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Estimating is a fundamental part of the construction industry. The success or failure of a project is dependent on the accuracy of several estimates through‐out the course of the project. Construction estimating is the compilation and analysis of many items that influence and contribute to the cost of a project. Estimating which is done before the physical performance of the work requires a detailed study and careful analysis of the bidding documents, in order to achieve the most accurate estimate possible of the probable cost consistent with the bidding time available and the accuracy and completeness of the information submitted. Overestimated or underestimated cost has the potential to cause loss to local contracting companies. The objective of this paper is to identify the essential factors and their relative importance that affect accuracy of cost estimation of building contracts in the Gaza strip. The results of analyzing fifty one factors considered in a questionnaire survey concluded that the main factors are: location of the project, segmentation of the Gaza strip and limitation of movements between areas, political situation, and financial status of the owner.

This paper sets out to describe the development and empirical testing of a structural equation model of construction safety culture. A key contribution of the model is providing insights into the interactions among safety culture enablers, and the relation between those enablers (what the organisation is doing) and safety culture goals (what the organisation aims to achieve) in the context of the Thai construction industry.

Based on the internationally recognised EFQM Excellence model, this paper empirically examines the interactions and causal relationships between five enablers (i.e. Leadership, Policy and strategy, People, Partnerships and resources and Processes) and safety outcome (i.e. Goals). The paper utilises the structural equation modelling technique to test the hypothesised positive inter‐relationships between the enablers and goals. A questionnaire survey was administered to a sample of construction contracting organisations operating in Thailand to elicit opinions on the different attributes in the context of their current safety practices and performance.

Supported by empirical evidence, this study established that firstly, the Leadership enabler directly influences the implementation of Policy and Strategy, however, its effect on Partnerships and Resources appears to be an indirect one; secondly, Partnerships and Resources was found to indirectly affect Processes through Policy and Strategy, which likewise appears to be indirectly influenced by the People enabler.

This study provides a greater understanding of the interactions between the key elements of safety culture (enablers and goals), and among the enablers themselves.

This paper forms part of an ongoing research project being undertaken by the authors into construction safety culture. The paper aims to investigate the interactions among five key enablers of construction safety culture, as well as the potential impact of each enabler on organisational safety goals over a period of time.

Using system dynamics modelling, the paper reports on the development of a causal model simulating the interactions among safety culture enablers. The model is developed based on the logical assumption that, by improving the enablers, there will be an inevitable safety performance improvement. An index is also proposed and used as an indicator for assessing the maturity level of safety culture.

The paper presents and reports on simulation results which reveal that an organisation with ad‐hoc safety implementation (starting at a basic level of safety culture maturity) should primarily focus on enhancing leadership attributes, in the context of safety, to rapidly and successfully progress through to higher maturity levels in the future.

The use of system dynamic modelling, with the developed index, will help organisations to plan the most effective safety implementation process to achieve their safety goals within a planned time frame.

The use of modelling, with the developed index, will help organisations to plan the most effective safety implementation process to achieve their safety goals within a planned time frame.

Tacit knowledge is perceived as the most strategically important resource of the construction organisation, and the only renewable and sustainable base for its activities and competitiveness. Knowledge management (KM) activities that deal with tacit knowledge are essential in helping an organisation to achieve its long‐term organisational objectives. The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence for the stronger strategic role of tacit KM in comparison to explicit KM.

A questionnaire survey was administered in 2005 to a sample of construction contractors operating in Hong Kong to elicit opinions on the internal business environment, intensity of KM activities as executed by targeted organisations, and contribution of these activities to business performance (BP). A total of 149 usable responses were received from 99 organisations representing about 38 per cent of the sampling frame. The statistical analyses helped to map the reported KM activities into two groups that, respectively, deal with tacit and explicit knowledge. The sensitivity to variations of organisational policies and strength of association with BP in relation to the two groups of KM activities were also compared empirically. A total of 15 interviews with the managerial and professional staff of leading contractors was undertaken to provide insightful narratives of KM implementations.

The effective implementation of organisational policies, such as encouraging innovations and strengthening strategic guidance for KM, would facilitate human interactions of tacit KM. Higher intensity of activities in managing tacit knowledge would ultimately help the organisations to achieve economic gain in the long run.

The stronger strategic role of tacit KM is empirically investigated and established within the context of construction organisations.

Labor productivity is one of the most important factors that affect the physical progress of any construction project. In order to improve labor productivity, site production should be measured on a regular basis, and then compared to acceptable standard benchmarks. The objective of this paper is to measure masonry labor productivity in Gaza Strip, Palestine, using a consistent benchmarking approach.

Production data were collected from nine different construction projects located in Gaza. For each project, values for baseline productivity, disruption index, performance index and project management index were calculated.

Based on the nine targeted projects, the baseline productivity of masonry works in Gaza seems to range from 0.29 to 0.80 work‐hours per square meter. Calculated values were utilized to develop a correlation between two project benchmarks (i.e. disruption and project management indices). AS only four out of the targeted nine projects performed reasonably well, the paper strongly recommends developing a benchmarking standard for each local construction firm in Palestine which may lead to an improvement in the national construction productivity.

The outcome of this research will improve the national construction productivity in Palestine and highlights the benefit of improving benchmarking standard.

Within the construction industry there is a growing awareness of the need for linking knowledge management (KM) to business strategy, organisational objectives and existing performance measures. This study was undertaken within the context of construction organisations, and attempts to provide the empirical evidence about the relationships between KM activities and organisational business performance.

A questionnaire survey was administered to a sample of construction contractors operating in Hong Kong to investigate the opinions of construction professionals regarding the intensity of KM activities and business performance within their organisations. In parallel to the survey, semi‐structured interviews were undertaken to provide qualitative insights that helped to clarify and deepen understanding of the KM process within the context of the research target.

The investigation shows that knowledge utilisation is the strongest contributor to general business performance. In addition, the impact of KM activities on the lagging performance indicators of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC), such as “financial performance”, is in an indirect manner, and through the leading indicators such as performance from “internal process” as well as “learning and growth” perspectives.

The study empirically establishes the linkage between intensity of KM activities and business performance, and demonstrates that KM strategies need to be explicitly formulated and measured according to organisational business objectives.

Recent knowledge management (KM) literature suggests that KM activities are not independent of each other, rather they interact with each other to form a process which receives input from both external and internal business environments, and then produces new knowledge for future utilisation. The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the relationships between KM activities within the construction business context in order to identify and map the pattern of their interactions.

A questionnaire survey was administered to a sample of contracting organisations operating in Hong Kong to elicit opinions of construction professionals on the intensity of KM activities currently being executed by their organisations in order to facilitate knowledge capture, sharing and utilisation. More than 150 respondents from 99 organisations responded to the survey. Additionally, a total of 15 semi‐structured interviews were undertaken to provide a unique perspective on many of the challenges facing local construction organisations when dealing with KM activities.

Knowledge acquisition and utilisation play paramount roles in the development of the organisational knowledge asset. The higher the intensity of these two activities, the larger the organisational knowledge pool which, in turn, demands greater knowledge dissemination capacity. This dissemination capacity enables more active and intense responses to market changes and clients' needs, thus facilitating and stimulating acquisition and utilisation of new tacit knowledge, thus improving organisational business performance.

Interactions between KM activities were empirically investigated, from a strategic perspective, in the construction business context.

Recent knowledge management (KM) literature suggests that KM activities are influenced by the elements of the internal business environment (BE) of organisations. This paper attempts to provide some unique insights into the contextual input of the KM process through empirically identifying the major factors (i.e. “forces”) within the internal BE of construction organisations operating in Hong Kong, and investigating their impact on the intensity of KM activities.

A questionnaire survey was administered to a sample of construction contractors operating in Hong Kong to elicit opinions on the internal BE and intensity of KM activities as executed by targeted organisations. A total of 149 usable responses were received from 99 organisations representing about 38 percent of the research population. In parallel, to the survey, a total of 15 semi‐structured interviews were undertaken to provide more insights into the phenomenon under investigation.

Supported by the empirical and qualitative evidence, this study established that firstly, both organisational and technical environments have the capacity to either positively or negatively impact the intensity of KM activities, and both environments serve as stimuli in increasing each other's dynamism; secondly, certain types of KM activities are stronger “energy receivers” and easily to be “powered up” by manipulating factors representing these two environments. Then, through interactions between KM activities, the intensity of the whole strategic KM cycle will be increased thus helping to strengthen organisational competitive advantage.

The impact of internal BE on KM activities was both empirically and qualitatively investigated, from a strategic perspective, within the construction business context.

States that the benefits of benchmarking are still largely unrecognized in the construction industry, despite the fact that the best practice concept has been indirectly investigated by both practitioners and researchers. Notes that some confusion seems to exist in construction circles as to what exactly benchmarking is and what it can achieve to improve productivity. Addresses the benchmarking concept and its application to construction and presents a three‐level internal, project and external framework for benchmarking current practice. The three levels are examined in detail, with an illustration of the need to adapt to improve construction productivity. Uses a generic definition of benchmarking throughout to ensure applicability to the different and many aspects of the construction process.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between leadership behaviors and knowledge management (KM) practices. More specifically, it aims to examine the influence of transformational and transactional leadership behaviors on KM, and the moderating effect of organizational culture on this relationship, in the context of small‐to‐medium sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in Australia.

A total of four hypotheses were proposed for testing. It also provides is a succinct review of KM basics relevant to the study, the relationship between leadership and KM, and leadership and organizational culture.

The results suggest that both transformational and transactional leadership are positively related to KM practices. They also reveal that charismatic leadership and contingent reward leadership behaviors have greater influence on all the dimensions of KM practices.

A key limitation of this study is its cross‐sectional nature. It is possible that at least certain aspects of leadership and organizational culture, and its impact on KM practices emerge with some kind of time lag. A longitudinal treatment of data might yield additional insights into the impact of leadership behaviors and organizational culture. This study was also unable to actually observe managers interacting with followers.

The results of the study are generally consistent with theoretical predictions based on extant research.

The results of this study provide compelling evidence in support of the moderating role of organizational culture on the relationship between transactional leadership and KM and will be of interest to those in the field.