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The purpose of this paper is to investigate relational practices that can improve construction project outcomes in Malaysia.

Based on the literature review, a questionnaire was designed containing 14 relational practices that were identified and grouped under five relational norms. Using a survey questionnaire, data were collected from clients, consultants and contractors in Malaysia’s construction industry. In-depth interviews were conducted to validate the statistical findings.

When contracts are adjustable to address uncertainties, the projects concerned have better cost and quality outcomes. A better schedule outcome is correlated with coordinating and monitoring plans jointly. Open communication and sharing trustworthy project information have been found to produce better client-consultant and consultant-contractor relationships at the end of a project. When parties maintain a social relationship outside of a project, relationships between clients, contractors and consultants also improve significantly.

The findings are not easily generalisable due to the relatively small sample size, low response rate and the data being collected from only three regions in Malaysia.

Clients need to take the lead in adopting relational practices, as these may give rise to warmer relationships and better project outcomes. Showing too much commitment and flexibility may harm the project schedule because of the frequent changes.

This study found that the theory of relational contracting norms applies to Malaysia’s construction industry. The parties do not rely strictly on contract conditions but embrace role integrity, preserve relations and harmony to avoid relational conflict, and achieve their goals through proper means.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate relational contracting (RC) practices that give rise to higher quality interpersonal relations between these pairs of stakeholders at the end of public projects: clients and contractors; contractors and consultants; and clients and consultants. It developed models to predict the level of quality of interpersonal relations between the stakeholders at the completion of public projects.

Using a set of questionnaire, data were collected from randomly selected construction industry practitioners who have had experience in public projects in Singapore. The data were analysed to identify association between the use of RC practices and quality of interpersonal relations between stakeholders. In-depth interviews with experts were conducted.

It was found that when certain RC practices were adopted to a larger extent, public projects also have significantly higher quality of interpersonal relations between clients, contractors and consultants. Three mathematical models were developed to predict the relationship quality between stakeholders at the end of the public project.

The limitations include the subjective nature of the Likert scale that was used in answering the questionnaire survey and the limited number of interviews. The effect of existing good relations among stakeholders was not taken into account.

Suitable RC practices for adoption by public clients, contractors and consultants in public projects are recommended. These include developing deeper mutual trust and understanding, sharing project information, and having real gain-share/pain-share among contracting parties.

RC practices that are significantly associated with relationships among contracting parties in public projects in Singapore are uncovered. Contracting parties may use the recommendations to help enhance their relationships with one another in a public project.

This research investigates the dominant personality traits of construction project managers (PMs) and how their personality influences their management styles.

An industry-wide survey with 70 PMs was conducted in Singapore. The survey data were subjected to inferential statistical tests. In-depth interviews were conducted with four subject matter experts.

Majority of the sample PMs are male with age, education level and experience well spread. The dominant personality traits of PMs are found to be: high in Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Openness and low in Neuroticism. PMs adopt “team leadership” style in which they place high emphasis on both the work that they need to complete and the people they lead. Their Agreeableness and Conscientiousness may improve over time.

The correlations and regressions cannot prove causality.

It is discovered that PMs who have high conscientiousness and high openness personalities are more likely to be leaders who are concerned for both the people that they lead and production outcomes. The implication is that employers may wish to conduct personality tests at the time of hiring to ensure good job match.

This study is novel because it integrated two areas of knowledge – personality traits and management style. The regression analysis discovered that Openness and Conscientiousness traits may be used to predict PMs' management styles. This suggests that if personality tests are administered at hiring stage, the outcomes may be used to match potential hires to the jobs that they are being considered for.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the job satisfaction level of quantity surveyors (QSs); identify the personal characteristics that influence their job satisfaction; and provide recommendations to employers on how to enhance job satisfaction of QSs with different personal characteristics.

Data were collected via a self-administered questionnaire to QSs in Singapore.

QSs feel that they have significantly high passion for the job, are significantly satisfied with task variety and are treated fairly. However, they are significantly dissatisfied with their workload, hours worked, and lack of work-life balance. QSs in upper management have significantly higher job passion. Those in mid-management are more dissatisfied with their income. QSs who are married/attached, older, and more experienced are significantly more dissatisfied with their workload and hours worked than singles, younger, and less experienced QSs.

Some dimensions of job satisfaction were not measured. Non-personal characteristics such as type of projects handled and type of clients were not investigated.

Employers should investigate what goes into QSs’ workload, and weed out those that are of low value and unproductive in order to reduce their workload and hours worked, and thereby increase their job satisfaction.

The study contributes to human resource management by identifying the type of QSs who are more likely to be dissatisfied with their jobs.

This study shows that personal differences of QSs affect different dimensions of their job satisfaction. To maximize job satisfaction, employers could choose QSs who have specific characteristics, make changes to the work environment or redesign their jobs.

One of the solutions to manage large public projects that are complex and difficult to manage is through relationship management. Although formal and relational approaches have been adopted in managing relationships, it is widely recognized that participants from developed and developing economies have different mindsets toward these two approaches. The purpose of this paper is hence to elucidate the more effective practices for managers to manage relationships in large public projects that are in countries of different sizes and stages of development.

A structured questionnaire survey was conducted. Multiple stakeholders involved in public construction projects in Singapore and China that include public sector clients and consultants, private sector contractors and conszultants, were approached for data collection to provide information on one of their completed large public project.

Both Singapore and China primarily adopt contractual governance by making rational decisions, pursuing profit and using the contract to guard against trouble. Participants in Singapore are more deeply committed and work more collaboratively than their counterparts in China. Project partners in China build stronger relationships, which may be due to the importance of “guanxi” to conduct business activities there.

The comparative study provides managers with different sets of governance practices to adopt to improve the relationships with public clients in large public projects under different environments. In large public projects in developed countries, participants should rely more on relational practices that show commitment and teamwork, while those in developing countries participate in activities that build up their social networks.

This study examines the initiatives that would enable contractors in Singapore to improve the level of construction productivity.

A two-pronged research method was employed: questionnaire survey with contractors (109 responses received) and in-depth interviews with 12 subject matter experts. The questionnaire covered questions such as the current and future improvement measures.

The results show that the top three motives for achieving high productivity (increase profitability, on time delivery and enhance corporate competitiveness) are underpinned by profit maximization. Factor analysis revealed several categories of productivity improvement strategies. Among these, only site operations category is under the control of contractors. Other important categories include government's initiatives and design factors.

While contractors are the producers of built products, their productivity is very much dependent on other factors and other parties. The long-standing exhortation to contractors to improve productivity is necessary but not a sufficient condition to improve it.

Recommendations are provided for the government, designers, contractors and other stakeholders on what can be done to improve productivity.

This research adds to knowledge by showing that contractors' top motives for high productivity relate to self-seeking behavior to maximize profit. Prior to this study, productivity improvement is considered the responsibility of contractors. This study shows that two other stakeholders also hold the key to productivity improvement – government and designers. Government controls the supply of foreign labor, has the capacity to offer incentives and has the muscle to enact regulations to improve productivity. Consultants' upstream designs must be buildable.

The purpose of this paper is to recommend strategies for designing facility management (FM) workers’ jobs so as to boost their work outcomes. FM operatives/workers form the backbone of the labour force in property maintenance. Work outcomes are determined by: internal work motivation; quality of work performance; job satisfaction; turnover; absenteeism; and stress level.

The paper is based on a questionnaire survey. Data were collected from FM workers via face-to-face interviews. The data were subjected to t-test and correlation analysis using SPSS software.

It was found that FM workers have significantly high work outcomes, which are measured as internal work motivation, quality work performance and job satisfaction. They have significantly low absenteeism. FM workers whose jobs have the following characteristics – using a range of skills to execute a variety of challenging activities; freedom to carry out activities with discretion; and opportunities for doing interesting work, leadership, promotion, training and upgrading – are likely to have higher-quality work performance, internal work motivation and/or job satisfaction.

The sample size is relatively small. Additionally, given the diverse nature of the work that FM workers do, the job characteristics identified may not be exhaustive enough.

Recommendations are made to improve the work outcomes of FM workers through job design. These include ways to increase FM workers’ sense of accomplishment and to provide them with job stability. This will help to ease the labour shortage, and address the low-productivity issues faced by employers in the FM industry.

This paper contributes to knowledge by identifying the job characteristics that significantly affect the work outcomes of FM workers. Employers may use the findings to redesign their FM workers’ jobs so as to boost their work outcomes.

An appropriate choice of strategies helps firms to survive and develop in a turbulent economic environment. The problem is that there are many strategies that can be adopted, but it is not clear which ones would boost profitability. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how architectural, engineering and construction (A/E/C) firms headquartered in mainland China (Chinese A/E/C firms) can achieve profitability in China; specifically, to uncover the critical strategies and practices adopted by Chinese A/E/C firms to achieve profitability using Porter's generic competitive strategies, Sun Tzu's Art of War, and the networking approach.

The data collection instrument was a structured questionnaire. The data collection methods were mail survey and face‐to‐face interviews. The population comprised all A/E/C firms headquartered in China. Samples were randomly drawn from the China Construction Industry Association's database. Stratified sampling was adopted to select only firms that operated in Shanghai or Beijing.

The finding is that profitable Chinese A/E/C firms are more likely to adopt practices that differentiate them from competitors instead of pursuing a low‐cost strategy or focus strategy. In addition, they adopt practices that make them adaptable and flexible. Also, practices that involve collaboration, knowledge sharing, and obtaining resources from firms in the network are adopted by profitable firms.

The data gathered might not be easily generalized to Chinese A/E/C firms operating in other parts of China because interviews were conducted with Chinese A/E/C firms operating in Beijing and Shanghai which are members of China's Construction Industry Association.

The paper is to inform practitioners of the practices and strategies that lead to profitability. Foreign firms that are planning to partner with Chinese A/E/C firms may also use the findings to assess whether their prospective Chinese partners are adopting some of these practices, so that they would be profitable and not face financial difficulties in the course of the partnership.

The paper shows that profitability could be achieved by certain critical practices, which are underpinned by Porter's generic competitive strategies, Sun Tzu's Art of War based on military tactics, and Granovetter's network approach based on social network theory.

The purpose of this paper is to investigates strategies for achieving better integration between the design and construction (DC) and operation and maintenance (OM) supply chains in Singapore. The specific objectives are to: discover the goals that stakeholders want to achieve in integrating the supply chains; identify the stakeholders that play important integration role in each supply chain; and investigate the effective strategies that may yield better integration of the supply chains.

Data were collected using a structured questionnaire. The sampling frame was Singapore-based clients, consultants and construction firms involved in developing and managing built facilities.

The most important strategies for integrating the supply chains are: sharing relevant information and addressing sustainability issues jointly with DC and OM teams; and integrating life cycle optimization options in DC and OM supply chains.

The limitations include low response rate, and the subjective nature of a Likert scale which was used to rate importance levels. The research implication is that activities in DC and OM supply chains can indeed be integrated, and this leads to higher value for all stakeholders.

The practical implication is that stakeholders could adopt the effective strategies identified by this study to foster closer integration of the two supply chains in Singapore. Teams from both supply chains need to work jointly instead of consecutively. Sharing information through an online platform by setting up a web-based database may help in their collaboration. It is also important that common goals need be set out at the onset, preferably by clients of built facilities, with strong buy-in by main contractors and consultants, so as to achieve better value.

The study revealed effective strategies for integrating DC and OM supply chains.