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This research aims to model the social dimension of sustainability in construction projects. A new hybrid system dynamic (SD)–fuzzy Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method is proposed to analyze the various factors affecting social aspect of sustainability taking into account their complex interactions.

The various factors affecting the social dimension of sustainable development are identified based on the opinions of 12 experts with an extensive experience in highway construction projects and a thorough knowledge and/or professional experience in the sustainability area. The qualitative model of social sustainability is constructed using SD approach and the complex inter-related structure of the various influencing factors are modeled using cause and effect feedback loops. Fuzzy set theory is applied to model the uncertainty of human judgments. The importance of various influencing factors is then determined quantitatively taking account of their complex interactions using the proposed SD-fuzzy DEMATEL method. The most significant influencing factors are finally determined.

To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, it is implemented on a real highway project and the importance of various factors affecting the social sustainability is determined. A set of complex interrelated factors affecting social sustainability are divided into cause and effect groups, and the root causes affecting the social sustainability performance of the project are determined. Therefore, the required managerial actions can be taken to improve the social sustainability.

Well-qualified experts with a well-developed mental model of social sustainability are necessary to provide required input data for modeling social sustainability using the proposed approach. The absence of such experts could be a limitation for the implementation of the proposed model on a new project.

The proposed Hybrid SD-fuzzy DEMATEL method provides a practical and robust tool to analyze the various factors affecting social sustainability taking into account their complex interactions.

The proposed method offers a more precise and accurate analysis of various factors affecting social sustainability of construction projects since the complex inter-related structure of influencing factors as well as the vague and imprecise nature of experts' judgment is taken into account efficiently.

In developing countries such as India, start-ups play an essential role in “industrial output,” “Gross Domestic Product ” and “employment creation.” Evidence suggests that pandemics have risen over the last century due to rising global travel and assimilation, urbanization, alterations in land use, and significantly larger exploitation of the natural environment. These trends are likely to continue and intensify. These pandemic episodes affect businesses, especially start-ups. Supplier selection is among the vital critical elements that start-ups must include in start-ups' strategy procedures during the pandemic episodes. This study's focus is to “identify,” “analyze,” and “categorize” the factors affecting supplier selection in start-ups during frequent pandemic episodes like coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

Through “literature review” and “experts' opinion” from various start-ups in India, ten affecting factors were identified. Total Interpretative Structural Modeling (TISM) and Cross-Impact Matrix Multiplication Applied to Classification (MICMAC) were employed to analyze the interrelationship among the factors affecting the supplier selection on start-ups during frequent pandemic episodes, and these factors were ranked as “autonomous,” “independent,” “linkage,” and “dependent” factors.

The findings show that “performance history,” “service levels,” “technical capability,” and “financial stability” are the most critical factors affecting the supplier selection on start-ups during frequent pandemic episodes. The next importance should be safety and environmental concern” and “quality.”

The factors affecting supplier selection on start-ups during frequent pandemic episodes are the current focus of this study. This study is mainly performed on Indian start-ups and can be extended to other countries.

The start-ups can rely on this study to clearly understand the factors affecting the supplier selection on start-ups during frequent pandemic episodes.

There is no research regarding factors affecting supplier selection on start-ups during the COVID-19 emergencies. This research gap is filled by analyzing aspects linked to supplier selection in start-ups. This gap inspired the present study, which employs the “Total Interpretive Structural Modeling (TISM)” technique to uncover supplier selection determinants and investigate hierarchical interconnections among factors influencing/affecting supplier selection in start-ups during frequent pandemic episodes.

The study aims to identify the affecting factors and their impact rates on the commercial housing prices. The study also aims to suggest implications related to commercial housing prices to develop the commercial housing market.

The study investigates housing investors, real estate agents and buyers to identify factors that might affect commercial housing prices. The proposed research model has 7 latent factors and is tested by Cronbach' alpha and exploratory factor analysis by SPSS20.0 software.

There are 7 groups with 24 factors affecting commercial housing prices. The neighboring factor group has the greatest impact rate (18.54%); the housing service group has the lowest impact rate (11.48%).

The study has only determined the affecting factors and their impact rates on commercial housing prices in Bac Ninh city. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct research on factors affecting commercial housing prices in other provinces and cities of Vietnam in the coming time. In addition, the proposed research method can also be consulted when it is necessary to determine the factors affecting commercial housing prices in other countries around the world.

The study proposes some implications related to commercial housing prices such as commercial housing valuation; housing selection with suitable prices for people intending to buy houses; state support policies for commercial housing investors to develop commercial housing with reasonable prices.

The implementing the implications proposed in the study will facilitate people's easier access to commercial housing; real estate investors do business more efficiently.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper presents for the first time a method to determine the affecting factors and their impact rates on commercial housing prices in Vietnam. The paper also points out a number of specific factors affecting commercial housing prices that are different from those shown in previous studies.

The global construction industry is significant to economic development, whereas the sector, particularly its small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) have continued to suffer from low labour productivity for decades. This has given rise to the concern of relevant construction stakeholders on the need to address the challenges undermining labour productivity growth in construction. Hence, this study aims to conduct a meta-data analysis of factors that hamper productivity growth of construction SMEs in developing countries.

A systematic review of existing studies relative to factors affecting construction labour productivity (CLP) is presented. Thereafter, eight developing countries-based studies that are specific to SMEs were selected for meta-data analysis using relative importance index values from the studies.

The essential productivity influencing factors were identified and quantitative data of the selected studies were synthesised. The effect summaries derived from the meta-data analysis revealed that the most significant factors that negatively affect CLP amongst SMEs include: workers’ skills, inadequate training, rework, management style and incentive to labour.

The study is limited to scientifically analysed secondary data relative to SME contractors in developing countries.

The findings of the study can be adopted by construction stakeholders to evolve productivity growth policies for construction SMEs in developing countries.

Synthesis of quantitative data of different studies has lent deeper insight into a more realistic and scientific precision of factors affecting labour productivity of construction SMEs.

The purpose of this literature review is to critically analyze, synthesize and integrate the currently fragmented literature concerning the factors affecting the international transfer of individual career capital (CC).

This paper is a systematic literature review of the factors affecting the international transfer of individual CC from/for expatriates, repatriates and other employed highly skilled migrants and return migrants. The findings are classified based on the Social Chronology Framework (SCF) proposed by Gunz and Mayrhofer (2015).

This systematic literature review suggests that the international transfer of individual CC, which can be expressed both as (1) individual-level transfer across different organizations located in different countries as the direct use and application of CC and (2) individual knowing-how transfer to other individuals within organization, is affected by the individual, organizational and broader contextual-level factors that are bound by the aspect of time. The authors summarize the findings by presenting a model of the factors affecting the international transfer of individual CC.

The authors align the CC framework (Defillippi and Arthur, 1994) to the SCF (Gunz and Mayrhofer, 2018) by explaining the factors affecting the international transfer of individual CC that go beyond the qualities of CC, including the Being, Space and Time domains. Moreover, the authors critique the current focus on the international CC transfer in the present suggesting that future research should explore this phenomenon as a more dynamic process. Finally, the authors contribute to the literature on the global mobility of highly skilled employees' by highlighting gaps in the knowledge of the international transfer of CC and presenting a future research agenda.

Contractors of different scales, operating in different construction industries of varying institutional and economic settings, have different considerations when making bid or no-bid and mark-up decisions. Focusing on the large and medium-sized contractors in the Jilin province, China, the purpose of this study is to examine important factors affecting their decision to bid (d2b) and mark-up decisions and investigate differences between large and medium-sized contractors in evaluating the importance of the various factors affecting their d2b and mark-up decisions.

This study used a survey design for timely data collection from a large population. Contractors’ bidding attitudes was collected using an online survey questionnaire with a list of 40 key factors. Statistical analytical methods were applied for comparing the two groups of contractors.

The results of this study indicate that factors related to client conditions are most critical for both large and medium-sized contractors in their d2b and mark-up decisions. The results also show statistically significant differences between the two groups of contractors on a subset of factors affecting their d2b and mark-up decisions. The large contractors have placed more emphasis on projects' potential financial and strategic benefits. Another notable finding is that both groups of contractors have placed great emphasise on “government legislations” in their d2b and mark-up decisions.

These findings should be interpreted in consideration of several limitations. Firstly, the sample size is relatively small, and the focus was on a single province in the China construction industry. Next, this study only explores differences between large and medium-sized contractors in evaluating the importance of the various factors affecting their d2b and mark-up decisions.

Contractors could refer list of critical factors in competing for jobs in Jilin province or other provinces of similar institutional and economic settings. Construction clients, on the other hand, should consider the list of critical factors in the formulation of their competitive tendering procedures, thus enhancing the efficiency in their procurement of construction services.

Research on contractors’ bidding decision-making in the context of Chinese construction industry remains scarce; the research findings have implications for the industry stakeholders.

The study aims at identifying the factors affecting labor productivity in building construction projects in the West Bank in Palestine from contractors’ viewpoint.

To do so, 59 contractors working in building construction completed a structured questionnaire survey and the factors were ranked according to their levels of influence. In all, 31 factors were identified through literature review. These factors were grouped into five groups: labor, managerial, materials and equipments, environmental, and financial.

The analysis of the identified 31 factors indicates that the top-five factors negatively affecting labor productivity in building construction are: rework, lack of cooperation and communication between construction parties, financial status of the owner, lack of labor experience, and lack in materials.

This study is original and has not been published before. The findings and recommendations of this study are very useful and helpful for the local firms and the international firms who are planning to do works in the West Bank

The purpose of this paper is to identify and assess the factors affecting maintenance management performance of hospital buildings in Amman, Jordan. Besides, the operational state was evaluated and the practices of maintenance management were assessed.

In total, 70 items were identified through a rigorous literature review, grouped into seven categories, and a framework was developed. Besides, practices of maintenance management were assessed and the operational state was evaluated. The data were collected through distributing questionnaires to maintenance department staff in all public and private hospitals in Amman, Jordan. In total, 219 questionnaires were obtained and the data were subjected to an exploratory factor analysis. As well, descriptive, correlation, and inferential analysis were performed.

The analysis proved that 14 items representing four factors had significant effect on maintenance management performance and a new framework was established. Additionally, the results showed that Amman’s hospitals were found to be in an average condition and maintenance management practices were assessed to be efficient.

There is a gap in the literature in terms of researching the factors affecting the maintenance management of the Jordanian hospitals which has been a subject of extensive interest to many. A framework of the factors affecting maintenance has been proposed for the country of Jordan which the authors hope that would be developed further in future studies.

Rejecting building information modeling (BIM) can negatively impact the architectural, engineering and construction (AEC) industries. While BIM is trending globally, its implementation in post-conflict low-income economies is still limited. The purpose of this paper is to identify the critical factors for implementing BIM in a post-conflict low-income economy, using Afghanistan as a case study.

This study identifies potential affecting factors for BIM implementation through reviewing existing literature and interviewing AEC professionals in Afghanistan. Then, the factors are inserted into a questionnaire survey and disseminated with Afghanistan’s AEC practitioners. The collected data was analyzed to determine the critical factors. Also, the underlying relationships between the critical factors were established through factor analysis.

A total of 11 critical factors are affecting BIM implementation in Afghanistan. From those, nine factors can be grouped into the following three components: technological, environmental and organizational. Two factors, “cost-benefit of implementing BIM” and “market demand for BIM,” are recurring in low- and middle-income economies. Conversely, the “presence of appropriate projects to implement BIM” is the unique critical factor for Afghanistan that might affect other post-conflict low-income economies.

This study focuses on affecting factors for BIM implementation in post-conflict low-income economies, using Afghanistan as a reference rather than other types of economies that have been widely studied.

According to the great importance of community health as well as the ever-increasing development of health technologies, the importance of designing an interactive model of factors affecting health technology assessment (HTA) can be highlighted. The purpose of designing and implementing the framework of health information system assessment is to ensure that the required accurate data which are necessary to measure the main health indicators are available. The purpose of this paper is to design an interactive model of factors affecting HTA.

This is a cross-sectional, descriptive-analytic study conducted in the Iran Ministry of Health and Medical Education in the second half of 2017. A sample of 60 experts and professionals working in the field of health technologies are selected using purposive and snowball sampling methods. Two researcher-made questionnaires are used to collect the required data. The collected data are analyzed using decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) and MATLAB R2013a.

The results showed that “Legal dimension,” “safety,” “Effectiveness” and “Social dimension” were the affecting factors and net causes, and “Current application,” “Knowledge of technology,” “Ethical dimension,” “Costs” and “Organizational dimension” were the affected factors and net effects in the interactive model. Furthermore, “Legal dimension” with the coordinates C: [1.88, 1.27] and “Ethical dimension” with the coordinates C: [1.75, −75] were known as the most affecting and most affected factors in the interactive model, respectively.

The DEMATEL model is an appropriate tool for managers and policy makers to structure and prioritize factors influencing the HTA. Policy makers and decision makers can use this model for identifying relationships among factors and prioritize them. Because health policy makers and managers have a major role in formulating the regulations and guidelines related to the HTA, they should pay more attention to the legal considerations in their decisions and use the management tools to move the available resources toward implementing and enforcing rules and guidelines related to the HTA.