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This study aims to develop an overall project success (OPS) model by investigating the mediation impact of value management (VM) implementation between VM critical success factors (CSFs) and OPS as well as the moderation impact of VM CSFs between VM implementation and OPS.

In total, 335 structured questionnaires were administered to relevant stakeholders in the study area. The research used a partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to model the relationship among VM implementation, CSFs and OPS.

The results revealed that there is an indirect positive and significant correlation among the variables. The model prediction analysis also significantly impacted with 59.9% on OPS by setting VM implementation as a mediator variable and 61% by setting VM CSFs as a moderation variable.

This research work will serve as a guide or benchmark for decision-makers who want to use VM to improve the success of their building projects.

This study fills the knowledge gap by identifying and emphasizing the impact of VM CSFs and activities on OPS.

The construction industry is an industry which has gained notoriety when it comes to both physical and mental health problems. Compared to other industries, the construction sector has a higher prevalence of many stressors and mental health concerns. This calls for mechanisms to cope with these concerns. One coping mechanism propounded to help cope and adapt in the face of pressures and challenges is “Mental Toughness (MT)”. While mental toughness has been widely studied in various fields, there is a paucity of comprehensive research examining its significance among construction professionals. Thus, the motivation of this study is to establish the mental toughness characteristics among construction professionals in Ghana.

The construction industry is an industry which has gained notoriety when it comes to both physical and mental health problems. Compared to other industries, the construction sector has a higher prevalence of mental health concerns. One coping mechanism propounded to help cope and adapt in the face of pressures and challenges is “Mental Toughness (MT)”. While mental toughness has been widely studied in various fields, there is a paucity of comprehensive research examining its significance among construction professionals. Thus, the motivation of this study is to establish the mental toughness characteristics among construction professionals.

the study's findings revealed 13-factor model characteristics of mental toughness with 43 variables for mentally tough performers in the construction environment. These 13-factor models include Pressure Management (PM), Motivation (M), Emotional Intelligence (EI), Interpersonal self-belief (SB), Tough Attitude (TA), Job-related self-belief (SBB), Ethical Values (EV), Commitment (C), Focus (F), Optimism (OP), Expertise and Competence (EC), Imagery Control (IC) and Resilient (R).

The outcome of this study has significant practical implications for various stakeholders. For construction professionals the identified factors provide valuable insights into the psychological attributes and behaviours that contribute to mental toughness among construction professionals. Understanding these characteristics can empower professionals to develop strategies for coping with stress, maintaining focus, and fostering resilience in challenging construction environments to achieve optimum performance levels consistently.

The originality of this study's findings stems from the fact that it is among the first to provide greater insight into mental toughness characteristics considered by professionals (quantity surveyors, construction managers, engineers, project managers, architects, estate managers) in the construction industry.

This paper aims to understand employees’ propensity to blow the whistle in two East African countries. This study develops a model of ethical decision-making (EDM) to assist management in predicting the probability of whistleblowing in Kenya and Uganda. It also seeks to find the moderating effect of perceived retaliation on whistleblowing intention.

This study administers a standardized questionnaire to employees in Kenya and Uganda to measure their perceptions about whistleblowing in their organizations. This study uses partial least square structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses. This study uses four constructs, namely, awareness, judgment, retaliation and likelihood, of blowing the whistle. These constructs are measured with multiple-item scales.

The results show that ethical awareness and judgment significantly increase willingness to engage in whistleblowing in East Africa. However, this study does not find a significant retaliation effect on whistleblowing intention. Instead, this study finds that awareness and judgment mediate between retaliation and willingness to engage in whistleblowing.

This study contributes to EDM topics. It advances the understanding of the whistleblowing concept, the retaliation effect and the reasons to encourage blowing the whistle in Africa. However, this study did not consider cultural factors, such as nationality, patriotism and ethnicity. Moreover, the results are only based on data from Uganda and Kenya and may not apply to other sub-Saharan nations.

These findings are particularly significant for managers and policymakers in East Africa, where fear of retaliation and lack of awareness are the main barriers to whistleblowing. The results may help managers develop human resource practices to include policies to support moral behavior. It may also provide insights to the policymakers to understand the factors that facilitate whistleblowing practices and help them to adopt new strategies or policies to stimulate whistleblowing culture.

This study is one of the initial empirical studies in the East Africa context to explore the EDM predictors and the impact of retaliation on the whistleblowing intention.

Establishing a more sustainable built environment is an increasing global concern for the construction industry. Despite the intrinsic and extrinsic obstacles the stakeholders face, huge efforts are required to transition to a smooth, sustainable construction (SC) practice. This study identifies and discusses cogent obstacles to SC in developing nations.

The Preferred Reporting Item for systematic reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) approach was employed to establish research work in SC for developing countries. The databases used were Scopus and Web of Science. Meta-analysis of keywords was analysed thematically. The initial broad search returned 8,420 publications which were filtered and reviewed in-depth to fit the aim of the study, produced only 21 relevant publications from the years 2000–2021.

The four identified themes of obstacles to SC in developing countries are as follows: construction professional training and education, clients' attitudes and awareness, construction industries' culture and capacity and governments' regulation, policies and economy. The key barriers identified from the meta-analysis include inadequate training and education amongst construction professionals, poor execution of sustainability ethics, poor populace attitude towards sustainability, poor awareness and understanding, dearth of precise data and integrated study and inappropriate priorities about sustainability.

The originality in this study are themes drawn from millennium development goals (MDGs) and sustainable development goals (SDGs) publications related to SC. Consequently, the final framework presented a holistic approach to surmounting the established limitations and aided recommendations for future studies. Thus, setting a background for developing strategies to overcome the limitations and further attain sustainable development (SD).

This study investigates the drivers of CSR practices among construction companies in Lagos, Nigeria.

This research adopted a questionnaire survey to achieve the aim. A purposefully chosen group of managing directors, directors, other senior construction experts or management personnel working for small, medium and large-sized construction enterprises in Nigeria were given questionnaires to complete. 196 questionnaires were issued, out of which 103 were properly completed and returned, with a return percentage of 61% which served as the basis for this study. Utilizing both descriptive and inferential statistics, the collected data were examined.

The results from the study revealed that “vision of the founder”, “creating public attention”, “competitive advantage” and “business strategy” were the top most four drivers of CSR initiatives among construction companies in Lagos, Nigeria. The results also showed that, there is a statistically significant degree of agreement between various categories of construction companies in Lagos, Nigeria regarding the drivers of CSR initiatives.

The study contributes more effectively to CSR studies by highlighting the drivers of CSR initiatives in construction companies. The finding would facilitate the adoption and implementation of CSR initiatives in construction organizations. The adoption of best CSR practices fosters strong relationship among construction companies, project stakeholders and communities.

This study collected the bibliographic data of 2034 journal articles published in 2000–2021 from Web of Science (WoS) core collection database and adopted two bibliometric analysis methods, namely historiography and keyword co-occurrence, to identify the evolution trend of construction risk management (CRM) research topics.

CRM has been a key issue in construction management research, producing a big number of publications. This study aims to undertake a review of the global CRM research published from 2000 to 2021 and identify the evolution of the research topics relating to CRM.

This study found that risk analysis methods have shifted from simply ranking risks in terms of their relative importance or significance toward examining the interrelationships among risks, and that the objects of CRM research have shifted from generic construction projects toward specified types of construction projects (e.g. small projects, underground construction projects, green buildings and prefabricated projects). In addition, researchers tend to pay more attention to an individual risk category (e.g. political risk, safety risk and social risk) and integrate CRM into cost, time, quality, safety and environment management functions with the increasing adoption of various information and communication technologies.

This study focused on the journal articles in English in WoS core collection database only, thus excluding the publications in other languages, not indexed by WoS and conference proceedings. In addition, the historiography focused on the top documents in terms of document strength and thus ignored the role of the documents whose strengths were a little lower than the threshold.

This review study is more inclusive than any prior reviews on CRM and overcomes the drawbacks of mere reliance on either bibliometric analysis results or subjective opinions. Revealing the evolution process of the CRM knowledge domain, this study provides an in-depth understanding of the CRM research and benefits industry practitioners and researchers.

This study aims to investigate the determinants of anti-corruption disclosures by construction firms in Asia-Pacific countries.

The sample comprises construction companies from seven Asia-Pacific countries from 2015 to 2019. The authors hand-collected data on anti-corruption disclosures by using content analysis.

This study provides empirical evidence that government ownership, country-level accounting competence and high-quality auditors increase companies’ anti-corruption disclosures. Meanwhile, this study finds that uncertainty avoidance does not affect companies’ anti-corruption disclosures.

This study has a number of implications. First, government and professional accountant organizations need to improve accountants’ knowledge and competence through education, training and continuous professional development. Second, public accounting firms need to ensure the quality of their auditors, particularly in the technical competence in financial and nonfinancial reporting. Finally, universities must improve and update their curriculum regarding nonfinancial reporting issues.

This study is among the first to examine anti-corruption disclosure practices in the most corrupted settings, i.e. the construction industry in Asia-Pacific countries. It uses the isomorphism perspective to explain the influence of government ownership, country-level accounting competence and high-quality auditors on anti-corruption disclosure transparency. The number of prior studies investigating this association is very limited. Moreover, disclosures of anti-corruption information are complex and sensitive; thus, coercive, normative and mimetic pressures are required to achieve higher transparency and sustainability.

The main purpose of this study is to reveal the degree of association between lean, building information modeling (BIM) and construction project success. The study further intends to provide strategies for high and low associations of the factors.

Lean construction and BIM are two important applications that have recently gained popularity in terms of enhancing project success. Considering this impact, this study investigates the synergy between lean construction and BIM and determines to what extent these two contribute to the success of the projects. As a first step, lean, BIM and project success were examined based on an in-depth literature review. In the second stage, a structural equation model (SEM) was established to reflect the relationship among these three through hypotheses. Then, a questionnaire was designed and administered to the construction professionals experienced in both lean and BIM implementation. The SEM was tested using Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS), an SPSS tool.

The results indicated that lean implementation has a significant and positive impact on BIM implementation and project success. On the other hand, BIM implementation had a lower significant impact on project success than lean implementation construct.

The results of this study can be used by both policymakers and industry practitioners in terms of developing strategies for effectively using both lean and BIM. The researchers can further develop other implementation models to investigate whether these concepts are more effective in increasing project success when used integratively.

This study considers both the impact of lean and BIM on project success through input from construction practitioners working on large projects. This way, the study fosters the use of lean, BIM or lean–BIM together in construction projects to enhance project success.

The regulatory landscape surrounding international construction projects presents significant challenges, and contractors are still struggling to pay a painful price for their performance in the project. While existing research has identified various causes of contractor compliance, the intricate interplay of these factors and their impact on compliance remain largely elusive. The motivation-opportunity-ability (MOA) framework may hold the key to determining what factors can foster induced contractor compliance in international projects.

This study collected 124 valid data samples from practitioners involved in large-scale international contracting projects through expert interviews and questionnaire surveys. Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was employed to analyze the diverse combinations of contractor compliance factors.

The study identifies seven key factors that contribute to compliance behavior among international construction contractors: economic motivation, social motivation, normative motivation, legal completeness, deterrent sanctions, organizational learning and compliance management ability. The interplay of these factors promotes compliance in the following ways: When international construction contractors are influenced by both social and normative motivations, they exhibit a higher level of compliance. In situations where regulatory systems are relatively weak, the ability to manage compliance becomes the primary driver of compliance behavior for businesses. A comprehensive legal framework creates a conducive environment for contractors to improve their compliance through organizational learning.

The findings offer guidance for international construction contractors in enhancing compliance by considering factors such as motivations, legal frameworks, organizational learning and compliance management. This can lead to improved risk management and performance in international projects.

This research enhances fair and ethical practices in international construction by identifying compliance drivers, fostering positive social impact, mitigating negative consequences and empowering local communities. It informs legal and regulatory reform, encourages improved business practices and contributes to knowledge advancement in the field. Overall, the findings have the potential to positively impact the social fabric of international construction projects.

This study has made an important contribution to the field of compliance theory by integrating theories from multiple disciplinary domains and constructing a new theoretical framework from the perspectives of motivation, opportunity and capability. By elucidating how these factors interact and influence compliance behavior among international construction contractors, this research aids in understanding the complex dynamics of contractor compliance behavior and provides theoretical reference for compliance governance within the construction industry.

The current booming development of smart cities poses new requirements and challenges for their internal infrastructure development. This article aims to explore the questions of: What is the level of social sustainability of smart city infrastructure today? and What are the core contents and paths to improve this level?

With the theme of public participation in the social sustainability evaluation of smart city infrastructure in the context of big data, this study mainly makes a systematic literature review of the Web of Science's Science Citation Index Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index databases. After collection and screening, 199 documents were finally obtained.

It is found that the level of social sustainability of smart city infrastructure is still low, and public participation can provide solutions to the difficulties and challenges involved in its development, while big data technology can broaden the channels for public participation and promote the development of smart city-related components in the process, including smart city infrastructure.

This article summarizes the internal mechanisms of smart cities at the theoretical level and analyzes the social sustainable development of smart city infrastructure. In practice, the shortcomings in this field are identified and suggestions are provided on how to carry out digital public participation, which has practical reference value.