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The intra-organisational relationships of through-life support services providers are complex, especially given the multifaceted nature of the provision required. For example, capabilities within the UK highways maintenance arena must support engineering design, routine maintenance and the on-going management of the network. While collaboration in construction projects has formed a major research focus in recent years, there is a paucity of work examining collaboration in-flight.

Through a micro-practices approach, two contracts delivering highway infrastructure maintenance and renewal services are examined to explore the intra-organisational relationships that determine the quality of service delivered.

Despite the rhetoric of collaboration and integrated working that pervades the contemporary project discourse, there was a clear focus on addressing immediate technical and commercial concerns, rather than on creating the conditions for integrated working to flourish. On the occasions where the collaborative environment was prioritised, a more integrated service was delivered.

In contrast to other accounts of the ways collaborative working shapes performance, this research reveals an acute need for a sustained collaborative effort; as soon as “collaborative working” was normalised, the level of integration and seamlessness of service was diminished. This questions normative notions of what defines collaborative working in projects and suggests a need for re-framing it as an on-going accomplishment of actors involved. Such a perspective resonates with notions of “organizational becoming”, particularly in that attempts to foster collaboration are themselves constitutive of the unfolding and shifting nature of intra-organisational relationships that emerge in complex contractual arrangements.

Many organisations are responding to the diminishing stability of their operating environments by developing flexible methods of performing their core function. This creates demand for flexible supporting building space. While the architectural problems of providing such space have been solved for many years, its servicing remains problematic. This difficulty is manifested in the rising cost of services alterations necessitated when spaces are changed in use. The current inflexibility of services installation construction has prompted a study of reusable building services components. It is anticipated that this approach will increase services installation adaptability by reducing alteration costs. Focusing on the UK National Health Service, this paper presents a survey of trends in organisational function, their estate implications and the extent to which facilities managers can control or plan estate responses to frequent core function revision. Existing services component reuse practices are reviewed and component and process attributes conducive to disassembly and refurbishment are identified. It is concluded that, while reusable services components will achieve the required services installation adaptability, their technical feasibility and economic viability remain to be determined.

For over a decade, UK public sector construction policy and industry rhetoric has advanced a value agenda that advocates the development of project‐specific understanding of value. This study aims to examine construction practitioners’ collective cognition of value to determine how their facilitation may bias this intent. A value continuum is contributed.

Critique of the design quality indicator (the primary value agenda instrument) finds that it overemphasises objective value, confirming the need for practitioners to help stakeholders develop broader understanding of value. The freelisting technique of cultural anthropology is adopted to model practitioners’ collective cognition of value and, thus, their bias over this process. The standard freelisting protocol is followed.

Practitioners’ collective understanding is found to comprise related concepts that resolve to a one dimensional “value continuum” with subjective and objective terminals and which fully embodies value agenda intent. In contrast, the concepts articulated by the design quality indicator are biased towards the objective value continuum terminal, confirming the need for practitioners to facilitate stakeholder exploration of the full continuum if the value agenda is to be fully addressed.

The value continuum only reflects the views of a small but typical sample of construction practitioners. Further work must characterise model completeness and consistency through the supply chain.

This is the first work to derive an empirical model of construction practitioners’ collective understanding of value. It achieves this by the novel linking of a cognitive modelling technique from cultural anthropology with an emic interpretation of the results.

The purpose of this paper is to describe an approach to managing the supply chain from the perspective of design which the paper refers to as integrated collaborative design (ICD).

Building on a substantial program of research using a range of methodologies previously reported, the concept of a design chain is described the argument is made that the industry needs to center the development of integrated teams (as proposed in accelerating change) around collaborative working of all parties involved in the design process.

The research recognizes that the construction sector is too often focused on the short‐term objectives of projects, rather than long‐term business strategy and organizational relationships. The ICD approach involves three steps: identifying tasks (process management); allocating roles (as part of supply chain management); and focusing design solutions to deliver value.

The paper outlines the principles and approach to ICD and provides a strategic overview within which various techniques and practices can be utilized to integrate organizations and more effectively manage the design process.

Proposes that facilities managers can viably utilize building services components that have been designed to be more readily reused to satisfy growing client demands for adaptable buildings. In an increasingly dynamic business environment, many organizations seeking to remain competitive have focused on performing their core function in the short‐term by shedding, among other functions, responsibility for their supporting buildings to external organizations. The growth of the facilities management support industry illustrates this trend. The increasing contribution of services installations to building complexity and value means that the greatest opportunity for facilities managers to improve their efficiency in satisfying constantly changing client space use demands lies in their management of this building element. By utilizing reusable services components, facilities managers may be able to increase the adaptability of both new and existing buildings and reduce the financial impact of change. It is concluded that a new industrial sector may emerge to support services component reuse. This sector will undertake the remanufacture (reconditioning) of such component to ensure their fitness for purpose for reuse.

BOSTOMATIC UK Ltd, a wholly‐owned subsidiary of Boston Digital Corporation — major US manufacturers of high‐precision CNC machining centres — announce the recent appointment of Dick Langley as UK sales manager. He joins them from George Kuikka, after working for some years in the northern part of the UK where he gained earlier experience whilst with Maho and Mikron.

People who have used mental health services in Scotland have the lowest employment rates of all working ages, despite a national programme for mental health and well‐being that provides significant investment in anti‐stigma initiatives and employment support services. This paper qualitatively identifies barriers to employment from the perspectives of people who have experienced mental health issues by conducting in‐depth focus groups with 20 people who have experienced mental health issues undertaken through collaborative research involving people who have experienced mental health issues alongside practitioners and academics. Researchers who have experienced mental health issues instigated and determined the direction, execution and dissemination of the study. The findings add to the growing evidence base outlining the complex and interlinked barriers to employment which include previous experience of workplace discrimination, financial uncertainty, disclosure concerns, quality of jobs available and the potential of work at times to worsen mental health conditions. Despite this, most participants expressed hopefulness and resilience. Many wanted paid work and outlined practical steps that employers can take in terms of recruitment and retention. However, participants also stressed the equal importance of voluntary work and not just as a step to paid employment. A multiple‐perspectives approach provides important insights into the complex and sensitive policy area of mental health and employment. Meaningful involvement of people who have used mental health services should be a central aspect of further research that aims to understand and address these barriers. This study has shaped the development of a national service user research consortium in Scotland.

To illustrate the use of a Value Adding Toolbox by construction industry designers when addressing customer value expectations using problem solving.

Focused literature review establishes the need for construction industry design solutions to deliver customer value and a Value Adding Toolbox is proposed in response. Case studies validate Toolbox use and one illustrative example is provided. Interviews with prospective Toolbox users identify barriers to adoption and inform a recommended approach to organisational adoption.

The Toolbox is found to be effective at helping construction designers to solve technical design problems with regard to customer expectations of value. However, designers are found to be initially reluctant to adopt the new tool. Organisation learning is therefore required to establish the importance of customer value satisfaction as a prerequisite to Toolbox adoption by designers.

This paper provides a useful insight into the practical application of problem‐solving tools by construction designers to better understand customer needs.