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This paper aims to provide insights into how supply chain integration may occur for small housebuilders adopting modern methods of construction (MMCs). The process of creating an empirically informed road map is described, whereby the practical day-to-day challenges of adopting a timber-frame solution on a small housing development in Southeast England were fed into a road map of future supply chain integration scenarios. The intention is to better position small housebuilders to contribute in addressing the shortfall in housing that continues to face the UK.

Interviews with supply chain members along with on-site observations captured key aspects of integration. Findings were used within two collaborative forums to guide discussion in a dual approach; discussing the challenges of timber-frame on the project and what would be needed on future projects for the firms analysed.

Empirically informed malleable roadmaps, of the kind developed within this study, provide feasible options for small housebuilders and suppliers of MMCs to collectively collaborate when transitioning towards fully integrated supply chains. Practically, the roadmapping approach, and the roadmap itself, would help small housebuilders and suppliers of MMCs transition towards full integration. Opening up avenues of integration that are spread across yet connected through numerous phases, firms and technologies helps construction professionals use more sophisticated modular and volumetric off-site solutions.

Data collection took place over the course of a year. Future research could expand this relatively short duration to analyse the potential for construction professionals within the supply chain to integrate further over a longer period of time.

The novelty and contribution of this paper lie in the development and application of an alternative approach to roadmapping that departs from the normative linear examples of roadmaps found within the technology-roadmapping literature. The authors present a structured yet flexible approach to roadmapping that is both representative of the strategic planning and innovation activities that occur within small housebuilding firms and open to adaption to account for firm-level characteristics and contingencies. Positioned alongside firm-level dynamics (e.g. business cases and approaches to design), the roadmapping approach also reinforces the potential of incremental rather than whole-scale transitions.

The present study examines entrepreneurship in established firms holistically and critically. The authors start by reviewing previous research and highlight a variety of definitional, conceptual, methodological, contextual, and temporal factors that have been confounding the research. The authors then present a multidimensional framework that specifies a more nuanced picture of the determinants, motives, activities, and consequences of corporate in established firms. Finally, the authors discuss conceptual, methodological, and practical implications, as well as outline future research avenues.

Hybrid concrete construction is a technologically advanced approach to frame construction. It utilizes an optimal mix of structural materials;eg, in situ concrete with precast concrete and steelwork. The process of selecting an hybrid‐optimized solution, however, often requires several factors to be considered, eg, “hard”criteria such as time and cost, and “soft” criteria such as safety and aesthetics (to be considered simultaneously) – the complexities of which can often be a core barrier to implementation. This paper introduces the concept of hybrid concrete construction and presents a virtual prototyping tool to assist the decision‐making process. This model is able to import computer aided design information into a central database – the details of which are then layered with additional information; eg, hard and soft performance criteria and so on. Solutions can be interrogated and demonstrated through an interactive virtual environment, in which multi‐option scenarios can be evaluated against specific user‐defined criteria. Findings have identified several core benefits, including the ability to: justify decisions corroborated with detailed data; evaluate options against each other; interrogate objects at a much greater detail than before; and see the effects of changes in a “real‐time” environment.

This paper describes the different ways in which people in the highlands of Papua New Guinea are talking about climate change. It demonstrates that people locate themselves in this process of change in terms of food production and exchange, and that some of the changes being witnessed are also related to the impacts of a growing cash economy on social relations.

This ethnography involved 12 months fieldwork including participant observation and interviews.

This is a qualitative study that recognises the perspective of local people for understanding culturally mediated experiences of climate change. However, data regarding rainfall and temperatures over time would be a useful addition for thinking about the extent to which the climate has in fact changed in recent years.

The implications of this paper are that the predictions made in 1990 about increases in production as a result of climate change are apparently coming true, with benefits for some food and coffee producers. But that there are complex social processes occurring at the same time as climate change that mean people’s ability to adapt is dependent on other social conditions. Maintaining ecologically sustainable methods of production and local cultural practices may enable more resilience to the impacts of climate change.

The experiences of people living in the Eastern Highlands and the ways in which people use the discourse of climate change are yet to be acknowledged in policy circles or socio-cultural anthropology literature. This paper presents a partial account of how people in Papua New Guinea are experiencing and talking about change.

The complexity of construction projects and the fragmentation of the construction industry undertaking those projects has effectively resulted in linear, uncoordinated and highly variable project processes in the UK construction sector. Research undertaken at the University of Salford resulted in the development of an improved project process, the Process Protocol, which considers the whole lifecycle of a construction project whilst integrating its participants under a common framework. The Process Protocol identifies the various phases of a construction project with particular emphasis on what is described in the manufacturing industry as the ‘fuzzy front end’. The participants in the process are described in terms of the activities that need to be undertaken in order to achieve a successful project and process execution. In addition, the decision‐making mechanisms, from a client perspective, are illustrated and the foundations for a learning organization/industry are facilitated within a consistent Process Protocol.

Maximising the benefit of learning from defects is regarded by UK housing associations (HAs) as a key opportunity to meet their challenges of building more homes with reduced government funding and rent incomes. Despite learning from defects being a frequent recommendation to reduce defects in the construction literature, there is scarce empirical evidence into how HAs actually learn from defects. The purpose of this paper is to better understand how HAs learn from past defects and induce change to reduce defects.

Guided by organisational learning (OL) as the theoretical lens, a 21-month action research (AR) project explored one HA’s defects management and learning processes.

OL has the potential to reduce defects in new homes but is a secondary task which is reliant on a defects management team analysing defect data to identify priority areas. As such, learning from defects can be reduced due to peaks in workload if data analysis is a manual process. Furthermore, a dual learning approach plays a significant role for HA’s learning consisting of designing out defects (codification) supported by networking (personalisation) to tackle issues of workmanship on site and those defects that cannot be designed out.

This study demonstrates OL has the potential to reduce defects in new homes but is a secondary task in HA’s practice; and highlights the practical challenges of academia and industry co-production in AR in construction.

The aim of this chapter is to propose a model of entrepreneurs’ communication strategies in the start-up process by synthesizing previous empirical research. The focus on communication strategies in the start-up process is important for several reasons. We know that many businesses fail during the first year of existence and others are liquidated during the first three years of operation. We also know that new businesses face problems when entering the market. These problems are assumed to arise partly due to the liability of newness (LoN), that is lack of a track record and legitimacy. The model of communication strategies is built upon entrepreneurs’ communicative practices since strategy is seen as a social practice. The chapter also emphasizes communication strategies as being a part of the research field strategic entrepreneurship. The model focuses communicative behaviours in terms of the message and the conversation as well as the chosen strategy in terms of planned and emergent strategies. Three types of communication strategies emerge from the communication practices; (i) content-centred, (ii) behaviour-centred and (iii) adaptive-centred.

Research on housing defects has limited its enquiry to the classifications of defects, potential impact of defects, and their detection and remediation during construction and the builder’s liability period, without considering the warranty period. The purpose of this paper is to better understand which impacts of defects are perceived as important by the key stakeholders involved in their detection and remediation over the construction, builder’s liability and insurer’s warranty periods.

The questionnaire survey approach was used. The questionnaire distribution list was drawn from the UK’s largest warranty provider (WP) and approved inspector’s records. The questionnaire was distributed to 2003 people, receiving 292 responses, a response rate of 15 per cent.

This research challenges the assertion that the house building industry (i.e. house builders (HBs), building inspectors and WPs) is predominantly cost focussed and finds that the potential impact of defects on home occupants (HOs) are their primary concern. In contrast, the HOs’ appear solely focussed on the disruption defects caused on their daily lives and perceive a lack customer focus in the house building industry.

This study provides empirical evidence of the contrasting view of the house building industry and HOs with respect to the prioritisation of the impacts of defects. Further, this research offers HBs an alternative approach to determine which defects should be targeted for reduction purposes which may lead to improved levels of customer satisfaction.

A corporate entrepreneurship (CE) strategy implies that a firm’s strategic intent is to continuously leverage entrepreneurial opportunities for growth- and advantage-seeking purposes. CE has gained greater research attention with a focus on the factors that influence an organization’s willingness to initiate and sustain a CE strategy. In the current disruptive age, firms acknowledge the importance of CE (also referred to as corporate innovation) as the critical element for sustained competitive advantage in the global economy. Yet, so many organizations struggle with the actual implementation of an innovative strategy. There are key challenges that must be addressed by today’s corporate entrepreneurial leaders in this age of disruptive innovation. These include framing the innovation, developing the internal architecture, coordinating the managerial levels, integrating design thinking, recognizing the grief associated with project failure, and demanding ethical standards. As research on corporate innovative activity has evolved, numerous researchers have acknowledged the importance of these leadership activities to enhance the effectiveness of corporate entrepreneurial activity. In this chapter, the authors discuss these critical elements confronting corporate entrepreneurial leaders.

The local property tax is the oldest tax in the United States, as well as being the only substantial tax on landed wealth, a major part of the housing expense of most American families, and the most important revenue source for local governments. It is also increasingly limited by state law. This chapter presents a synthetic review of the literature on property tax limitation laws. Property taxation is a crucial resource for local governments because it is primarily a tax on real estate, and land is the least mobile tax base. A tax on the market value of real estate may have the effect of transmitting real estate price shocks to individual land users. Property tax limitation laws provide some homeowners with social protection from such market-induced economic shocks, but they do so at the price of a substantial reduction in state capacity. A meta-regression analysis of published studies finds that property tax levy limitations, on average, reduce local government budgets by as much as 5%. The potential implications for provision of other public goods, including social protection for other groups, are discussed.