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The purpose of this study is to investigate the challenges of pricing quantity surveying (QS) professional services to enhance the understanding of practitioners in developing strategies for the determination of fees for their services.

The paper adopts the quantitative approach by administering 150 survey questionnaires QS professionals out of which 79 questionnaires were retrieved for analysis using the mean, standard deviation, standard error and the Chi-Square test.

The study identified the challenges that continue to hamper the successful pricing of QS services as the inability to respond to changing contractual arrangements; lack of appropriate response to emerging services; slow response to changes in information and communication technology.

This paper focused on QS professionals. Hence, a future study to encompass other professionals in the built environment will be novel.

The findings of this paper have the potential to motivate QS firms to develop solutions that address the challenges identified to improve the efficiency of their service delivery to clients. The paper also has the practical importance of opening up new frontiers of research that focus on pricing of professional services in the built environment in general.

The paper contributes to the awareness and understanding of QS professionals about the challenges that continue to hamper effective pricing of their services.

With the increased demand for the application of technology in property activities, there is a growing need for property professionals adept in using digital technology. Hence, it is important to assess the competence of academia in equipping property professionals with digital technology skills. This study, therefore, assesses property academics in Australian universities to identify their level of knowledge and use of digital technology applicable to the property industry.

Online questionnaire surveys were administered to 22 out of 110 property academics contacted through the Australia Property Institute (API) database to achieve this aim. The collected data were analysed using mean score ranking and ANOVA.

The study found that apart from databases and analytics platforms such as Corelogic RP data, price finder and industry-based software such as the Microsoft Office suite and ARGUS software, the academics were not knowledgeable in most identified and sampled proptech tools. Similarly, most proptech tools were not used or taught to the students. It was also found that early career academics (below five years in academia) were the most knowledgeable group about the proptech tools.

Relying on the API database to contact property academics potentially excludes the position of property academics who may not be affiliated or have contacts with API, hence, the findings of this study should be generalised with caution.

The study bears huge implications for the property education sector and industry in Australia; a low knowledge and use of nascent tools such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, drones, fintech, which have received intense interest, reveals some level of skill gap of students who pass through that system and may need to be upskilled by employers to meet the current day demand.

In response to the clamour for technology-inclined property professionals, this paper presents itself as the first to assess the knowledge levels and application of digital technology by property academics.

The construction industry is an enabler of economic growth in developing countries, but its performance is governed by the professional behaviour of construction professionals. Unethical behaviour (UB) breaches codes of practice and undermines economic performance hence, ubiquitous academic attention has been given to understanding this phenomenon. This paper aims to contribute to the ensuing discourse by reporting upon the most critical ethical behaviours (EBs and UBs) of professionals in the Ghanaian construction industry (GCI).

The study compounded identified factors into a closed-ended questionnaire in a quantitative research strategy. Data analysis was conducted using the relative importance index and one sample t-test. To measure the reliability of the scale, Cronbach’s alpha was used, which indicated that all measured items were reliable for further analysis.

The study confirmed that professionals within the GCI are aware of the existence of UBs and revealed that the most prevalent ethical conducts exhibited, namely, level of accuracy, accountability, honesty, reliability, fairness and respect for colleagues. Common unethical conducts exhibited included: favouritism, bribery and corruption, professional negligence, falsification, fraud and overbilling.

The study reported on the dominant ethical conduct among built environment professionals. The claims put forward in the analysis are, thus, affected by Ghana’s social, economic and political environments, which could restrict the generalization of the findings.

Incipient findings presented from this research will guide stakeholders to develop and device strategies that will aid alleviate persistent ethical issues within the built environment.

The study highlights individuals’ perspectives on ethical issues persistent in the built environment. The findings suggest individuals adhere to ethical practices in a project environment by the evidence presented.

This pioneering study is a novel assessment on EBs and UBs of built environment professionals in the GCI. The study supplementary adds value to the literature on ethical and unethical practices. By identifying these practices, construction firms have a competitive edge in combating UB and promoting EB among built environment professionals in the GCI.