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The purpose of this paper is to examine leadership behaviors associated with lean healthcare (LH) implementation and how they develop throughout the change process.

After a systematic literature review of 107 peer-reviewed articles on lean leaders’ behaviors, the authors undertook a one-year mixed-methods study of 12 leaders within a Brazilian public hospital undergoing LH implementation. Multivariate data analysis techniques were employed.

The literature review showed some convergence between effective lean leader behaviors in both manufacturing and healthcare work settings, implying that lean leaders’ behaviors are generalizable to other contexts than manufacturing. The empirical findings suggest that LH implementation needs leaders to demonstrate a set of task-oriented behaviors, especially if short-term results are mandatory. More mature lean leaders should also continue developing their relations-oriented behaviors.

While the contingency theory assumes that contexts influence (lean) practices adoption, leadership behaviors may not be bound to the work context. The finding resembles the augmentation effect of leadership whereby more mature lean leaders adopt both task- and relations-oriented behaviors.

Longitudinal studies in this field are scarce, regardless of the industrial setting. Many manufacturing and healthcare organizations crave for knowledge about lean leader behaviors throughout the lean implementation journey in order to enhance the effectiveness of their often-struggling lean initiatives. The insights derived from this study could help organizations to adjust their expectations as well as identify behavioral gaps and needs in terms of soft skills development among their leaders.

As construction of commercial and recreational complex building projects (CRCBPs) is one of the most important issues in many developing countries and requires a very high cost of implementation, it is important to identify and prioritize the risks of such projects. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify and rank the risks of CRCBPs by studying the case of the “Hamedanian Memorial,” a CRCBP in Iran.

To pursue this aim, a descriptive-survey method was used. The statistical population of the study consists of 30 experienced experts (consultants, contractors and employers) of the “Hamedanian Memorial” project selected according to the Cochran formula and minimum population census. A questionnaire was used as the data collection tool, administered in all stages of risk identification and evaluation, and was devised by using library and field methods based on the literature and research background, as well as interviewing experts in the risk identification and evaluation stages. Kendall’s coefficient of agreement was used to validate the experts’ opinions in the risk identification stage. The ranking in qualitative evaluation was done based on the risk intensity and the cumulative risk index.

The results show that the risks are associated with exchange rate fluctuation, inflation fluctuation, access to skilled workers, contractors’ claims and foreign threats from international relations.

The results and findings of the present study can be of interest to the executives of large commercial, leisure, public and private projects in developing and developed countries; understanding risks can significantly improve the decision-making process of CRCBPs.

Recent changes in corporate environment coupled with emerging challenges as a result of turbulent economy have exposed participants in the construction industry to more and more surprises in project management. As a result, the construction industry has witnessed significant changes particularly in procurement methods with clients allocating greater risks to contractors, making risk management a necessity, with organizations needing to look across the whole life of a project from inception to occupancy. To minimize or optimize all these risks, formulating an effective risk management system is a crucial challenge faced by any construction contractor. This paper aims to investigate contractors' perceptions of risk.

The perception of risks at estimating and tendering stage was investigated through a survey among construction contractors operating in the Singapore construction industry. The preferences of risk identification procedures and techniques are observed. Factors which are dominating constraints for the implementation of risk management elements are assessed. The process of risk identification from the standpoints of contractors and their preference of various risk response strategies to reduce the likelihood of occurrence of the identified risks and their impact were evaluated.

The findings from the study highlight that risk factors having great impact on the financial aspect of the project, namely lack of financial resources of the contractor, financial stability of the client and cost overruns due to delay are considered most important by contractors and that risk response methods are favored in the order of risk reduction, risk transfer, risk avoidance and risk retention.

The findings may help construction contractors in reviewing decision factors they consider when making bidding decision at estimating and tendering stage, and also be useful for improving their risk management plan in line with important risk factors considered by the construction industry.

The purpose of this paper is to identify, explore, rank the relative importance and determine the prevalent allocation response trends of the major construction risk factors considered by general contractors operating in the State of Qatar.

A structured questionnaire survey comprising 37 potential risk factors was distributed to a statistically representative sample of contractors. The influence ranks of the factors explored were determined using the “Relative Importance Index (RII)” technique, whereas the prevalent trend of contractors’ attitudes toward risk allocation of each factor investigated was quantified and expressed as a percentage, based on the number of respondents who selected a specific option, in relation to the total number of respondents.

The results obtained indicate that risks related to the “client” group are perceived as most critical, followed by the “consultant”, “contractor” and “exogenous” group-related factors, respectively. The outcomes further show that the “transfer” option is the contractors’ prevalent response to “client” and “consultant”-related risks, while the “retention” decision is the principal pattern linked to “contractor” and “exogenous” group-related risk factors.

The dominant respondents’ perception that the crucial construction risks are related to clients and consultants suggests that these two parties have an essential role in controlling the negative ramifications of the associated factors.

The findings suggest that increasing designers’ awareness of the significant effect of applying the constructability concept can considerably help reducing the risks concomitant of the construction operation. Policy makers may contribute, moreover, in alleviating the risk of incompetent technical staff and operatives’ employment by controlling the migration of inexperienced and unskilled construction workforce into the State.

Given the knowledge gap for the major construction risk factors considered by general contractors in Qatar, the results reported in this study can provide clients, industry practitioners and policy makers with guidance to effectively manage the significant risks determined, which can further assist in achieving a reasonable level of competitiveness and cost-effective operation.

This paper presents results of an empirical investigation involving private construction clients in Malaysia, which seeks to establish appropriate tender evaluation criteria and weightings for a risk-oriented tender evaluation system.

At the initial stage of this study, a list of significant risks is identified and gathered through literature review. These risks are then mapped onto tender evaluation criteria. Following this, the identified risks and their mappings are validated through a questionnaire survey to determine appropriate criteria for tender evaluation. Weightings for the selected evaluation criteria are established through an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) group decision-making (GDM) method.

In practice, different lists of criteria, covering tender's technical capability and financial performance, are often used by different client organisations. However, there is a paucity of research behind the selection of these criteria and the weighting being attributed to different criteria.

This study provides an important and a valuable insight into the actual criteria used during tender evaluation practice based on an analysis of documentary evidence. Both current practice and existing tender evaluation studies failed to address the risk element adequately. There is a lack of an explicit link between evaluation criteria and project risks. This study fills this knowledge gap by identifying tender evaluation criteria through reviewing criteria used in practice and examining their links to risk factors.

The non-performance of construction projects in meeting the set objectives has continued to draw researchers worldwide. Despite this, little attention is accorded to public tertiary education building projects in Nigeria. Therefore, on this background, this study aims to assess the perceptions of stakeholders on the level of occurrence of risk factors in the public tertiary education building projects (TEBP) to enhance the performance of these projects.

The study adopted a quantitative method of data collection via a questionnaire survey. In total, 452 questionnaires were administered to the respondents comprising client representatives, consultants (quantity surveyors, architects, services and structural engineers and builders) and the contractor. The respondents were involved in the conception and execution of TEBP across five public tertiary education institutions in Ondo State, Nigeria. Of 452 questionnaires, 279 were retrieved and found suitable for analysis, indicating a 61.73% response rate. The reliability analysis for the research instrument was 0.965 via the Cronbach α test, indicating the high reliability of the instrument used for the data collection. Moreover, the clusters of risk factors also had reliability values that ranged between 0.719 and 0.875.

The study found inflation, delayed payments in contracts, high competition bids, delay in work progress and occurrence of variations are the most frequently occurring risk factors in public TEBP. By contrast, difficulty to access the site, environmental factors and pollution were found to be low-weighted risks with the least likelihood of occurrence. The results of this study indicated the existence of significant differences in some of the risk factors in terms of the level of risk occurrence in TEBP. The risk factors were eventually clustered into eight major groups for TEBP. The post hoc comparisons using the least significant difference test also indicated differences between the contractors and consultants in the ranking of risks occurrence in TEBP, but no significant differences between clients/contractors and clients/consultants.

The findings in this study are limited to the public TEBP procured via competitive tendering; therefore, the results might not be applicable when other procurement methods are being considered. Besides, the study classified the project participants based on organizations and not on the different ownership status of the projects, such as federal or state government-owned TEBP. However, the literature shows that likelihood of risk occurrence could vary due to the degree of project ownership.

The information provided with respect to the most frequently occurring risk factors would enhance the performance of public TEBP.

This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge on the subject within a previously unexplored context where insights were provided on the most frequently occurring risk factors on the public TEBP.

The aim of this study is to investigate the reasons for disparity between design stage elemental cost plan and final tender sum (contract sum) in building procurement. A number of risk factors responsible for such variation were identified through case study projects from which data were extracted.

Literature review determined the risk factors inherent in the preparation of design stage elemental cost plan. Interviews and thematic analysis identified the risk factors responsible for the disparity between design stage elemental cost plans and final tender sums. Analysis of documents obtained from the archives of study participants (consultant quantity surveyors) complemented responses from the interviews.

The review revealed a number of inherent risks in the design stage elemental cost plan development. The interviews further indicated that risks have an impact on and are responsible for the deviations experienced. The assessment of these risk elements could assist in determining the final tender sum from cost plans.

Findings revealed disparity between elemental cost plans and final tender sums in the region of −14 and +16 per cent. The risk factors identified were responsible for the deviations observed. With this information, Quantity Surveyors are more able to accurately forecast final tender sums of building projects from cost plans through proper risk identification and analysis, thus increasing the accuracy of design stage elemental costing.

To the best of the knowledge of the researchers, there is no recent documentary evidence of an investigation into the reasons for disparity between design stage elemental cost plan and final tender sum in traditional building procurement in New Zealand construction.

The financial and economic risks associated with high-rise building projects are many. They make project stakeholders to undergo financial difficulties. However, very few past studies have discussed the management of these risks. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to provide a guideline for the effective management of these financial and economic risks associated with high-rise apartment building projects in Sri Lanka.

The study adopted the mixed research approach. A literature review and semi-structured interviews were used to identify the financial/economic risk factors of high-rise apartment building projects and their risk response measures. The data obtained were used for a questionnaire survey, and the findings were analysed using the mean score method. They were validated using pattern matching. The risk response measures that were identified were ranked according to their effectiveness.

The findings revealed that “financial problems arising from errors in estimating” is the most significant financial and economic risk factor faced by the property developers involved in high-rise apartment building projects, while “poor contract management” is the most significant financial and economic risk factor faced by the contractors of these projects.

The study recommends a guideline to manage, using effective risk response measures, the financial and economic risk factors that are significant in high-rise apartment building projects.

Despite the huge capital outlay in tertiary education building projects (TEBP), these projects undoubtedly failed in meeting the set objectives of cost, time and quality, among others. Therefore, rather than the impacts of risks on the overall project performance, which is common in the construction management literature, the purpose of this study is to assess the impacts of risk factors on the criteria for measuring the success of public TEBP.

The paper adopted a quantitative research method where the data collection was via a questionnaire survey. The researcher administered 452 questionnaires to the client representatives, consultants and contractors involved in building projects across five public tertiary education institutions in Ondo State, Nigeria. Of 452 questionnaires, 279 were retrieved and suitable for the analysis, translating to a 61.73% response rate. The reliability analysis of the research instrument showed 0.965 and 0.807, via Cronbach’s alpha test, indicating high reliability of the instrument used for data collection.

The study found different risk factors affecting the criteria for measuring the success of TEBP. For instance, the environmental risk factor significantly impacted completion to cost, while financial and political risk factors significantly impacted completion to time. In addition, while environmental, legal and management risks significantly impacted end-user satisfaction, safety performance was significantly impacted by logistic, legal, design, construction, political and management risks. Besides, the logistic, legal, design, construction, financial, political and management risk factors impacted profit. However, despite profit being one of the criteria for measuring the success of building projects, it recorded the highest risk impacts amounting to 41% variance.

The findings are limited to the public tertiary education building projects procured via competitive tendering; therefore, the results might differ when considering other procurement methods.

The practical implication is that rather than focusing on all risk factors, the project stakeholders could give adequate attention to the significant risk factors impacting each of the parameters for measuring the success of education building projects.

The study revealed specific risk factors impacting the criteria for measuring the success of TEBP, which extend beyond the use of the overall project performance approach.

Despite several research efforts tackling construction project risks globally, tertiary education building projects are not devoid of experiencing risks with cascading effects on projects. In the past decades, there has been increasing application of linear assessments of risks in construction risk management practices. However, this study aims to assess the influence of risk factors on the success of tertiary education building projects using a structural equation modelling approach. This study will further reinforce the risk factors that require attention because risk factors are not linear but interdependent.

A quantitative research method was undertaken in this study, where data collection was achieved via a structured questionnaire survey. In total, 452 questionnaires were administered to client representatives, consultants and contractors involved in executing tertiary education building projects across five public tertiary education institutions in Ondo State, Nigeria. Of 452 questionnaires, 279 were found usable for the analysis, implying a response rate of 61.73%. The Cronbach α test, average variances extracted and composite reliabilities values show high reliability and internal consistency of the instrument used for data gathering. Furthermore, the study adopted percentile, mean, correlation, regression analysis and structural equation modelling for analyzing the data collected upon which the study’s inferences were based.

The study found that three out of six criteria for measuring the success of tertiary education building projects were significantly affected by risk factors while using the structural equation modelling technique. With this non-linear method of assessment, completion to time was significantly impacted by environmental risk factors. In addition, safety performance was also significantly influenced by logistic, environmental and legal risk factors; furthermore, logistics, design and environmental risks significantly affected profit. However, completion to cost, standard/quality and end-user satisfaction was not significantly affected by the risk factors in tertiary education building projects.

The quantitative data used for the analysis are limited to the tertiary education building projects from selected five tertiary education institutions in Ondo State; therefore, the results do not indicate all tertiary institutions in Nigeria. In addition, the findings are based on building projects that were procured through a competitive tendering arrangement only and thus considered a limitation for this study.

Not all the risks significantly influence the tertiary education building projects. Therefore, risk factors with a significant effect on the success indicators of tertiary education building projects should be prioritized for a successful project. While risk factors have not affected the completion to cost per se, the study implies that the resultant effect of risks on other success indicators could have a cascading effect on these projects in terms of cost and time overruns. These results may assist during the project risk management while also addressing complexity and uncertainty to avoid chaos in a tertiary education building projects.

The study found significant construction risk factors impacting the success of tertiary education building projects using a non-linear methodology, an extension beyond the usual linear method of assessment of risk impacts on the project performance.