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Besides ensuring traditional project objectives, expatriate construction professionals (EXCPs) working on international projects face challenges adapting to unfamiliar environments with varying construction standards, work practices and cultural values. This puts them at a high risk of job burnout. Thus, this study aims to investigate the antecedents and outcomes of EXCPs' job burnout in the international construction industry.

Based on the Job demands-resource model (JD-R), a theoretical framework was developed. Industry-specific stressors and expatriate management practices were identified using a literature review and interviews. The authors then used a questionnaire survey to collect data from Chinese EXCPs. Exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were then utilized to test hypotheses.

The findings indicate that early-career EXCPs experience the most severe levels of job burnout. The paths analysis proved the direct and indirect mitigating effects of expatriate management practices on job burnout, and EXCP's job burnout was associated with poor job performance and decreased intention to stay in the international assignment.

While prior research has explored job burnout among construction professionals working on domestic projects, little attention has been given to EXCPs and their unique challenges. This study aims to fill this critical gap in the literature by offering a unique perspective on the antecedents and outcomes of job burnout among EXCPs in international contexts and presents a significant contribution to understanding and addressing occupational health issues faced by EXCPs.

Under the trend of global economic integration and the new context of stagflation, frequent fluctuations in international interest rates are exerting far-reaching impacts on the world economy. In this paper, the transmission mechanism of the impact of fluctuations in international interest rates (specifically, the American interest rate) on the bankruptcy risk in China's pillar industry, the construction industry (which is also sensitive to interest rates), is examined.

Using an improved contingent claims analysis, the bankruptcy risk of enterprises is calculated in this paper. Additionally, an individual fixed-effects model is developed to investigate the mediating effects of international interest rates on the bankruptcy risk in the Chinese construction industry. The heterogeneity of subindustries in the industrial chain and the impact of China's energy consumption structure are also analysed in this paper.

The findings show that fluctuations in international interest rates, which affect the bankruptcy risk of China's construction industry, are mainly transmitted through two major pathways, namely, commodity price effects and exchange rate effects. In addition, the authors examine the important impact of China's energy consumption structure on risk transmission and assess the transmission and sharing of risks within the industrial chain.

First, in the research field, the study of international interest rate risk is extended to domestic-oriented industries. Second, in terms of the research content, this paper is focused on China-specific issues, including the significant influence of China's energy consumption structure characteristics and the risk contagion (and risk sharing) as determined by the current development of the Chinese construction industry. Third, in terms of research methods a modified contingent claim analysis approach to bankruptcy risk indicators is adopted for this study, thus overcoming the problems of data frequency, market sentiment and financial data fraud, which are issues that are ignored by most relevant studies.

New generation of construction workers (NGCWs) who were born in the 1980s and later have gradually become the main workforce of Chinese construction industry. They may behave differently when dealing with knowledge-related activities due to divergent characteristics caused by generational discrepancy. To provide a theoretical foundation for construction companies and safety managers to improve safety management, this research explores the factors and paths impacting the NGCWs' ability to share their safety knowledge.

Based on literature review, main factors that influence the safety knowledge sharing of the NGCWs were identified. Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory and Interpretive Structural Modeling were applied to identify the hierarchical and contextual relations among the factors influencing the safety knowledge sharing of the NGCWs.

The results showed that sharing atmosphere ranked first in centrality and had a high degree of influence and being influenced, indicating itself an extremely important influencing factor of safety knowledge sharing of NGCWs. Six root influencing factors were identified, including individual characteristics, work pressure, sharing platform, incentive mechanism, leadership support and safety management system.

The number of influencing factors of safety knowledge sharing of the NGCWs identified in this study is limited, and the data obtained by the expert scoring method is subjective. In future studies, the model should be further developed and validated by incorporating experts from different fields to improve its integrity and applicability.

The influencing factors identified in this paper can provide a basis for construction companies and safety managers to improve productivity and safety management by taking relevant measures to promote safety knowledge sharing. The research contributes to the understanding knowledge management in the context of the emerging market. It helps to answer the question of how the market can maintain the economic growth success through effective knowledge management.

This paper investigates the influencing factors of NGCWs' safety knowledge sharing from the perspective of intergenerational differences, and the 13 influencing factor index system established expands the scope of research on factors influencing safety knowledge sharing among construction workers and fills the gap in safety knowledge sharing research on young construction workers. Furthermore, this paper establishes a multi-layer recursive structure model to clarify the influence path of the influencing factors and contributes to the understanding of safety knowledge sharing mechanism.

The built environment is responsible for approximately 40% of the world’s energy consumption, 30% of raw material use, 25% of solid waste, 25% of water use, 12% of land use and 33% of greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, environmental improvement and decarbonization are becoming increasingly critical objectives for the construction industry. Sustainable construction can be achieved through several practices, including: considering life-cycle assessment, circular construction, resource efficiency and waste management and providing eco-efficient materials, reducing energy demands and consumption and incorporating low-carbon technologies and renewable energy sources. To achieve sustainable construction goals, it is critical to educate the future workforce about decarbonization, circular construction and how to overcome the challenges involved in transitioning to sustainable construction. This study aims to understand the gap in student knowledge related to decarbonization and circular construction and the importance of incorporating these topics in civil engineering and construction management curricula.

This study surveyed 120 undergraduate and graduate students at one of the largest minority-serving institutions in the USA to understand the gap in student knowledge related to decarbonization and circular construction as well as the importance of incorporating these topics in civil engineering and construction management curricula. The authors conducted several statistical measures to assess the consistency, reliability and adequacy of the sample size, including the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measure of sampling adequacy, the normality test to evaluate the appropriateness of using an ordered probit regression analysis and a multicollinearity test to observe the correlation between independent variables. The data was analyzed using ordered probit regression analysis to investigate the need for a curriculum that serves in educating students about decarbonization and circular construction.

The results of this research highlight the gaps in students’ knowledge pertaining to sustainable practices and the importance of providing future construction workforce with such knowledge to tackle global inevitable challenges.

The findings of this study contribute to sustainable construction bodies of knowledge by advocating for a reformed curriculum to prepare the future workforce and adopt less carbonized, more circular approaches within the engineering and construction industry.

The objective of this research is to propose an immersive framework that integrates virtual reality (VR) technology with directives international safety training certification bodies to enhance construction safety training, which eventually leads to safer construction sites.

The adopted methodology combines expert insights and experimentation to maximize the effectiveness of construction safety training. The first step was identifying key considerations for VR models such as motion sickness prevention and adult learning theories. The second step was developing a game-like VR model for safety training, with multiple hazards and scenarios based on the considerations of the previous step. After that, safety experts evaluated the model and provided valuable feedback on its alignment with international safety training practices. Finally, the developed model is tested by senior students, where the testing format followed the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) working safely exam structure.

An advanced immersive VR safety training model was developed based on extensive lessons learned from the literature, previous work and psychology-informed adult learning theories. Model testing – through focus groups and hands-on experimentation – demonstrated significant benefit of VR in upgrading and complementing traditional training methods.

The findings presented in this paper make a significant contribution to the field of safety training within the construction industry and the broader context of immersive learning experiences. It also fosters further exploration into immersive learning experiences across educational and professional contexts.

This study aims to investigate stakeholders' perception of the most prevalent unethical practices in the Ghanaian construction industry.

Data used for this study came from a cross-sectional survey (questionnaire), which was administered to 273 stakeholders in the construction industry using convenience sampling technique. The data were analyzed using statistical software package SPSSv17 to determine the most prevalent unethical practices. The ranking factor was calculated based on relative importance index (RII) value.

The results of this study reveal that corruption was perceived by major stakeholders as the most prevalent unethical behavior (RII = 0.82) followed by bribery (RII = 0.79). Political interference and kickback came third (RII = 0.77) and fourth (RII = 0.74), respectively. However, the least prevalent unethical behaviors were extortion (RII = 0.56), workplace violence (RII = 0.57), alcohol abuse (RII = 0.59) and harassment (RII = 0.59). The findings suggest that when the various groupings were taken into consideration separately, the differences in their perceptions were obvious.

Data for this study were collected from construction stakeholders in Ghana who were conveniently sampled. As a result, in reference to the sampling framework which focused on major stakeholders in only two regions of Ghana does not sufficiently ensure full generalization of the results.

The findings of the study provide significant information for construction organizations and practitioners regarding unethical practices, which are most prevalent in the Ghanaian construction industry. Construction organizations and practitioners seeking to mitigate the negative effect of unethical practices on their performance should focus on educating construction workers on how to avoid corrupt practices and report same to the authorities. Also, ethics training programs must be instituted for staff coupled with constant and random inspection and checking of ethical compliance, verbal promotion and praise for ethical conduct and in some cases increase in employees pay.

This paper is one of the first to have accessed the views of broader stakeholders, i.e. consultants, contractors, professionals, suppliers, regulators, clients and construction workers in the construction industry regarding the most prevalent unethical practices in the Ghanaian construction industry in one study. This study, therefore, enriches the current literature by providing additional dimension to the understanding of unethical practices in the Ghanaian construction industry.

Within the labor-intensive construction industry characterized by distinctly structural shortages in the labor force worldwide, efficient and effective migration of construction workers across regions is critical for the smooth operation of construction activities. This study aims to investigate how the interregional migration patterns of construction workers are impacted by the disparities in both employment opportunities and environment amenities between the origin and destination provinces.

Drawing on the push and pull theory and the archival data on 13,728 migrant construction workers in China, descriptive analyses are first performed to characterize the interregional migration patterns of the investigated construction workers. Combining regional data in the National Bureau of Statistics of China, this study uses hierarchical regression modeling techniques to empirically test the relative importance of the employment-related and environment-related factors in driving the interregional migration of construction workers after controlling for the effects of related economic and geographic factors.

The results provide evidence that the interregional migration of construction workers is principally driven by the disparities in employment opportunities while disparities in environment amenities (including climate comfort disparity, medical service disparity and educational service disparity) generally play much fewer substantive roles. With regard to the impacts of employment opportunities, the results provide evidence that compared with the disparity in job market size, the disparities in job income and industry development level are more significantly relevant factors, which positively pull and adversely push the interregional migration flows, respectively.

This study contributes to a deepened understanding of how workers specifically balance their employment and amenity needs to make temporary migration decisions in the “laggard” labor-intensive construction industry. This study also adds to the literature on population migration by characterizing the specific characteristics of construction workers and the temporary nature of the workers' migration activities. The findings hold important practical implications for construction organizations and policymakers for effectively managing the mobility of migrant construction workers.

The extant literature on migrant construction workers has primarily focused on the consequences of international migration and the generalization of empirical findings on population migration mechanisms in other domains to the construction industry is substantially limited by the specific characteristics of construction workers and the temporary nature of their migration activities. In addressing this gap, this study represents an exploratory effort to quantitatively characterize the interregional migration patterns of construction workers in the labor-intensive construction industry and examines the roles of employment opportunity and environmental amenity in driving interregional migration.

Official development assistance (ODA) education projects have played a crucial role in improving education and training fields in developing countries, but are often facing several considerable challenges (e.g. long implementation time). Thus, this study aims to identify critical success factors (CSFs) in ODA education projects and investigate the influences of CSFs on ODA project performance measured by 11 nonprofit outcomes (NPOs).

A comprehensive literature review and expert interviews were conducted to compile a list of 35 potential success factors for ODA education projects. Using a survey questionnaire, 143 valid responses were collected from practitioners joining ODA projects in Vietnam. Various statistical methods (e.g. mean score method, Spearman rank correlation test, analysis of variance test, factor analysis and regression analysis) were used to analyze the collected data.

This research identified seven CSFs for ODA education projects in Vietnam: comprehensive project management competency (C1), clarity and compliance in project execution (C2), transparency and committed funding (C3), external context conditions (C4), well-controlled design and project management procedures (C5), preparations in equipment and complexity insight (C6) and punctual site delivery (C7). Furthermore, the results of regression analysis indicated that comprehensive project management competency (C1) and transparency and committed funding (C3) could significantly affect various NPOs.

This study offers significant insights for practitioners (e.g. project managers) to improve ODA projects’ performance and effectiveness in the education and training sector of a developing country context (like Vietnam).

Waste has been a major challenge in the construction industry. Lean concepts have been adopted in developed nations to overcome waste. However, developing countries are still faced with the challenge due to a lack of strategies for effective lean knowledge by construction practitioners. The purpose of this research is to identify the strategies for lean knowledge in the future Nigerian construction industry.

This was achieved through a case study of a Nigerian university. Assignments and questionnaires were the two instruments used for data collection in the study. Content analysis was adopted to analyse the data obtained from the assignments, while statistical tools such as correlation and ANOVA analysis were used to analyse the questionnaire data.

The findings of the study showed that the introduction of lean theory into students’ academic curriculum, lean practical classes and collaboration between universities, industry and lean construction institutes are some of the critical strategies for adequate lean knowledge in the future Nigerian construction industry.

The study is case-based and focused on a single university. The study did not also put clients’ level of lean knowledge as well as future required acquaintance into consideration.

This study is important as it will enable students to have an adequate understanding of the concept of lean construction right from a higher institution level. This study will enable students to put the knowledge into practice in the construction industry, hence eliminating waste or NVAAs in future construction projects.

The findings of the study could enhance concerted efforts by universities, lean construction institutes and the construction industry towards an intentional and systematic delivery of lean knowledge that will reduce waste in future Nigerian construction projects. Further studies should be carried out to identify the success factors required by clients for effective lean knowledge in construction projects.

The adoption of value management (VM) has been on the rise in the construction industry, especially in the past decade. Identifying the main barriers to VM application for ameliorating poor project outcomes in the construction industry is a critical step to overcoming its implementation. Therefore, this study aims to examine the barriers to the adoption of VM in the Nigerian construction industry (NCI) and identify the critical ones for action by construction stakeholders.

This study used two rounds of Delphi surveys with 15 VM experts to identify the challenges to VM adoption. The Delphi team’s data from the two surveys were analysed using descriptive statistics. The mean-mode approach was used to identify ten major barriers to VM adoption based on the consensus reached during the second round of the Delphi poll. Following that, an interrater agreement analysis and a significant level analysis were performed.

Of the 17 identified barriers hindering VM adoption on construction projects in the NCI, 10 were found to be profound after statistical analyses of the data. The significant barriers include communication gap between the client and other consultants; delay in design preparation because of VM services; the pretext that VM is being practiced in the construction industry; and the wrong perception of VM by construction professionals, among others. The findings of the analysis suggested that the lack of VM adoption in the NCI was because of inadequate knowledge of VM techniques among construction professionals. Therefore, it is advised that VM training be provided for concerned stakeholders to address the lack of VM expertise among Nigerian construction professionals.

This study investigated the barriers to VM adoption on construction projects in the NCI with the opinions of a few construction professionals who can be regarded as VM experts. As against obtaining large survey responses from construction professionals who may not be knowledgeable in the VM process, the limited VM experts’ responses provide a valid basis for drawing inferences and making recommendations to address the paucity of VM applications in the NCI.

Through a Delphi survey, the critical barriers to the adoption of VM were identified, along with recommendations to help construction stakeholders overcome the challenges and enjoy the benefits of VM.