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This paper aims to examine multiple learning cycles across a UK housebuilder organization following changes made to their quality management routine at the organizational level, through to subsequent understanding and enactment at the level of the individuals involved.

This study uses a qualitative case study methodology based on an analysis of six-weeks of participant observation, semi-structured ethnographic interviews and documentation within three of the organization’s regional offices. Through an abductive process, it draws on gathered data and extant literature to develop a multi-level learning model.

Four levels of learning cycles are observed within the model: individual, team (within which inter-organizational relationships nest), region and organization. Three inter-related factors are identified as influencing feed-forward and feedback across the levels: time, communication and trust. The impact of these levels and factors on the process of learning is conceptualized through the metaphor of coupling and decoupling and discussed using examples from housing development projects.

While previous models of organizational learning highlight important multi-level interaction effects, they do not explore how the different levels of learning synchronize over time for learning to move between them. This paper addresses this gap by shedding important light on how layers of learning synchronize and why and when this can occur within multi-level organizations.

Although the handover stage is the key transition stage between the construction and operation, there is no critical overview of issues and research at the handover stage, hindering the achievement of sustainable development of buildings. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to review the building handover-related issues and research in construction and facility management (FM) journals. The specific objectives of this study include: analyze the research trends and overview the handover-related publications; identify the major research topics on the handover of buildings; identify research gaps and propose future research directions.

This study opted for a four-step systematic review of papers from the well-known academic journals in the construction and FM respects.

The results first revealed the increasing research interest in the handover of buildings from the researchers. Moreover, the post-construction defects, poor information fidelity, poor interoperability between building information modeling (BIM) and FM technologies, and insufficient consideration of end users were identified as the most concerned challenges for a building handover. Furthermore, identifying and formalizing information requirements for handover, improving the handover process, and improving the interoperability between BIM and FM were solutions mostly emphasized by researchers.

As the first systematic review of building handover-related issues and research, this study is the building block for future research on this topic. The findings provide guidance for researchers in the construction and FM research community, and help them form useful collaboration for future research opportunities and find future research directions.

The identified significant challenges and potential solutions for a building handover could assist practitioners in making rational decisions on developing or adopting relevant technologies, and reshaping their management patterns and working processes. Moreover, the findings could be severed as evidence for policymakers to initiate policies, such as documents e-submission and timely updating BIMs, to achieve the vision of model-based project delivery.

This study contributed to the body of knowledge of sustainable development by providing a new insight to tackle the hindrance to the smooth transition from the construction to the operation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine knowledge transfer (KT) practices in five construction projects delivering sustainable office buildings in Germany and the UK by using social network analysis (SNA).

Case studies were adopted as research strategy, with one construction project representing one case study. A combination of quantitative data, social network data and some qualitative data on perceptions of the sustainable construction process and its KT were collected through questionnaires. The data were analysed using a combination of descriptive statistics, cross-tabulations, content analysis and SNA. This resulted in a KT map of each sustainable construction project.

The findings resulted in a better understanding of how knowledge on sustainable construction is transferred and adopted. They show that large amounts of tacit knowledge were transferred through strong ties in sparse networks.

The findings could offer a solution to secure a certain standard of sustainable building quality through improved KT. The findings indicate a need for further research and discussion on network density, tie strength and tacit KT.

This paper contributes to the literature on KT from a social network perspective. It provides a novel approach through combining concepts of network structure and relatedness in tie contents regarding specialised knowledge, i.e. sustainable construction knowledge. Thereby it provides a robust approach to mapping knowledge flows in office building projects that aim to achieve high levels of sustainability standards.

SO much controversy has raged around the subject of newsrooms in the past two years, that librarians are, as a rule, utterly tired of it, and the appearance of still another article upon the subject is not calculated to tone down the general spirit of vexation. It requires no little courage to appear in the arena in this year of Grace, openly championing those departments of our institutions which were originally intended to convey the news of the day in the broadest manner.