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The purpose of this paper is to determine if companies in the modular and offsite construction (MOC) industry are agile or not and its level of application for agility principles, which allows for quick responses to the increasingly dynamic nature of industry environments.

This paper proposes an agility assessment framework for MOC that uses 48 assessment attributes organized into four categories: metrics, drivers, enablers and capabilities. A questionnaire approach was used to disseminate the framework globally in 19 countries and synthesize its relevance to the MOC industry. The questionnaire had 55 complete responses, majority of respondents work in managerial positions for MOC manufacturing facilities and onsite general contractors.

It was found that the lowest metric score for adapting to change was for cost since controlling cost would be difficult for any changes required after the design freeze stage. The top agility driver was found to be the need to respond to the wide variety of customer expectations, while the lowest driver was the existence of competing priorities. The top agility enabler was vendor partnership, which can be related to current postpandemic supply chain disruptions. Regarding technological capabilities, Europe and the USA acquired better scores compared to Asia, Latin America and Africa.

This study contributes to the MOC body of knowledge by creating an agility assessment tool for MOC firms to analyze their agile approach and environment, identifying the preliminary importance of agility assessment attributes and determining significant agile differences between the main MOC industry groups.

Cross-laminated timber (CLT) is an innovative construction material that provides a balanced mix of structural stiffness, fabrication flexibility and sustainability. CLT development and innovation diffusion require close collaborations between its supply chain architectural, engineering, construction and manufacturing (AECM) stakeholders. As such, the purpose of this study is to provide a preliminary understanding of the knowledge diffusion and innovation process of CLT construction.

The study implemented a longitudinal social network analysis of the AECM companies involved in 100 CLT projects in the UK. The project data were acquired from an industry publication and decoded in the form of a multimode project-company network, which was projected into a single-mode company collaborative network. This complete network was filtered into a four-phase network to allow the longitudinal analysis of the CLT collaborations over time. A set of network and node social network analysis metrics was used to characterize the topology patters of the network and the centrality of the companies.

The study highlighted the scale-free structure of the CLT collaborative network that depends on the influential hubs of timber manufacturers, engineers and contractors to accelerate the innovation diffusion. However, such CLT supply collaborative network structure is more vulnerable to disruptions due to its dependence on these few prominent hubs. Also, the industry collaborative network’s decreased modularity confirms the maturity of the CLT technology and the formation of cohesive clusters of innovation partners. The macro analysis approach of the study highlighted the critical role of supply chain upstream stakeholders due to their higher centralities in the collaborative network. Stronger collaborations were found between the supply chain upstream stakeholders (timber manufacturers) and downstream stakeholders (architects and main contractors).

The study contributes to the field of industrialized and CLT construction by characterizing the collaborative networks between CLT supply chain stakeholders that are critical to propose governmental policies and industry initiatives to advance this sustainable construction material.

Construction trade unions have been a vital force in improving the job standards and wellbeing of trade workers. However, the union membership in the construction industry has dropped by half between 1983 and 2017. The objective of this study is to identify and assess the controlling factors of construction electrical trade unionization in the United States.

The study involved four main steps. Literature review and industry townhall meetings were conducted to identify the electrical trade unionization factors. A new unionization trend metric was developed using available union market share data to quantify the growth and decline of local unions. Mixed-mode surveying was used to collect questionnaire and interview data on the unionization factors in different local units of the electrical trade union. Finally, the survey data from the questionnaire and interviews were merged and their correlation with the unionization trend data was assessed.

The study found that the unionization of this specialty trade is dependent on increasing the crew ratio, expanding the non-apprenticeship union membership program, organizing larger contractors, and continuing the union focus on public and heavy industrial projects.

The study contributes to the construction management body of knowledge by providing a data-driven industry-wide assessment of the factors that affect electrical construction unionization. The study advances the understanding of construction trade unions by narrowing the theory-practice knowledge gap, illustrating the use of macro quantitative empirical research methods, and developing a new unionization trend metric.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the case studies of communities’ understandings of natural disasters in Aceh Province, Indonesia, where a number of cultures and traditions which belong to the ancestral heritage continue to be used in a more modern context.

This research used a qualitative descriptive research paradigm in which the researcher attempted to describe or construct in-depth interview results for the research objects. The interviews were conducted in six disaster-prone areas in Aceh, i.e. Simeulue, Central Aceh, Aceh Tamiang, Pidie Jaya, North Aceh and dan Pidie. The interviewees were the informants in this research, which included traditional leaders, religious leaders, community leaders, headmen, youth figures and disaster victims. The technique for determining informants was through purposive sampling in which the sample is specified based on the need of the research.

Majority of the people in Aceh, especially those who live in earthquake- and tsunami-prone areas still practice this form of knowledge, as they have already realized that it makes a significant contribution to emergency management. They typically used their traditional knowledge to understand both the nature of local hazards and the risk reduction mechanism related to response mechanisms. In some events, they also used it as an alternative to recovery phase according to past information and experiences. This paper will discuss the contribution of traditional knowledge to emergency management by presenting some specific cases of indigenous stories in Aceh. The stories not only served as an early warning system but also can be used to develop more effective disaster risk reduction programmes to improve community awareness to deal with future threats.

On Simeulue Island, most of the indigenous people already possess the knowledge and value systems inherited through the generations, as a form of local wisdom “called smong” when encountering earthquakes and tsunamis. Beside smong, there is still considerable amount of other similar indigenous knowledge that originated amid traditional people, especially in rural areas, in Aceh. Thus, this paper attempts to identify the knowledge and its representation in the implementation of disaster mitigation efforts in Aceh.

At the age of 92, Mahathir Mohamad served his country as the Prime Minister for the second time. But unlike his first stint as the head of the government, which lasted 22 years, this time, his tenure was less than two years. His resignation, which was linked to some internal issues within the Pakatan Harapan (PH) allied parties, came at a time when many countries in the world were in the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak. Mahathir was aware of the power struggle that was adversely affecting the government's response to combat the virus transmission and reduce the rising number of COVID-19 infection cases. With his long experience in governance and as a former medical officer, Mahathir offered some advice and recommendations to the existing government on ways to address the public health crisis. Since the coronavirus outbreak, the domestic political and economic developments also drew his direct criticism and critical commentaries.

The aim of this paper is to explore how men entrepreneurs construe their success and the influence of the socio-cultural context and political and economic turbulence on their construals of success in the context of the Arab country of Lebanon.

To achieve the objective, the author draw on intersectionality theory and capitalise on twenty in-depth, semi-structured interviews with men entrepreneurs.

The findings reveal how construals of success by men entrepreneurs occur at the nexus between patriarchy, gendered expectations and adverse economic and political conditions. As a result, success is construed through the perseverance and legitimacy of their business and their compliance with expected family roles. These construals unfold as the men hold themselves accountable for and do gender and success per the ideal expectations indoctrinated by patriarchy.

The originality of this study lies in its theoretical contributions. First, it is the first study to explore the construals of success by men entrepreneurs in an Arab Middle Eastern country. Second, it contributes to a growing body of work that explores gender as a situated practice and demonstrates how it is performed by men entrepreneurs while construing their success. Third, it contributes to research on intersectionality in entrepreneurship and sheds light on the interconnections of gender, patriarchal socio-cultural values, economic and political conditions and entrepreneurship in Arab countries.

Business-to-business (B2B) marketing, microeconomics and strategic management.

Target audience can be MBA students who are taking B2B marketing, microeconomics and strategic management courses.

On 1 January 2015, Hamza joined Hisham Packaging, Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) as the CEO. Hisham Packaging specialises in production of corrugated boxes of various sizes, both in plain and printed forms. Most of Hamza’s experiences have been in the automobile industry, where his focus was on Lean operations rather than marketing. After joining Hisham Packaging, he learnt that in service industry like printing and packaging, the business focus is more customer-oriented than process-orientated. In the packaging industry, each customer’s requirement is unique and customised with variety and small volumes. What was shocking to him was that there is an informal cartel arrangement among major corrugated box suppliers in the country and without the consent of the cartel members, he cannot take any major decision like expanding the business or accepting or dropping a customer. Hamza discussed the scenario with his sales manager Ahmad to see what strategy to adopt for the growth of the company. He was trying to figure out what next? Like any other newly joined CEO, Hamza also had plans to increase the market share and make the operations Lean. He quickly found that it would be difficult for him to make any major impact on the existing business due to the constraints and he needed a different strategic move to grow the company.

The outcomes include understanding of market dynamics, cartelization of companies based on market structure and strategy building. Students learn that an organization’s performance is just not dependent on how the managers plan, organize and control but it also depends on the competitors and customer’s strategies. Students learn how to apply strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis, Porter’s Five Forces analysis and PESTEL analysis in developing business strategy.

Teaching note is attached.

CSS 8: Marketing

Good planning is key to good project performance. However, for the sub-class of round-the-clock projects requiring mixed mode planning a suitable planning approach does not exist. The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate such an approach.

Development of the approach builds on a synthesis and extensions of previous work related to projects with round-the-clock schedules, containing multiple workflows (sequential/cyclical). This approach considers the interdependence among shift-schedule, productivity, calendar duration, and risk registers. It quantifies the confidence in those strategies using a Monte Carlo and a multi-dimensional joint confidence limit (JCL) simulation platform.

n of workflows and their interdependencies. Also, the platform results show that the deviation between the deterministic outcomes and the simulated ones are a good indicator when dealing with projects with minimal tolerance for possible imposed mitigation strategies (e.g. round-the-clock projects).

The validation of the approach is limited to a multi-billion dollar nuclear refurbishment case study and functional demonstration. The applicable class of projects is limited, and includes those for which failure of cost, schedule, or quality implies project failure.

It is anticipated that the proposed approach will assist with developing a realistic planning strategy by incorporating various factors and constraints under the impact of risks and uncertainty. This may lead to a more reliable determination of outcomes for round-the-clock projects.

In this paper, the philosophy of John Rawls, known as “Justice as Fairness,” is discussed. This philosophy examines the responsibilities social actors hold toward their societal organizations. From an Islamic perspective, justice is pivotal in safeguarding collective interests, aligning with Rawls' conviction that just societies nurture happiness and foster well-being across various life aspects. To achieve customer welfare, our viewpoint underscores the importance of justice in reflecting on consumer well-being from both Rawls’ theory and Islamic perspectives.

We adopt a conceptual approach where secular views of Rawls’ “Theory of Justice” are merged with the Islamic view, resulting in novel insights regarding the hermeneutics involved in the notion of justice and the preservation of consumer well-being.

Our analysis reveals that John Rawls' “A Theory of Justice” aligns with the Islamic perspective in several respects yet diverges in others, notably in the concepts of pre-creation consciousness and divine guidance. These distinctions are emphasized in our paper.

Our paper presents a perspective on justice founded on the concepts of the “Original Position” and the “Veil of Ignorance.” The commentary explores consumer well-being by integrating Rawls' principles with an analysis that elucidates the role justice plays in enhancing societal welfare.

The purpose of this paper is to formulate a model for developing, implementing and evaluating performance management systems in Jordan public universities that will ensure the successful achievement of their set goals in the competitive dynamic environment.

This is a conceptual paper that focuses on the model for developing, implementing and evaluating performance management systems by public universities in developing countries.

As the focus is on a conceptual model for performance management systems in public universities in developing country, it is yet to be empirically tested.

The conceptual model is limited to developing, implementing and evaluating performance management systems by public universities in developing countries.

The implementation and evaluation of performance management systems by public universities in Jordan and developing countries will ensure successful achievement of their set goals in the competitive dynamic environment.

The originality of the paper lies in its methodology. In this paper, an innovative conceptual model is proposed for developing, implementing and evaluating performance management systems by public universities in developing countries.