will assist human intelligence to make the decision while recruiting a new project manager/s for different types of projects at a time. Moreover, the model can be used for self-assessment of project manager/s to know their performance level. The model can be used to develop a user friendly interface system or an application such that it can be conveniently used anywhere any time.

This research shows that most of the project managers working in a medium complexity construction project of Nepal are male, maximum of them hold bachelor’s degree and study for road projects. Furthermore, most of the project managers scored high in leadership skills, personal characteristics, communication skills, technical skills, problem-solving/coping with situation skills, team development and delegation and stakeholder/relationship management skills. The model has given the “Personal characteristics” attribute the highest weightage. Likewise, other attributes having high weightage are communication skills, analytical abilities, project budget, stakeholder/relationship management, team development and delegation and time management skills.

This research was conducted to find the competency factors and to study the competency level of project managers in Nepal to develop a prediction model to predict the PM’s performance using a machine learning approach in medium scale construction projects. There is a lack of research to develop a model that predicts project manager’s competency using the machine learning approach. Therefore, the predictive model developed here helps in the identification of a competent project manager as it will be advantageous for project completion with a high success rate.