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Influential factors attributed to causing project completion delay (PCD) differ because of prevailing variability of local conditions. Construction projects specifically in Yemen (and other developing countries) experience devastating effects of PCD which include litigation, cost overrun, arbitration, abandonment and failure. While existing works have investigated the causes and effects of PCD, not much exist on approaches to optimizing its occurrence in Yemen. In a bid to enhance the effects of PCD in Yemen, the integrated influential factors (IIFs), which is a construction-party specific model, was developed to mitigate the effects of PCD in Yemen. As a build up to the development of this model, this paper aims to validate the IIFs model with a view to foster its application to enhance PCD in construction project delivery in Yemen.

The validation of the IIFs model was done through seeking the opinions of 12 selected construction industry experts. This involved using a structured questionnaire to seek information on the sustainability of implementing the IIFs model.

The findings revealed that if the IIFs model is vigorously implemented, it would go a long way in curbing delay in the delivery of construction projects, making construction delivery less risky due to the effects of delay.

The study is limited to only influential factors of internal stakeholders of the construction phase. Similarly, the study was only conducted in the state of Sana'a, Yemen. The implication of the adoption of the IIFs model is that it can hopefully serve as an adaptive controller to construction project delivery relative to the specific parameters and factors investigated in this study.

The IIFs model is a novel approach to optimizing PCD in Yemen specific to both the construction-phase and internal stakeholders. Existing studies on PCD in Yemen, although investigating the causes and effect of PCD, hardly proffer any approach to optimizing PCD for successful construction project delivery.

Virtual reality (VR) offers unique features of a three-dimensional (3D) model during early design stages in the virtual environment with immersive functions. Although the potential of VR is to increase the effectiveness and productivity of the project phases from initial concept design to detailed design preparation. VR adoption in the United Kingdom (UK) Architectural Engineering and Construction (AEC) sector is slow compared to other sectors. This research focuses on ascertaining the drivers and barriers of VR in construction projects in the UK.

The study adopts an online survey design. It uses Bristol Online Survey (BOS) to create a structured questionnaire that is used to assess UK construction professionals using a convenience sampling technique. Therefore, researcher uses descriptive and inferential technique for data analysis and presentation based on Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) to analyze the questionnaire.

The research findings revealed the most significant barriers to VR adoption in UK construction industry were lack of skills/expertise and cultural change. Hence, the main drivers of VR adoption as rated by the professionals in the UK construction industry are improved safety, improved quality and improved productivity.

The identification and assessment of the drivers and barriers to VR adoption could advance VR adoption among construction professionals and other stakeholders of the UK AEC sector. This could also be extended to developing countries, given the status of VR as being in the developing stage.

This study provides valuable insights to construction professionals and stakeholders to plan actions that could enhance the drivers and mitigate the barriers of VR. This study's main contribution is to group and classify various drivers and barriers into easily understood categories, in order to potentiate the drivers and reduce the barriers effectively. The groupings could be used as benchmarks in similar studies in developing countries.

Construction project stakeholders can have a major effect on delivering projects on time. However, little attempt has been made to address the influence of internal stakeholders on delaying project delivery. This research aims to propose the internal stakeholders' influence as a solution to improving project delivery performance (PDP) in order to boost the value of investment in the construction industry's projects.

In Yemen, a structured questionnaire was distributed to owners, consultants and contractors, 283 of which were found usable after the data screening. A purposeful sampling technique was used and structural equation modelling (SEM) was adopted for analysis. The structural model was drawn up, based on seven categories of influencing factors: labour, supplier, designer, contractor, consultant, sub-contractor and owner.

The results of the structural model suggest that of these seven categories, designers, owners, suppliers and subcontractors have a significant p-value and impact on PDP, while the labour and consultant's impact was not substantiated. The findings support the proposal that internal stakeholders' influence contributes directly to construction PDP.

The influence of stakeholders on PDP is important. Nonetheless, few studies have focussed on their effectiveness, especially in developing countries. This paper's contribution is evaluating the cause–effect relationship between stakeholders' influence and construction PDP through analysis of moment structures (AMOS) analysis. The policy implications of the research are to encourage governments in general and construction companies in particular to take responsibility for improving PDP, as slow execution of construction projects leads to increased costs, failure and abandoning projects.