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Stakeholder engagement in construction projects is an ingredient that contributes to project optimal performance. Many developing countries have a paucity of literature about stakeholders' engagement in construction projects. Therefore, the study investigated South Africa's shareholders' engagement in construction projects and recommended possible measures to mitigate potential limitations.

The researchers collated data from South African experts in stakeholder engagement via a phenomenology type of qualitative research design. They explored the “perceived hindrances” facing stakeholders' engagement in construction projects and proffer measures to mitigate them. The study analysed collected data via thematic analysis and achieved saturation. Three themes emerged from the analysed data.

Findings show that efficient stakeholder engagement will enhance team collaboration and integrated construction project delivery. Results identified the perceived limitations facing stakeholders' engagement in South Africa's construction projects and categorised them into individual perceived hindrances, organisational perceived hindrances and government-related perceived hindrances. Also, findings proffer measures to mitigate perceived hindrances via policies and programmes within the sector.

Besides enhancing policymakers and other stakeholders in South Africa's construction industry to understand the benefits of stakeholder engagement better, the study may stir up the construction sector's stakeholders to embrace enhanced and effective stakeholders' management.

This study contributes to construction project practice that involves stakeholders, as it reveals the underlying causes of perceived hindrances facing stakeholders' engagement in construction projects. Also, it proffers feasible solutions to mitigate these hindrances and enhance stakeholders' engagement within South Africa's construction projects.

The preferences and adoption of recycled materials by consumers are subject to a variety of factors, such as enablers and barriers. Despite this, there exists a paucity of research concerning stakeholders' perceived value and real purchase decision towards recycled products. Consequently, this research study aims to fill this gap by investigating stakeholders' perceived value of recycled products derived from construction and demolition (C&D) waste and its effect on purchase decisions.

Research data were collected from 219 valid questionnaires completed by Chinese stakeholders. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was then employed to test eight hypotheses.

The results show intrinsic cue (materials) and extrinsic cue (brand) influence the stakeholders’ judgment on C&D waste recycled products’ value and then their purchase intention. However, cues such as quality, word-of-mouth, price, policy and advertised have not play a significant role in practice.

This research study verified the significance of brand and material cues on decision making for purchasing C&D waste recycled products, providing new insights to policy making to enhance the uptake of C&D waste recycled products in construction industry.

This study aims to identify and prioritize barriers to corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the construction sector.

A literature review was first conducted to identify barriers to CSR performance. After that, construction professionals were invited to validate the appropriateness of the obstacles. The discussion allowed the establishment of a list of barriers to CSR performance and their corresponding categories. Data collected from the survey were then analyzed to prioritize the importance of these barriers by the fuzzy DEMATEL-based ANP (DANP) technique.

The findings presented 16 barriers to CSR, which were categorized into four clusters. The fuzzy DANP analysis showed that strategic vision is the most crucial cluster, followed by the measurement system, stakeholder perspective and scarce resources. Among the sixteen barriers examined, lack of awareness, knowledge and information of CSR; low priority of CSR; lack of metrics to quantify CSR benefits; lack of guidelines and coherent strategies; and lack of CSR enforcement mechanism are the five most crucial barriers.

This study is one of the first that proposes a comprehensive model to prioritize barriers to CSR performance of contractors considering their interrelationships. It provides construction stakeholders with a framework for understanding the linkage between the barriers and CSR framework under the umbrella of stakeholder theory. Thus, the findings might assist construction practitioners and academics in fostering the success of CSR implementation.

The construction industry is widely recognized as one of the most hazardous sectors in the world. Despite extensive research on safety management, a critical issue remains that insufficient attention is devoted to safety practices in rural areas. Notably, accidents frequently occur during the construction of rural self-built houses (RSH) in China. Safety management tends to be overlooked due to the perceived simplicity of the construction process. Furthermore, it is essential to acknowledge that China currently lacks comprehensive laws and regulations governing safety management in RSH construction. This paper aims to analyze the behavior of key stakeholders (including households, workmen, rural village committee and the government) and propose recommendations to mitigate safety risks associated with RSH construction.

This paper applies evolutionary game theory to analyze the symbiotic evolution among households, workmen and rural village committee, in situations with or without government participation. Additionally, numerical simulation is utilized to examine the outcomes of various strategies implemented by the government.

Without government participation, households, workmen, and rural village committee tend to prioritize maximizing apparent benefits, often overlooking the potential safety risks. Numerical simulations reveal that while government involvement can guide these parties towards safer decisions, achieving the desired outcomes necessitates the adoption of reasonable and effective strategies. Thus, the government needs to offer targeted subsidies to these stakeholders.

Considering that during the construction phase, stakeholders are the main administrators accountable for safety management. However, there exists insufficient research examining the impact of stakeholder behavior on RSH construction safety. This study aims to analyze the behavior of stakeholders about how to reduce the safety risks in building RSH. Thus, the authors intend to contribute to knowledge in this area by establishing evolutionary game model. Firstly, this study carried out a theoretical by using tripartite evolutionary game to reveal the reasons for the high safety risk during building RSH. Practically, this research points out the important role of households, workmen and rural village committee in improving safety management in rural areas. Besides, some suggestions are proposed to the government about how to reduce construction safety risks in rural areas.

This study aims to develop an interface management risk interaction modeling and analysis methodology applicable to complex systems in high-speed rail construction projects, reveal the interaction mechanism of interface management risk and provide theoretical support for project managers to develop appropriate interface management risk response strategies.

This paper introduces the association rule mining technique to improve the complex network modeling method. Taking China as an example, based on the stakeholder perspective, the risk factors and significant accident types of interface management of high-speed rail construction projects are systematically identified, and a database is established. Then, the Apriori algorithm is used to mine and analyze the strong association rules among the factors in the database, construct the complex network, and analyze its topological characteristics to reveal the interaction mechanism of the interface management risk of high-speed rail construction projects.

The results show that the network is both scale-free and small-world, implying that construction accidents are not random events but rather the result of strong interactions between numerous interface management risks. Contractors, technical interfaces, mechanical equipment, and environmental factors are the primary direct causal factors of accidents, while owners and designers are essential indirect causal factors. The global importance of stakeholders such as owners, designers, and supervisors rises significantly after considering the indirect correlations between factors. This theoretically explains the need to consider the interactions between interface management risks.

The interaction mechanism between interface management risks is unclear, which is an essential factor influencing the decision of risk response measures. This study proposes a new methodology for analyzing interface management risk response strategies that incorporate quantitative analysis methods and considers the interaction of interface management risks.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the benefits and challenges of implementing circular economy (CE), as well as shed light on the influence of procurement strategy in CE implementation in construction projects.

A qualitative research approach with abductive reasoning was adopted. The empirical data were collected from the construction industry in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The results reveal that clients, consultants and contractors have limited awareness, knowledge and motivation to implement CE in construction projects. The absence of incentives to design projects following CE principles, lack of involvement of contractors and suppliers, non-use of materials that use CE principles and current procurement strategies are the main challenges for the implementation of CE in the UAE.

Previous research offers limited knowledge on CE and its implementation in construction projects particularly from a procurement strategy perspective. The findings of the study provide new knowledge of the benefits, challenges and role of procurement strategy for implementing CE. It is suggested that collaborative and partnering-based procurement methods are needed to facilitate the effective implementation of CE.

Blockchain is a developing technology that affects numerous industries, including facility management (FM). Many barriers are associated with adopting blockchain-enabled building information modeling (BEBIM) in FM. This research aims to identify and prioritize the barriers to adopting BEBIM in FM.

To address the knowledge gap, this study employs a two-phase methodology for evaluating the barriers to adopting BEBIM in FM. The first phase involves a comprehensive literature review identifying 14 barriers to BEBIM adoption. Using a Delphi approach, the identified barriers were categorized into 6 groups and finalized by 11 experts, adding 3 more barriers to the list. The best-worst method (BWM) determines the priority weights of identified barriers and sub-barriers in the second phase.

This study reveals that adopting BEBIM for FM in India faces significant hurdles. The most critical barriers are “limited collaboration” and “communication among stakeholders,” “legal constraints in certain jurisdictions” and “challenges in establishing trust and governance models.” To mitigate these barriers, stakeholders should foster collaboration and communication, develop efficient blockchain technology (BT) and establish a trust and governance model.

This work underscores the importance of formulating effective strategies to overcome the identified barriers and emphasizes implications that can assist policymakers and industry stakeholders in achieving successful BEBIM adoption for improved FM practice.

The study provides valuable insights for policymakers, construction industry stakeholders and facility managers interested in leveraging this technology to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of FM practice in India.

Construction and Demolition (C&D) Waste Management (WM) poses significant challenges in Sri Lanka, contributing to environmental degradation and resource depletion. To address these issues, this study explores the application of Circular Economy (CE) strategies in minimising waste generation and optimising resource utilisation in Sri Lankan construction industry. The research focuses on the construction and building renovation and use and operate stages of the building project life cycle, recognising their significance in waste generation and resource consumption.

The research employed a qualitative approach, utilising the Delphi technique through three rounds of expert interviews. Seventeen experts were involved in the first round, followed by fifteen in the second round, and twelve in the final round. The collected data was analysed using manual content analysis methods.

The research findings revealed fifteen C&D WM issues in the construction and building renovation stage in Sri Lanka, along with suitable strategies to overcome each of them. Similarly, eight C&D WM issues were identified for the use and operate stage of the building, and corresponding strategies were provided to address each issue. By adopting CE strategies such as modular design and material reuse, construction projects can optimise the project's timeline, cost, and quality factors. These strategies enable efficient resource allocation, reduce waste generation, and contribute to the overall sustainability of the project. The impact of CE strategies on mitigating these issues within the project management iron triangle was also discussed.

This paper entails delving into how construction, building renovation, and operation stages of a building's life cycle intersect with CE strategies, which profoundly influence operational efficiency and long-term sustainability. By incorporating principles such as energy efficiency, water conservation, and circular product design, the paper illuminates how these strategies facilitate decreased energy usage, enhanced resource management, and diminished waste production throughout the building's lifespan.

Rebar is the prime component of reinforced concrete structures, and rebar monitoring is a time-consuming and technical job. With the emergence of the fourth industrial revolution, the construction industry practices have evolved toward digitalization. Still, hesitation remains among stakeholders toward the adoption of advanced technologies and one of the significant reasons is the unavailability of knowledge frameworks and implementation guidelines. This study aims to investigate technical factors impacting automated monitoring of rebar for the understanding, confidence gain and effective implementation by construction industry stakeholders.

A structured study pipeline has been adopted, which includes a systematic literature collection, semistructured interviews, pilot survey, questionnaire survey and statistical analyses via merging two techniques, i.e. structural equation modeling and relative importance index.

The achieved model highlights “digital images” and “scanning” as two main categories being adopted for automated rebar monitoring. Moreover, “external influence”, “data-capturing”, “image quality”, and “environment” have been identified as the main factors under “digital images”. On the other hand, “object distance”, “rebar shape”, “occlusion” and “rebar spacing” have been highlighted as the main contributing factors under “scanning”.

The study provides a base guideline for the construction industry stakeholders to gain confidence in automated monitoring of rebar via vision-based technologies and effective implementation of the progress-monitoring processes. This study, via structured data collection, performed qualitative and quantitative analyses to investigate technical factors for effective rebar monitoring via vision-based technologies in the form of a mathematical model.

Studies showed that digital technology applications in the construction industry are low, especially in many developing nations. Construction incentivisation (CI) is one of the long-standing principles adopted to enhance project performance. There is a paucity of studies concerning CI to improve digital technology applications. Thus, this research investigated the relevance and perceived hindrances that may hinder the implementation of CI from promoting digital technologies and proffer ways to improve digital technology applications in the construction sector.

In Nigeria’s context, this research is exploratory. Twenty-four semi-structured virtual interviews were conducted in Lagos and Abuja, Nigeria, with knowledgeable participants that indicated interest and were interviewed. The engaged interviewees were drawn from government agencies, academicians in construction consultancy, Internet and communication technology experts, construction contracting firms and construction consulting firms. The collected data were coded and analysed through a thematic method.

Digitalisation of the industry via CI may face some hindrances. The perceived issues that may hinder CI implementation were classified into most severe, severe and fairly severe in Nigeria’s construction industry context. Findings proffer feasible policy solutions that can mitigate these issues and improve digital technology applications in the industry via the CI.

This study covered the relevance and perceived issues that may hinder the implementation of the CI to improve digital technology applications in the industry. Also, the study proffers policy solutions to enhance digital technology applications in the industry via the CI concept.

Findings from this research will support and offer a valuable understanding of the relevance of the “incentivisation concept” to improve digital technology applications in the Nigerian-built environment. Other developing countries with low applications of digital technology in construction may consider the suggested policy solutions from this research. Also, this study will stir policymakers and construction practitioners to support policies tailored towards improving digital technology applications in construction.

This research contributes by exploring the effectiveness of the CI concept and informing construction practitioners and policymakers on how to improve digital technology applications in the Nigerian construction industry.