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Project management (PM) is a diverse discipline which covers the study of management practices. Different research approaches have been used in the study of PM but not much emphasis has been given to the constructive approach which is implicitly applied in most cases through managerial constructions. The purpose of this paper is to support the application of the constructive research approach to the construction PM discipline. It is also aimed at showing the rigour of the constructive research approach that satisfies the requirements of applied studies research.

The study is carried out via extensive literature review and a demonstrative example of the development of the Specialist Task Organisation procurement approach through the six stages of the constructive research approach.

The paper shows the applicability of the constructive research approach to construction and PM. The paper also highlights some criticisms that the constructive approach has not been firmly rooted in PM research and suggests some solutions.

The constructive research approach is applicable to the PM discipline because most research in this field is applied and practical. The paper specifically scrutinises and promotes the constructive research approach.

The paper will provide an additional research tool in the PM discipline that produces innovative solutions which are grounded by valid research instruments. The impact of this paper will increase the popularity of this research methodology, generate and stimulate a debate to further explore its application and the development in the PM discipline.

This study aims to address the hybrid open shop problem (HOSP) with respect to the minimization of the overall finishing time or makespan. In the HOSP, we have to process n jobs in stages without preemption. Each job must be processed once in every stage, there is a set of m_k identical machines in stage k and the production flow is immaterial.

Computational experiments carried out on a set of randomly generated instances showed that the minimal idleness heuristic (MIH) priority rule outperforms the longest processing time (LPT) rule proposed in the literature and the other proposed constructive methods on most instances.

The proposed mathematical model outperformed the existing model in the literature with respect to computing time, for small-sized instances, and solution quality within a time limit, for medium- and large-sized instances. The authors’ hybrid iterated local search (ILS) improved the solutions of the MIH rule, drastically outperforming the models on large-sized instances with respect to solution quality.

The authors formalize the HOSP, as well as argue its NP-hardness, and propose a mixed integer linear programming model to solve it. The authors propose several priority rules – constructive heuristics based on priority measures – for finding feasible solutions for the problem, consisting of adaptations of classical priority rules for scheduling problems. The authors also propose a hybrid ILS for improving the priority rules solutions.

This research paper seeks to advance the techniques of “within-paradigm” triangulation and theoretical generalization adopted in qualitative field studies for new theory development in management control.

Using the evidence gleaned from three positivist case studies along with some published interpretivist studies, this paper identifies three triangulation approaches and links them with three forms of theoretical generalization in qualitative field studies.

While the “literal” approach to triangulation has its place in the extant literature, this study finds that two other approaches, labeled “convergent” and “normative” triangulation, which are relevant in many circumstances to link multiple pieces of evidence in order to build credible explanations. In theory development, while the extant forms of theoretical generalization (constructive and contextual) are useful for identifying new solutions for both practical and theoretical concerns, this paper finds that a third form, namely “transposed” logic, is relevant in identifying new control problems that can benefit by adopting the observed unusual solutions.

Within triangulation, while the extant literature endorses the role of literal triangulation in obtaining consistent evidence, including how verifying inconsistent responses helps improve the validity of the obtained evidence, this paper advances two new triangulation approaches that can enrich the extant literature. Within theoretical generalization, while the extant literature deems constructive and contextual forms as “rhetoric”, this paper (1) expands their status to “logic” by clarifying their theoretical purpose and (2) introduces one new form, namely “transposed” logic that helps identify a generalizable range of management control problems that can adopt the observed unusual solution.

The purpose of this paper is to present the state-of-the-art in empirical research on constructive controversy in the context of business organizations and to outline strategic implications both for research and practical application.

Literature search on constructive controversy in relevant databases identified 33 empirical publications from 1980 to 2009. The paper analyzes and summarizes characteristics of the studies, methodological approaches, and empirical findings.

The literature review reveals that most studies are conducted in the industrial and service sector. Authors mostly apply a quantitative approach using interviews, experiments, and surveys. Empirical findings show that constructive controversy supports decision making, learning, interpersonal relationships, and productivity. In most cases goal interdependence is taken as independent variable.

There is a need for further consolidating the findings either by experimental verification or by field studies. A processual and longitudinal approach should be emphasized and the methodical repertory should be expanded by applying qualitative methods like observation. There is a need for expanding the scope of constructs and analyzing post-modern collaboration forms. Linking controversy to organizational processes like organizational learning would lead to a deeper understanding of innovation processes in organizations.

The implementation of the controversy procedure can support organizational processes like decision making, problem solving, learning, and innovation. This offers opportunities to expand the research field.

This article provides a systematic review on constructive controversy in the business context for the first time.

The purpose of this study is to first investigate the efficiency of the most commonly used performance measures for minimizing the number of workstations (NWs) in approaches addressing simple assembly line balancing problem (SALBP) for both straight and U-shaped line, and second to provide a comparative evaluation of 20 constructive heuristics to find solutions to the SALBP-1.

A total of 200 problems are solved by 20 different constructive heuristics for both straight and U-shaped assembly line. Moreover, several comparisons have been made to evaluate the performance of constructive heuristics.

Minimizing the smoothness index is not necessarily equivalent to minimizing the NWs; therefore, it should not be used as the fitness function in approaches addressing the SALBP-1. Line efficiency and the idle time are indeed reliable performance measures for minimizing the NWs. The most promising heuristics for straight and U-shaped line configurations for SALBP-1 are also ranked and introduced.

Results are expected to help scholars and industrial practitioners to better design effective solution methods for having the most balanced assembly line. This study will further help with choosing the most proper heuristic with regard to the problem specifications and line configuration.

There is limited research assessing the efficiency of the common objectives for SALBP-1. This study is among the first to prove that minimizing the workload smoothness is not equivalent to minimizing the NWs in SALBP-1 studies. This work is also one of the first attempts for evaluating the constructive heuristics for both straight and U-shaped line configurations.

Hyper-heuristics are a class of high-level search techniques which operate on a search space of heuristics rather than directly on a search space of solutions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the suitability of using genetic programming as a hyper-heuristic methodology to generate constructive heuristics to solve the multidimensional 0-1 knapsack problem

Early hyper-heuristics focused on selecting and applying a low-level heuristic at each stage of a search. Recent trends in hyper-heuristic research have led to a number of approaches being developed to automatically generate new heuristics from a set of heuristic components. A population of heuristics to rank knapsack items are trained on a subset of test problems and then applied to unseen instances.

The results over a set of standard benchmarks show that genetic programming can be used to generate constructive heuristics which yield human-competitive results.

In this work the authors show that genetic programming is suitable as a method to generate reusable constructive heuristics for the multidimensional 0-1 knapsack problem. This is classified as a hyper-heuristic approach as it operates on a search space of heuristics rather than a search space of solutions. To our knowledge, this is the first time in the literature a GP hyper-heuristic has been used to solve the multidimensional 0-1 knapsack problem. The results suggest that using GP to evolve ranking mechanisms merits further future research effort.

Most of the managers I meet (and I reckon to have met a few thousand over the last ten years) are dissatisfied with their lot. Many have an ambition to “retire at forty‐five” (or thirty‐five, depending on their age); a perceptible minority “drop out”, watched more or less wistfully by many of their colleagues; most of all, they tell you they want to do their own thing, to work for themselves.

This paper aims to define the class of fragment constructive heuristics used to compute feasible solutions for the traveling salesman problem (TSP) into edge-greedy and vertex-greedy subclasses. As these subclasses of heuristics can create subtours, two known methodologies for subtour elimination on symmetric instances are reviewed and are expanded to cover asymmetric problem instances. This paper introduces a third novel subtour elimination methodology, the greedy tracker (GT), and compares it to both known methodologies.

Computational results for all three subtour elimination methodologies are generated across 17 symmetric instances ranging in size from 29 vertices to 5,934 vertices, as well as 9 asymmetric instances ranging in size from 17 to 443 vertices.

The results demonstrate the GT is the fastest method for preventing subtours for instances below 400 vertices. Additionally, a distinction between fragment constructive heuristics and the subtour elimination methodology used to ensure the feasibility of resulting solutions enables the introduction of a new vertex-greedy fragment heuristic called ordered greedy.

This research has two main contributions: first, it introduces a novel subtour elimination methodology. Second, the research introduces the concept of ordered lists which remaps the TSP into a new space with promising initial computational results.

The total capacity of ambulances in metropolitan cities is often less than the post-disaster demand, especially in the case of disasters such as earthquakes. However, because earthquakes are a rare occurrence in these cities, it is unreasonable to maintain the ambulance capacity at a higher level than usual. Therefore, the effective use of ambulances is critical in saving human lives during such disasters. Thus, this paper aims to provide a method for determining how to transport the maximum number of disaster victims to hospitals on time.

The transportation-related disaster management problem is complex and dynamic. The practical solution needs decomposition and a fast algorithm for determining the next mission of a vehicle. The suggested method is a synthesis of mathematical modeling, scheduling theory, heuristic methods and the Voronoi diagram of geometry. This study presents new elements for the treatment, including new mathematical theorems and algorithms. In the proposed method, each hospital is responsible for a region determined by the Voronoi diagram. The region may change if a hospital becomes full. The ambulance vehicles work for hospitals. For every patient, there is an estimated deadline by which the person must reach the hospital to survive. The second part of the concept is the way of scheduling the vehicles. The objective is to transport the maximum number of patients on time. In terms of scheduling theory, this is a problem whose objective function is to minimize the sum of the unit penalties.

The Voronoi diagram can be effectively used for decomposing the complex problem. The mathematical model of transportation to one hospital is the P‖ΣU_j problem of scheduling theory. This study provides a new mathematical theorem to describe the structure of an algorithm that provides the optimal solution. This study introduces the notion of the partial oracle. This algorithmic tool helps to elaborate heuristic methods, which provide approximations to the precise method. The realization of the partial oracle with constructive elements and elements proves the nonexistence of any solution. This paper contains case studies of three hospitals in Tehran. The results are close to the best possible results that can be achieved. However, obtaining the optimal solution requires a long CPU time, even in the nondynamic case, because the problem P‖ΣU_j is NP-complete.

This research suggests good approximation because of the complexity of the problem. Researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions further. In addition, the problem in the dynamic environment needs more attention.

If a large-scale earthquake can be expected in a city, the city authorities should have a central control system of ambulances. This study presents a simple and efficient method for the post-disaster transport problem and decision-making. The security of the city can be improved by purchasing ambulances and using the proposed method to boost the effectiveness of post-disaster relief.

The population will be safer and more secure if the recommended measures are realized. The measures are important for any city situated in a region where the outbreak of a major earthquake is possible at any moment.

This paper fulfills an identified need to study the operations related to the transport of seriously injured people using emergency vehicles in the post-disaster period in an efficient way.

Genetic Algorithm, as a generalized constructive search method, has already been applied to various fields of optimization problems using different encoding schemes. In conventional GAs, the optimum solution is usually announced as the fittest feasible individual achieved in a limited number of generations. In this paper, such a pseudo‐optimum is extended to a neighborhood structure, known as optimal design family.

In this paper, the constructive feature of genetic search is combined with trail update strategy of ant colony approach in a discrete manner, in order to sample more competitive individuals from various subspaces of the search space as a dynamic‐memory of updating design family.

The proposed method is applied to structural layout and size optimization utilizing an efficient integer index encoding and its appropriate genetic operators. Different applications of the proposed method are illustrated using three truss and frame examples. In the first example, topological classes are identified during layout optimization. In the second example, an objective function containing the stress response, displacement response, and the weight of the structure is considered to solve the optimal design of non‐braced frames. This approach allows the selection of less sensitive designs among the family of solutions. The third example is selected for eigenvalue maximization with minimal number of bracings and structural weight for braced frames.

In this paper, a pseudo‐optimum is extended to a neighborhood structure, known as optimal design family.