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Construction contractors serve as economic partners to owners of construction projects, but often times, they could depict opportunistic tendencies which are to the detriment of the client. This study aims to focus on the awareness of construction professionals with respect to influencing factors of construction contractors’ opportunism.

A questionnaire survey was adopted in eliciting responses from construction professionals, namely, architects, quantity surveyors, builders and engineers. In total, 337 questionnaires were distributed, of which 264 were retrieved and deemed fit for analysis. Methods of data analysis used are mean item score, factor analysis, analysis of variance, Kruskal–Wallis and Student Newman Kaul post hoc test.

The study revealed that the level of construction professionals’ awareness of contractors’ susceptibility of opportunism is very high. Equally, the most ranked factor is “No sanction for not reporting inconsistency of drawings.” The postulated hypothesis was subjected to a test, and the result showed that there is a significant difference in professionals’ perceived level of awareness of factors responsible for contractors’ opportunistic behaviors.

The study brings to the fore professionals’ knowledge of the awareness of influencing factors to contractors’ opportunism. The established level of its awareness portends a dangerous trend and has a large negative impact on the construction industry as this opens a vista to discouraging prospective investors, developers and owners, taking into cognizance the effect this would have on the economy.

Design and build has increased in its use for construction procurement in recent times. However, its performance as a procurement method has been widely criticized by professionals in the construction industry. This paper reports a survey of 40 architects, using a structured questionnaire to investigate the performance of contractor‐led design and build in project procurement. Although 20% of architects' private sector workload (and 8% of public sector) is derived from D&B, they perceive this procurement type to involve sacrificing product quality and design innovation. Where clients insist on a choice of D&B, architects generally prefer the use of either novation D&B or develop and construct, rather than ‘traditional’ D&B.

This research compares consultants' and contractors' professional practices and perspectives on the use of specifications in the engineering of built environment projects.

The study initiates with a review of literature, toward realizing (1) the need for inclusion of specifications, throughout the projects' stages (design, tender, construction and handing over), as well as the (2) causes and effects of defective specifications in design and execution of engineered projects. Additionally (3) the study investigates the challenges and causes of specification variations to projects' design and execution. The systematic methodology adopted in this research utilizes frequency indicators, to rank and correlate the perspectives of 60 professionals, who are experienced in consulting and contracting of mega public and private projects.

The research considers the uncertainties and differences that could be present in engineering developments and use of design specifications for projects' execution and handing over. The two groups of experts' (consultants and contractors) perspectives are usually observed as conflicting, in practice. Practices comparison of their experiences with engineering projects' specifications usability provides unique empirical findings. The analysis and assessment of the experts' knowledge, this research addresses gaps identified in the literature, providing valuable insights.

The study provides in-depth recommendations and discusses possible trends and methods for enhancing specifications' usability in design engineering and execution of built environment projects. The analysis and recommendations present and assess experts' knowledge while bridge gaps identified from the literature.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and assess the factors affecting building services’ coordination during the design development and review stages of building projects.

Literature review and interviews were conducted to identify the factors affecting building services’ coordination. In total, 36 factors were identified under six categories: planning phase of the project; design of mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) systems; construction of MEP systems; operation and maintenance of MEP systems; owner; and design team and tools used. This formed the basis of a questionnaire survey designed utilizing a 5-point Likert scale of importance. The survey was assessed by practitioners in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia.

The top five factors include the scale and complexity of the project, the level of experience of the design team, the quality of the preliminary/conceptual design of the building project, the clarity of the requirements and objectives provided by the owner, the allotted budget for the project and communication skills of the design team members. A high level of agreement between A/E professionals and contractors, and between contractors and facility managers was noted. The research provides the ranking of the identified factors for prioritization.

The paper provides stakeholders in the building services industry with the ranks of the factors that affect building services’ coordination.

The study provided a significant contribution to research and industry, especially in the regional context, where few studies have been conducted. The findings of the study will help in the reduction of construction wastes, delays and cost over-runs.

The purpose of this paper is to explore critically the potentially harmful business of professional wrestling in the USA as state-corporate crime.

This paper comprises desk-based research of secondary sources. The lack of official data on the harms experienced by professional wrestlers means that much of the data regarding this is derived from quantitative and qualitative accounts from internet sites dedicated to this issue.

A major finding is that with regard to the work-related harms experienced by professional wrestlers, the business may not be wholly to be blamed, but nor is it entirely blame free. It proposes that one way the work-related harms can be understood is via an examination of the political economic context of neo-liberalism from the 1980s onwards and subsequent state-corporate actions and inactions.

The paper raises questions about the regulation of the professional wrestling industry together with the misclassification of wrestlers’ worker status (also known as wage theft and tax fraud) and the potential role they play in the harms incurred in this industry.

The potential wider social implications of the misclassification of workers are raised.

The originality and value of this paper is the examination of work-related harms within the professional wrestling industry through the lens of state-corporate crime.

The issue of accountability in the federal government’s acquisition process has been the topic of much discussion and investigation. While few argue that accountability is unimportant, it remains largely unexplored in the context of the acquisition process. This paper seeks to examine the acquisition process in some detail, and analyze the role of accountability in that process. We conclude with some broader observations about accountability in federal acquisition, and directions for future research.

This study aims to investigate stakeholders' perception of the most prevalent unethical practices in the Ghanaian construction industry.

Data used for this study came from a cross-sectional survey (questionnaire), which was administered to 273 stakeholders in the construction industry using convenience sampling technique. The data were analyzed using statistical software package SPSSv17 to determine the most prevalent unethical practices. The ranking factor was calculated based on relative importance index (RII) value.

The results of this study reveal that corruption was perceived by major stakeholders as the most prevalent unethical behavior (RII = 0.82) followed by bribery (RII = 0.79). Political interference and kickback came third (RII = 0.77) and fourth (RII = 0.74), respectively. However, the least prevalent unethical behaviors were extortion (RII = 0.56), workplace violence (RII = 0.57), alcohol abuse (RII = 0.59) and harassment (RII = 0.59). The findings suggest that when the various groupings were taken into consideration separately, the differences in their perceptions were obvious.

Data for this study were collected from construction stakeholders in Ghana who were conveniently sampled. As a result, in reference to the sampling framework which focused on major stakeholders in only two regions of Ghana does not sufficiently ensure full generalization of the results.

The findings of the study provide significant information for construction organizations and practitioners regarding unethical practices, which are most prevalent in the Ghanaian construction industry. Construction organizations and practitioners seeking to mitigate the negative effect of unethical practices on their performance should focus on educating construction workers on how to avoid corrupt practices and report same to the authorities. Also, ethics training programs must be instituted for staff coupled with constant and random inspection and checking of ethical compliance, verbal promotion and praise for ethical conduct and in some cases increase in employees pay.

This paper is one of the first to have accessed the views of broader stakeholders, i.e. consultants, contractors, professionals, suppliers, regulators, clients and construction workers in the construction industry regarding the most prevalent unethical practices in the Ghanaian construction industry in one study. This study, therefore, enriches the current literature by providing additional dimension to the understanding of unethical practices in the Ghanaian construction industry.

The Large Scale Engineering (LSE) industry operates in a global market place and during recent years it has been the scene of major political and economic changes resulting in increasing market pressures. The paper outlines findings from Workpackage 1 of the European Union funded Esprit eLSEwise project. The eLSEwise project has an objective of contributing to improving the competitiveness of the European LSE industry. The paper focuses principally on trends in the LSE global industry market place and the challenges facing European LSE contractors in adapting to these changes. The paper outlines the research methodology; world market trends and LSE industry structure; critical success factors and enablers for LSE projects; the forces shaping the LSE industry and the necessary contractors' core competencies and competitive advantages for continued success.

The link between relationship typologies and effectiveness of conflict resolution approaches remains to be tested despite its significance in conflict management in construction project delivery. By using the four relationships attributes based on the group attachment theory, the purpose of the study was to explore the cluster of relationships among project teams and organisations and the performance of conflict management strategies across these clusters in the Ghanaian construction industry.

Using a deductive questionnaire survey in the Ghanaian construction industry, a total of 137 responses were gathered and analyzed using cluster analysis, mean scores and ANOVA to reveal the relationship clusters and performance of conflict management strategies across these clusters.

The results revealed eight relationship clusters that exist among project teams and organisations with distinct influence of roles & tasks function, cognition, emotions and behavior attributes across the relationship clusters. In the aspect of the effectiveness of conflict management strategies, it was noted that the performance of these strategies were significantly different across the groups. For instance, integrating as a conflict management strategy was deemed to be effective in resolving conflict in unitary, adversarial, pluralist, mutuality, collaborative and partnering relationship clusters. In the case of coopetitive and coercive relationships, the performance of integrating as a conflict management strategy was less effective. This study thus has empirically proved that, different relationship clusters of teams and organizations exist within the Ghanaian construction industry, and that they perform different roles & tasks functions, cognition, emotions and behavioural attributes in their formation. Additionally, the performance effectiveness of conflict management strategies differed across the relationship clusters.

By aligning the relationship attributes to the dynamics of relationship clusters experienced in project teams and organisations, relationship quality, suitability and effectiveness of conflict management strategies can be optimized. The findings can inform project teams and stakeholders to develop fit-for-purpose relationship attributes among teams and organisations to enhance team effectiveness, relationship quality and conflict management in the industry.

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.