Search results

Goal theory research has made an important contribution to understanding managers’ behaviour within organisations but most of this research has focused on single goal settings. Given the recent popularity of implementing balanced scorecards in organisations, generalising this research to multiple goal settings is important but problematic because multiple goals can complicate a manager's decision making which, in turn, can potentially affect the manager's job‐related tension and performance. Moreover, where multiple goals are pursued, the relative importance of those goals is also likely to affect job‐related tension and performance. These relationships are tested using questionnaire data gathered from interviews with managers. The results suggest that job‐related tension and performance deteriorate as managers pursue multiple goals although the relationship seems to be non‐linear. The relative importance of goals does not appear to be important. Some comments provided by the managers during their interviews offer some insights that help to explain these results.

This paper aims to examine the reasons why introducing a “fixed” management accounting technique, such as Juran's cost of quality technique, results in different, rather than similar outcomes.

Actor‐Network Theory (ANT) was used to examine events in a longitudinal case study where Juran's cost of quality technique was introduced into two manufacturing plants of the same organisation.

Both plants developed the cost of quality in significantly different ways to Juran's “fixed” cost of quality technique. In addition, significant differences were also found between the plants, despite the intention to replicate the cost of quality from one plant to the other.

Although the precise circumstances of the plants in the case study are unique, the principles of ANT that describe how the cost of quality was introduced and the differences that were observed, are likely to be relevant to other organisations and techniques.

The practical implications of this study are that “fixed” techniques – such as Juran's cost of quality – are not fixed and are unlikely to be implemented in “textbook” fashion. To manage the innovation process better, practitioners need to understand the heterogeneity of actors' interests, the variety and complexity of the context and the iterative, recursive nature of the innovation process.

Although the cost of quality is an important management accounting technique, this is one of the few studies to have empirically examined it.

There is a paucity of recent literature on the influence of project strategic, site related and design related variables on the cost of construction. This paper seeks to redress this omission by presenting the results of an investigation into the influence of 41 independent variables on both construction cost and client cost. Data were collected from 286 construction projects in the United Kingdom and correlation and test for differences were used to determine the relationships that exist between the dependent and independent variables. The analysis both confirms the strong relationship between construction cost and client cost and between those two measures of cost and GIFA, and establishes other relationships which exist within the data, confirming many of the relationships that had been anticipated from the literature. It also established the ordinal sequence of several nominal variables. These data, therefore, can be confidently used to develop models of the total cost of construction.

The purpose of this paper is to help project management (PM) game designers and educators in simulating complexity in PM games and in assessing the effect of simulated project complexity levels on students’ learning experience. To achieve this aim, the authors attempt to design and evaluate two computer-based project crashing games (PCGs) with different complexity levels, namely project crashing game (PCG) and program crashing game (PgCG).

A literature review is conducted to identify serious games design principles. These principles are then manifested in the design of PCG and PgCG. The latter is a more complex version of the first. Students’ reaction after playing both games are then analyzed quantitatively.

The authors discover that students’ learning experience is affected by how complex the simulated project is. The more complex the project is (i.e. as in the PgCG), the more realistic the game is perceived. Nevertheless, the authors also discover that the less complex game (PCG) offers significant value to students, particularly to teach basic PM principles to those with minimum or no practical experience. This game is perceived as better in increasing students’ learning confidence as its content is perceived as more relevant to their existing knowledge.

The authors adopt a project complexity perspective when designing and evaluating the games.

The standard forms of construction contract are receiving greater attention in the management of projects scholarship as they probably influence the project success and project disputes. The extant literature suggests that the standard forms of construction contract are one of the top sources of disputes. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of the standard forms of construction contract, FIDIC and NEC, in reducing disputes in the Palestinian construction industry.

The researchers have used qualitative methods to collect data and more specifically have undertaken 12 semi-structured interviews.

The study reveals that the standard forms of construction contract can be a tool to minimise disputes, but certainly not to eradicate them, and NEC appears to be more capable than FIDIC to do so.

This study contributes to knowledge by bringing an industrial perspective into the role of standard forms of contract in disputes creation and avoidance. The interviewees, recurrent users of FIDIC contract, criticised certain features and expressions and proposed some solutions.

This paper seeks to redress the omission in recent literature on the influence of project strategic, site related and design related variables on the cost of construction. It presents, in part, the results of an investigation into the influence of 41 independent variables on both construction cost and client cost, concentrating on design related variables. Data were collected from 286 construction projects in the United Kingdom and correlation and test for differences were used to determine the relationships that exist between the dependent and independent variables. The analysis ascertains the cost ranking of many design related variables and establishes other relationships which exist within the data, confirming many of the relationships that had been anticipated from the literature. It also established the ordinal sequence of several nominal variables. These data, therefore, can be confidently used to develop models of the total cost of construction as verified by the development of both regression analysis and neural network cost models

The aim of this paper is to establish the extent to which quantity surveyors undertake cost planning and the manner in which elemental cost estimating is currently applied. Elemental cost analysis is perhaps the best known product‐based cost model and provides the data upon which elemental cost planning is based. The technique has been used by quantity surveyors to base their predictions during the design stage since the 1950s. There has, however, been no recent attempt to establish the extent to which practicing quantity surveyors use this technique (if indeed they still do so) and the manner in which cost analysis is currently carried out.

A nationwide questionnaire survey of UK quantity surveying practices was undertaken. The survey sought to establish: the extent to which elemental cost estimates are prepared for proposed developments; the format used to prepare these estimates (together with the degree to which the BCIS Standard Form of Cost Analysis (SFCA) is still used); the factors that affect the use of elemental cost estimates; and the level of the detail to which these estimates are analysed. Further, the survey investigated the predilection within the surveying profession for single‐figure and elemental format cost models.

The study clearly establishes that UK quantity surveying practices routinely undertake elemental cost planning during the design phase of a project and that the BCIS SFCA is the most popular approach to cost planning. Further, it establishes that while around 70 per cent of the respondents would not currently use single figure estimating software, between 85 and 95 per cent indicated that they would be encouraged to use it if it was able to generate an elemental breakdown of its prediction.

The paper offers insights into the current use of cost planning and analysis methods in the UK.